I finally take stock of my condition: my uniform is torn, stained with dried blood and dirt. My communicator crackles faintly on my wrist. Leia? No, it’s just a dead loop. The voice of the AI is nothing more than a lost echo. My body aches, covered in bruises, scratches, and even minor burns.

“Leia?! Answer me!” My voice cuts through the oppressive silence. Nothing responds but the rustle of colossal leaves and the distant groan of warped metal.

I rise slowly, every muscle protesting. A faint beep catches my attention. A cracked holographic screen flickers a few steps away, emerging from the remains of a navigation console. I stagger toward it, clinging to the hope it might hold answers—or salvation.

The ground beneath me is a blend of scorched earth and shattered metal. The faint scent of charred materials mingles with an alien organic tang. Each step is precarious, the debris of the Colossus scattered like the remnants of a shattered dream.

I stand, swaying, in the midst of an ocean of destruction. The wind whistles softly, stirring up ash and dust that dance around the mess. Spread across the horizon are fragments of all sizes, remnants of a ship that once carried humanity’s hope. The pervasive smell of burnt metal dominates, but there’s something else, faint yet unsettlingly organic.

Underfoot, patches of tender grass intermingle with shards of steel and broken glass. But most of the ground is a scorched crust, a wounded land marred by the Colossus’s descent. Then, a voice. Coldly mechanical, yet carrying a tone I’ve never heard from it before. A shadow of sadness, perhaps? Leia. At last, she’s responding—which means some servers must have survived somewhere. My heart tightens. If she’s online, perhaps some cryo-colonists made it too.

“Leia! Status report. Are there any survivors?” I ask, my voice brimming with fragile hope.

“Admiral... You are the only human alive. All cryogenic compartments are compromised.”

The blow is visceral, like an invisible fist striking my stomach. Leia is direct, sparing no words. My legs falter under the weight of her statement. Already weakened by injuries and the crash, I sway, struggling to process the enormity of her report. Millions of lives, entire families, generations of hope—all extinguished. And me... left alone.

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“No... No, that’s impossible!” My voice breaks the silence, raw and desperate. I slam my fist against the communicator on my wrist, as if striking the useless device might reverse reality. But Leia doesn’t waver. She’s speaking through a transmitter that survived the crash, just nearby. My own communicator is dead. I stagger toward the intact device, clutching it like a lifeline.

“Cross-checking completed. All cryo pods sustained structural failures during transit. The physical integrity of the occupants did not survive. You are... alone, Admiral.”

I collapse to my knees, fingers digging into the soft, ashen earth. The tactile sensation of a living world contrasts violently with the desolation around me. The plain stretches out, flat and alien, bordered by towering trees whose dark trunks reach skyward like silent monoliths. Most of them are charred husks. The wind’s murmur through their branches is deceptive; there’s no life beneath their bark. The Colossus has annihilated everything. What have I done?

A black hole... and now this? A plain, warm wind, towering trees... none of it makes any sense.

“Leia, where are we? What is this place?”

She hesitates. The unflappable AI—designed to process any crisis without faltering—seems uncertain for the first time. Her hesitation unsettles me more than her words ever could.

“Location unknown. Stellar coordinates do not match any database. Breathable atmosphere detected. Gravity slightly below Earth standard. Anomalous readings... electromagnetic disturbances, unclassified geological and biological structures.”

My anger boils over, fueled by fear.

“You mean we’re... somewhere else? Another planet? Another galaxy?”

A heavy silence hangs before Leia’s measured response.

“The physical characteristics of this environment suggest we have left our original universe. The probability of interdimensional traversal via the singularity exceeds 98.3%.”

Her words stagger me. Another dimension. My mind, still dulled by the brutal awakening and the crash, struggles to grasp the enormity of this revelation. I scan the horizon, desperate for anything familiar among the wreckage. All I see is devastation: shards of the Colossus scattered like the remnants of a fallen titan.

Millions of dead. And me, left alive. For what purpose?

How am I still alive? Why me?

I pause, placing a hand on a piece of still-warm metal—a fragment of the Colossus. Memories of the ship’s grandeur flood back: the laughter of children during boarding, the promises of a new beginning. Now, all of it is gone.

But I can’t remain paralyzed by grief. I must move forward, understand what happened, and above all, discover why I was spared.

The soft rustle of wind through the charred grass and the distant groaning of debris remind me that this is no dream. The world around me is real, and I am utterly alone within it.