Fresh strokes of paint breathed life onto the canvas, the bristles gliding in careful, practiced motions. Nathan Voss liked that—creation instead of destruction, expression without consequence. Over the years, he had cycled through hobbies: pottery, knitting, even cooking. But painting was the one that stayed. The freedom, the room for mistakes, the lack of stakes—so unlike his job.
A splatter of black paint streaked his worn jeans, blending with the countless stains already there. His grey shirt stretched over broad shoulders, the blue-jean apron slung loosely over him. He sat in his favorite chair, lost in the act of painting. One week from now, he'd be on his last mission. At 41, most would call it too soon to retire, but Nathan had lived too many lives—taken too many. His mind was still sharp, his body still strong, but the weight of it all was catching up. Together with his husband, he'd made the choice long ago. One last mission. One final operation. Then, he was done.
From his window, he could see Mount Fuji in the distance. A view he had always wanted to capture, ever since his honeymoon in Japan. So he built one—his own window to it. And today's piece? His best rendition yet. But even as he admired it, his gaze drifted to the tablet beside him.
Mission Log Nathan Voss – Codename: Eldrasia Breach
Date: ClassifiedLocation: Site Delta, Grand Canyon, ArizonaObjective: Secure and analyze the portal anomalyStatus: Operation in progress
Nathan exhaled slowly, locking eyes with his own name in the report. One more week.
A week later, the operation was in motion. They had everything—entry points, schedules, bribes. Gathering that intel hadn't been easy, but this was what Nathan did best. Planning. Infiltration. Execution. And so far, everything had gone off without a hitch.
His team was a well-oiled machine. Their hacker had hijacked the security grid, his operatives had neutralized the guards, and those who couldn't be silenced through force were persuaded with either bribes or intimidation. Every move was calculated. Every step a product of meticulous design.
But as they breached the final chamber, Nathan felt the first crack in his confidence.
The room was massive—a sprawling, green-lit facility buried deep beneath the Grand Canyon. Pulsing cables snaked across the walls, leading to an enormous metallic ring at the center, shimmering with an otherworldly glow. The portal.
And then he saw them.
A group of figures gathered around the structure—some draped in rich, medieval robes, others in pristine suits worth more than entire city blocks. The faces of Earth's elite. Names from intelligence reports. Shadowy figures who had, until now, only existed as whispers in classified files. And standing beside them, equally composed, were the nobles of another world.
Nathan's blood ran cold.
For a moment, neither side moved. Neither fully grasped what they were up against. Then, all hell broke loose.
The robed figures bolted for the portal, their goblets crashing to the floor. The elites scrambled toward the computers, frantic to secure whatever data they could.
Nathan didn't hesitate.
A flick of his hand, and his team split. One squad took the control room. The other, led by Nathan himself, charged the portal.
The instant he made the call, he knew the weight of it. He had planned for every contingency, but this? This was beyond espionage. Beyond war. This was something bigger. And because he knew that, he had to go. He couldn't send others through without stepping in himself. If this was his last mission, then he would see it through to the end.
With three of his best operatives at his side, Nathan sprinted forward.
That's when it happened.
A sound split the air—inhuman, guttural, eldritch. A chant that clawed at the edges of reality itself.
Nathan didn't understand the words. He barely had time to process the noise before the world fractured.
The portal shuddered violently, the metallic frame groaning as cracks of energy lanced through the air. Time slowed. The fabric of space itself shattered.
And in the next instant, reality swallowed him whole.
It was seamless—like walking through a doorframe. His consciousness never faded, his senses never dulled, yet everything changed.
Nathan thought he knew what dying felt like—or at least, he thought he understood it. He had brushed against that threshold more times than he cared to count, had stood at the precipice and turned away at the last second. He had studied government files on near-death experiences, dissected declassified reports on consciousness beyond the body. He had convinced himself that he understood what lay on the other side.
He was wrong.
The moment the portal collapsed, he should have ceased to be. But he didn't. Instead, he felt everything.
His body—his physical self—was stripped away, unraveled into nothingness. His clothes, his flesh, his bones, all torn apart with a precision too perfect to be natural. And yet, even after his body was gone, he remained. He was still aware. Still there.
Pain did not vanish. Fear did not fade. There was no peace, no release—only awareness. His senses—if he could still call them that—floated in the void. He saw, smelled, touched, and heard all at once, yet none of it was real. It was nothingness and everything at the same time.
"Is this the soul? The part every religion speaks of? Is this what I am now?"
No answers came. Only the vast, endless void stretched before him.
And then, he saw them.
Tears in the darkness. Rifts splitting through the void like fractures in glass. They flickered into existence and disappeared at random, shifting like mirages. Some lingered long enough for him to drift too close. And in those fleeting moments, he swore he saw something beyond them—figures, places, things that should not be.
For the first time, panic clawed at his mind. But his training—his years of discipline—held firm. Even here, in this impossible space, he refused to surrender to fear.
All he had left to hold onto were his memories.
His parents. His siblings. His husband. His teammates. His boss. Even the face of the grocery store worker he saw every other week. But the memories began to slip away, fading like an old photograph left too long in the sun.
His parents—just silhouettes in the background of his life. His husband—a faceless stranger. The grocery worker—gone.
Nathan felt his mind eroding, felt himself forgetting, and yet... he didn't. He knew he was forgetting them, understood that they were slipping from his grasp. But how could he miss or remember anyone he had already forgotten?
After a while, all that remained of him was his true self.
No attachments. No history. Just Nathan. His thoughts. His feelings. His experiences. The rest—just unimportant characters in a story that no longer belonged to him.
Nathan had forgotten, not who he was, but the life he had lived.
And that's when he felt it.
Not through sight. Not through sound. But something deeper. Something instinctual.
A tear was speaking.
No words. No language. But he knew.
The rift before him was alive. It had a will. A presence.
And then—it began to weep.
The fracture in the void trembled under unseen pressure, its shape fluctuating as if something vast and ancient was pressing against it from the other side.
Before he could react, the tear began to collapse—just like the portal before.
His instincts fired before his mind could process. He drifted forward, drawn toward the collapsing rift. Something deep inside him knew—this was his way out. And as he neared, for the first time, he saw what lay beyond.
A pile of corpses.