PROLOGUE: THE RIP

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Twenty Years Ago

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Mia Bales checked the console for the hundredth time, before she looked out the window for the thousandth.

There weren’t many windows aboard the craft, and all of those along the left side were now closed due to their proximity to the Sun. The view outside of the safe side though, was breathtaking every time.

Sunsoul. They were bathed in it. It permeated the hull of the ship, casting the interior in a gentle green glow. Recordings of the ship looked completely normal. In fact, almost none of the people on earth could see the glow. But everyone on the ship, except poor Hanna who was the control group, had been chosen because they could. And it was magnificent.

Outside the ship looked even more so. Just… glowing. She reached out and touched the energy, holding it in her hands like she could only dream of doing on earth before letting it go free. It was beautiful, and she, like the rest of the crew, had been lost within her own awe for days. The closer they came to the sun, the more it filled the world.

“God, I wish Fontaine were here. She should’ve gotten to see this,” Angelo said dejectedly. It was an unspoken secret that he was fond of the brilliant woman and was truly looking forward to the year-long mission to more closely examine Sunsoul in order to get closer to her. When a fucking cold had kept her from coming along, they’d almost delayed the mission another six months. Investors be damned. Alas, Violette had not been able to come on the very ship she had designed because she’d gotten sick.

Angelo had been bitching about it for the past three months.

“Yep, Angelo. It’s a real shame,” Mia deadpanned, annoyed.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Today was the day. Today they would reach the outermost layer where the Sunsoul was at its highest concentration if Dr. Fontaine’s studies were accurate. Which they were.

“Mia to the console. Mia! There appears to be a bit of an anomaly on the intensity scanners. You mind checking it out?” came a call over the ship’s intercom.

An anomaly? She was already at the console and she hadn’t seen…!

Well hot damn.

There on her screen before her was a bit of a hitch in the intensity ratings. Sunsoul, as best as they had been able to tell from Earth, was a thin layer of some sort of exotic energy that wrapped around the sun much like ozone around the Earth. Why only some people could see it was still a complete mystery, but you didn’t have to see sunsoul to be affected by it.

Apparently, it was interacting with scanners aboard the ship, and they were heating up at an alarming rate.

Her eyes widened, as she watched the temperature gauge of the zenith sensor skyrocket, quickly followed by the other three. They were interacting with the Sunsoul! That shouldn’t be happening! Fascinating! They were only passive systems, meant to examine the energy and guage the overall quantity of the stuff in a specified radius of ambient space outside the ship. But they were being affected by it, while the rest of the ship seemed untouched.

Wait… if they’re being affected...

She realized a moment later that if the sensors were interacting with the Sunsoul then the engine, which was propelled by the exotic energy might do the same–!

The world suddenly cracked.

“Mia!? What’s happenin–!” Angelo shouted before his voice abruptly guttered.

For just a moment she felt weightless like she had in the early days of the mission before they'd gotten close enough that the ambient Sunsoul concentration was high enough to start the artificial gravity generator.

A moment of weightlessness. Another moment of pressure like holding up a heavy door with every part of her body…

Then… a distinct ripping sound, before the world was consumed by green.

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