I’m an idiot. A bit, fat, stupid idiot.

I sit in the cockpit of Remus and lean back in my chair, running my hands through my hair. I find the scar on the back of my head and rub my thumb against it.

I don’t know why I thought it would work. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I can see how stupid it was. No one’s coming to help us. Not out here. Hell, the closest ship could be back on Pajorat for all I know. I’m not sure what I expect to happen if someone actually were to show up, but doing something feels better than doing nothing.

It was a trick getting Chrys to reroute Remus’s distress signal readings from the bridge, and I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be able to hide what I’ve done from Jahdra, but she hasn’t noticed yet. Besides, in the worst-case scenario, I can always just play dumb.

I let my hand hover over the control panel for a moment as I consider disabling the signal before drawing it back. I’ll let it go a little longer, I decide. There’s still time. I’m back on bridge duty soon, but I might as well keep the signal running as long as possible.

I don’t know who I think would respond to a distress call this far out in Epsilon. Besides us, I guess. When it comes down to it, most people aren’t as altruistic as they lead themselves to believe. They’re happy to help others but only as long as they don’t inconvenience themselves. They’re eager to do what’s right but only as long as it doesn’t require personal sacrifice.

And then there’s people like Jahdra. People with too much conviction than they have any right to. People who don’t see a choice—only what needs to be done.

I sigh to myself. Why does she have to be so damn difficult? Why can’t she be selfish, run away from the big scary thing waiting for her out there in the dark? She has to know she’s putting herself in danger, but still she goes on.

I think back to the day I left Seraphis. I think about Lotus and Chrysanthemum and everything they put on the line to ensure that I made it out of that place. I think about what it’s cost them, about the terrible position Jahdra is in—because of me. And now here I am, unrecognizable to them all, waiting for someone to realize that it’s me.

Part of me wants to tell Jahdra, to thank her. But I’m afraid. I’m afraid that it’ll change things between us. I mean, it’s not as if she likes me. She barely tolerates me. But whatever it is she feels toward me, it’s genuine. And that’s the way I’d like to keep it.

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“Alright, that’s enough for today,” I mutter to myself as step out of Remus and head back to the bridge.

I sit in the nav chair, waiting, trying to focus on the readings in front of me. We’ve been steadily approaching a radial buoy, and it shouldn’t be long now before we hit the perimeter. There’s a small part of me that’s holding out hope that once we do hit it, Jahdra will decide we’ve come far enough, that we’ve pushed our luck too far, and it’s time to go home. But I know that won’t happen. It never does.

I stare out the glass in front me. I can feel time slipping away, but I’m just as stubborn as Jahdra, and there’s no way in hell I’m ready to give up.

Suddenly, the ship shudders with a force that almost knocks me out of my seat, the lights flickering momentarily.

“You have entered Antinomy space. This area is restricted for your safety. Dampen your engines and alter your heading immediately.” I feel my chest tighten as the voice booms out its warning over the ship’s speakers.

Antinomy space is the designation for an area affected by temporal distortions and spatial anomalies. But there’s more to the name than just that. An antinomy is a contradiction. A paradox. Antinomy space is name such because it’s believed to be caused by some kind of cosmic inconsistency, an illogicality, like a snake eating its own tail, a ship answering its own distress call.

The realization hits me harder than the shock wave of the buoy.

There’s something out there causing a time-space anomaly—a singularity, or something similar to it. And I’d bet my ship that that’s what’s causing all this, what keeps causing all of this.

“You have entered Antinomy space. This area is restricted for your safety. Dampen your engines and alter your heading immediately,” the recorded voice repeats over the speakers.

I must’ve crossed the event horizon, I realize. That’s why I keep coming back.

I turn to face the doorway of the bridge where Jahdra suddenly appears, her hands clapped over her ears. Her eyes meet mine.

My being here isn’t fate or destiny or luck. It’s not that it’s meant to happen, it just does.

My eyes follow Jahdra to the back of the bridge where she busies herself at the control panel.

I’m not being drawn here by some invisible force, I just can’t bring myself to leave her. I can’t stay far enough away to keep myself from being pulled in—again and again and again—not because I don’t have a choice, but because I do have a choice. And I choose her.

The book. The ship. Me. What do we all have in common?

We’re not cursed or chosen or fulfilling some mystical purpose. We just wandered a little too far, flew a little too close to the sun, as it were. We didn’t do anything special. All we did was cross the event horizon of a spacetime singularity, and we did so through means as ordinary as they are incidental.

I’m an idiot. A bit, fat, stupid idiot.

The only thing I don’t understand now is why it took me so long to figure it out.