The black hole, the center of most galaxies and the remains of a supermassive star.

With their gravity bending the very fabric of spacetime, neither matter nor energy can escape their grasp. They spell doom to everything unfortunate enough to cross the boundary of spacetime—the event horizon. The intense gravitational pull dilates time to a near-infinite length, scattering any information along the horizon.

Black holes are the purest form of darkness, and yet every depiction shows the distortion of light around them. Like Yin to Yang, darkness reveals itself only in the presence of light.

It’s truly beautiful, isn’t it?

The nearest supermassive black hole to us is Sagittarius A*, more than 26,000 light-years away and with a mass of approximately four million suns. It anchors the center of our galaxy. With Sagittarius A* at the core, we find ourselves rotating around a star that itself revolves around a black hole. Or rather, light revolving around darkness. This is but one of the many parallels in our beautiful universe.

And yet, I found myself in a space devoid of light. I didn’t know if my eyes were open or closed, but I felt it: a void, devoid of any warmth or presence. My body experienced no cold despite the unmistakable absence of warmth. I was in a state of non-being, as though swallowed by a black hole. The thread of my life snapped like brittle ice on a frozen lake, cracking into the abyss that was my current circumstance.

I tried to move, but my body did not respond. I tried to speak, but there was no sound.

There was only darkness—everything was dark.

My mind spiraled, overflowing with questions that had no answers. Time felt inconsequential, eternity lasting but an instant, and an instant stretching into eternity. Tomorrow was yesterday, and yesterday was yet to be.

With time rendered non-linear, I couldn’t tell how long it lasted, but I know one thing: it lasted a bloody long while.

Time brings change, change brings movement, and movement brings warmth and life.

In this flow of time, I either went insane, or I died.

While the latter would normally be worse, the former seemed to loom around the corner either way. My sanity faded with every not-passing moment.

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Was this the so-called afterlife? It sure didn’t feel like heaven. Was it nirvana? I wasn’t exactly living without desires—at least, I think so, though I don’t remember. Then again, the end of existence summed up my predicament best.

Was this really all? The goal of being...to not be? This felt more like Shakespeare than a situation I wanted to find myself in.

I think I mentioned it before—there wasn’t a single thing I remembered about myself. No country of origin, no family, no personality. I was a blank slate outside of time.

I floated through this void, lost in such trivial thoughts. Metaphorically, of course—there was no space to float through, to my knowledge.

Then, suddenly, pain ripped me from my thoughts, needles piercing every inch of my being. My body screamed silently as the agony overwhelmed me. The pain was acute, but it was change. Something happened.

For the first time in eternity, I felt something. I was ecstatic, almost drowning out the mind-splitting agony in my relief. But the ecstasy didn’t last, and the pain surged to the forefront.

In spite of the torment, I clung to a sliver of hope. This pain was proof of movement, proof of time. Proof that something, anything, might come next.

An hour passed. The pain felt like second-degree burns over my entire body, every bone broken.

A day passed. The pain still consumed me, leaving no room for thought—only anguish.

A month passed. My suffering began to lessen, exponentially at that.

A year passed. By then, the pain was reduced to something akin to stubbing my toe.

I was sure that something would happen when the pain finally stopped.

And I was right.

The last trace of pain faded into memory, and suddenly, my eyes were lit ablaze. Compared to the complete darkness of the void, I now stood in a pure white space. Yes, stood—I could feel the smooth, cold ground beneath my bare feet.

It was a welcome change from the nothingness I’d known. My eyes adjusted slowly to the brightness, revealing...nothing. In every direction, up, down, left, and right, there was nothing but infinite white.

I looked down at myself—but saw nothing. I had no body. I was simply...standing in this white expanse, the exact opposite of the void.

This space wasn’t just empty—it was filled with everything that was, is, and ever will be. Everything in a state of existence within nonexistence. The presence of all things lay before me—a universe before its creation. A primordial canvas, untouched yet brimming with every possible color.

My eyes were mesmerized. I stood, staring blankly at the spectacle. Everythingness transformed endlessly from one state to the next, containing itself within every change, infinitely fractal-like in its complexity.

No coherent thought could form in my mind. Every possible thought had already been thought. There was only wonder—a wonder privy only to my eyes.

The ever-changing everythingness almost invoked greed or jealousy, a desire to keep this sight for myself. But I was alone. Completely, utterly alone.

I spent what felt like years gazing at this truth—a truth so profound it could start wars or end all existence. A secret lay hidden within, waiting for someone to decipher its meaning.

But it wasn’t meant for me. Before I could grasp its essence, something changed.

A seal seemed to break. Cracks formed in the white space, and the void seeped in through the fractures, devouring the light.

I couldn’t react. It happened in an instant stretched across eternity.

The nothingness of the void merged with the everythingness. They didn’t cancel each other out—they merged into something indescribable. Nothing is contained within everything, just as everything is within nothing.

What they became was an impossible equilibrium. A state of purity. A contradiction serving as the foundation of reality. Neither absence nor presence.

It simply was.

And I was contained within it.