I didn't know how to answer him. The pulse of unease was too strong to offer any false reassurance. Outside, Jia was still standing amidst the chaos, unmoving, her gaze fixed on the sky. Even through the chaos, her unwavering curiosity shone through—a stark contrast to the panic enveloping the neighborhood.
The constellations had shifted again, twisting and writhing as if in rebellion against the laws of the universe. The stars themselves seemed to pulse, their light flickering like Morse code messages too ancient to decipher. The world felt heavier, as though gravity itself was reasserting its dominance, pulling us into its uncertainty.
And yet, amid all the terror, I couldn't shake the feeling that this wasn't merely destruction—it was a transformation. Something was pushing humanity to its breaking point, forcing us to confront whatever lay beyond the stars.
The phone buzzed again—short, urgent vibrations that rattled the kitchen table. Devon snatched it up, scanning the screen while our grandparents sat stiffly in their seats, listening to the murmurs of breaking news. I could hear the distant voices through the speaker—anchor after anchor desperately trying to make sense of the celestial event unfolding above us.
"The stars are shifting again and again—confirmations now coming in from observatories worldwide… No scientific precedent… We urge everyone to stay indoors…"
Jia stood by the window, unmoving, silhouetted against the distorted sky. Outside, the constellations continued their impossible dance, writhing like living things, rearranging themselves as though the universe was rewriting its own rules.
"The changes will be irreversible," Devon read aloud, his voice tight. "They say gravity itself might be affected. The magnetic fields, the atmosphere—everything is fluctuating."
A hush fell over the room. Our grandparents exchanged looks—expressions lined with more history than we could comprehend. They had seen wars, disasters, political collapses. But this was different. This was something that no generation before us had encountered.
The air felt heavier, charged with something unspoken. Jia finally turned from the window, her expression unreadable. "We can't just sit here," she murmured. "We need to listen."
Grandfather exhaled sharply, gripping his cane. "The only thing we need to do is survive. Whatever this is—it isn't for us to understand. It's for us to withstand." Jia shook her head. "But what if it's a message? What if—" "Our people have survived calamities before," Grandmother interrupted gently. "By knowing when not to challenge forces greater than us." Devon hesitated, glancing between them and the phone's screen, the news continuing to spew warnings. But I couldn't shake the feeling gnawing at my chest—the feeling that Jia was right.
The ground trembled again—stronger this time. The house groaned in protest, dishes clattering in the cabinets. A sound cut through the tension—a deep, reverberating hum, so low that it seemed to crawl into our bones.
Jia pressed a hand to her chest. "You feel that?"
I did.
Outside, the lights—no longer just the stars—descended lower. They flickered in strange patterns, casting shifting shadows along the pavement.
Then a weight of the universe pressed into my skull, a slow, insidious force that I could neither fight nor embrace. The lights outside pulsed once more—brighter than ever—before vanishing entirely, leaving behind a suffocating darkness. And then, the world itself seemed to exhale.
The phone's screen flickered, its urgent warnings dissolving into meaningless white noise. Devon tapped at it, swiping at notifications that no longer made sense, but the signal had died. Somewhere behind me, Grandfather muttered a quiet prayer, his voice barely audible over the static filling the house. I could feel the shift—something creeping into my veins, curling around my bones.
Jia was the first to falter.
She staggered, her breath hitching, one hand gripping the doorframe as if it could anchor her against whatever was happening inside her body. "Something's—" she managed, but the rest of her words were lost as she crumpled to the ground.
Devon turned sharply, reaching out to steady her, but the moment his fingers brushed her skin, he gasped, recoiling as if struck. "I—" His voice was strangled. "It's inside me, too."
I barely had time to process his words before the world tilted. A pressure built beneath my ribcage—something vast, something humming with life not my own. I gasped, feeling it coil through my muscles, sparking in my fingertips. My vision blurred.
Grandmother fell next. Then Grandfather. One by one, they collapsed, their bodies heavy with something unseen, their eyes fluttering closed as if sleep had claimed them without warning. I tried to stay upright—tried to hold on—but gravity itself betrayed me, dragging me to the ground.
The last thing I heard was the fading echo of the universe.
And then, silence.
The first sensation was weightlessness—like being suspended between time and space, as if the world had released its hold on me. Then came the hum, the deep pulse, as though the universe itself had a heartbeat. My eyes fluttered open.
I wasn't where I had fallen.
Shapes twisted and bled into one another, the remnants of reality stretched thin around me. The ground beneath me wasn't solid, nor was it air—it was something else, something fluid, alive. The stars no longer hung still in the sky but churned like tides in an unseen ocean. I exhaled, feeling something ripple through my body—like unseen threads weaving through my veins.
I barely had time to register the sensation before Jia stirred beside me.
Her breath came in sharp gasps, her fingers pressing into the shifting floor beneath her. She met my gaze, eyes wide. "Something's different."
A shudder passed through my limbs. She wasn't wrong.
Devon groaned, clutching his head as he slowly sat up. Beside him, Grandfather and Grandmother were still, though their skin seemed to glow faintly, as if something was ebbing inside them.
I tried to speak, but the moment my voice left my throat, the air vibrated—an unnatural resonance that sent Jia and Devon flinching. I swallowed hard. "What just happened?" My words felt heavier, charged.
Jia pressed her palms together, rubbing them as if trying to shake off something unseen. "I can feel something inside me. Like—like I'm tethered to something beyond this place."
Devon flexed his fingers, and a faint static crackled between them, disappearing before he could grasp it. His breath hitched. "That wasn't normal."
Grandfather stirred then, his voice hoarse, layered with something ancient. "This is power. But it does not belong to us."
Grandmother inhaled sharply. "No. It has chosen us."