The silence stretched, heavy and unmoving.

Kira lay still, staring at the ceiling, her grandfather’s words settling over her like the lingering dust of a long-fallen ruin. His voice had faded, but the weight of his memories remained—fire, destruction, a battle that defied the end itself.

The research post was quiet, save for the steady hum of life support and the rhythmic flicker of navigation lights against metal walls.

Then, the AI’s voice cut through the stillness, smooth and measured.

Object detected.

Mass: 1.34 × 10²² kg.

Velocity: 11.8 km/s.

Trajectory: Inbound from deep abyssal sector.

Estimated Origin: Unknown.

Estimated Composition: Silicate, trace metals, water ice deposits.

Probability of match—Celestial Body: Alune [99.87%].

Her breath caught.

Kira shot upright, heart pounding as she swung toward the terminal. The screen’s glow bathed her face in cold light as she scanned the report, once, then again, as if the numbers might shift under closer scrutiny. But they remained the same. A near-perfect match.

For seventy years, Alune had been gone. No signal. No light. Nothing.

And now—

She turned toward her grandfather. His expression was unreadable, but his hands betrayed him—one curling tightly against his sleeve, the other resting rigid at his side. Tension. Disbelief. Understanding warring with something deeper.

He exhaled sharply through his nose. “Come.”

He was already moving before she could respond, crossing the room with the kind of purpose that left no room for hesitation.

Kira hesitated anyway.

Her gaze flicked back to the terminal, to the silent confirmation of the impossible.

The AI chimed again.

Distance decreasing. Gravitational pull detected. Analyzing potential orbital capture.

Her grandfather didn’t wait. By the time she looked up, he was nearly at the door, footsteps brisk and sure. But she lingered, fingers hovering over the interface.

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She needed more. Needed proof beyond cold calculations.

Kira tapped into the station’s external radar, rendering an image of the approaching object. A grainy projection materialized on the screen—and her stomach twisted.

It couldn’t be right.

Half the moon was simply… gone. Torn as if something had gouged a crater so deep it swallowed the very core.

A sharp pulse from the airlock system jolted her from her trance.

She turned sharply and hurried after her grandfather, heart hammering, as she ascended toward the observation platform.

The wind greeted her as she stepped onto the upper platform of the observation post.

High above the research station, the sky stretched endlessly—deep purples and blues fading into the vast unknown. The faint glow of distant stars flickered like dying embers. Below, the terraformed surface of the moon spread in rolling expanses of silvered rock and shifting shadows, the artificial atmosphere carrying the distant hum of machinery.

There was something in the air tonight. Not just the chill of high-altitude wind, nor the ever-present hum of the station below—but something vast. Something old. A pressure, unseen but felt, settled against the skin—electric, waiting. The abyss had been silent for seventy years.

Tonight, it would speak again.

And then, as Kira stepped forward, the silence shifted.

It was subtle at first—a tremor in the stillness, the hush before a storm. The air curled inward, unseen currents spiraling toward her, drawn by something beyond the physical. A static hum followed, lifting the edges of her robe, playing at the strands of her midnight-black hair. It was not mere wind. It was acknowledgment.

Her grandfather felt it before he saw it.

A whisper in his bones. A familiarity not of memory, but of instinct—honed through years of witnessing the unnatural. He turned toward her, expecting to confirm what he already knew.

Instead, for a fleeting moment, he forgot himself.

She was breathtaking.

Beneath the endless sky, she stood as though carved from the fabric of the cosmos itself. At first glance, she seemed delicate—slender, graceful in the way she moved. But there was something deeper. Something immutable. She was regal, not in title, but in essence. Like a forgotten deity carried unknowingly through time.

Her hair, black as the void, cascaded down her back in silken waves, smooth beyond earthly texture. When the wind stirred, it lifted like flowing ink, whispering against the night—not coarse, not unruly, but shadow woven into silk.

And then there were her eyes.

Soft, luminous violet—until one looked deeper. Within them, colors shifted, constellations formed and faded, nebulas unraveling in slow motion. It was not a trick of reflection. The sky did not rest within her gaze. It moved with her thoughts, responding to her breath.

And the world saw her.

The fireflies came first.

Drifting toward her in golden arcs, they did not merely gather. They moved in deliberate rhythm, swirling as though caught in the breath of something unseen. Their glow pulsed—not erratic, not mindless, but in harmony with a force older than the stars. They traced patterns in the air, fleeting constellations woven from their light, dissolving and reforming, shifting in synchrony with her presence.

And as they danced, the fabric followed.

Her robes did not rest against her—they moved with her, caught in the same unseen tide that pulled the fireflies into motion. When the golden sparks coiled around her, the deep crimson silk shimmered in reply, rippling with an elegance beyond mere cloth. Every thread responded—not to gravity, not to wind, but to something deeper.

It did not drape her. It belonged to her.

Resting wide on her shoulders, the robe’s open neckline framed her like a celestial mantle—neither modest nor ostentatious, but regal. The impossibly fine fabric carried the weight of forgotten divinity, its black and crimson hues shifting with the fireflies’ glow. Silver and violet threads, delicate as woven stardust, flickered like distant galaxies stitched into the night.

And within the drifting constellation of fireflies, the sash at her waist stirred.

It did not merely hang—it lived.

At rest, it lay still, a lingering breath. But as the fireflies wove their golden spirals around her, the violet sash responded, its color shifting with the rhythm of unseen forces. When peace settled over her, it coiled in soft, languid loops. When unease stirred, it twitched, restless, its hue deepening as if tasting the air. And when anticipation sparked in her chest, it lifted—drifting in unseen tides, caught in a silent rhythm only it could hear.

It did not reflect her emotions.

It embodied them.

The fabric did not weigh her down. It did not bind, did not constrain—it moved with her, fluid and aware. Every thread seemed attuned to the force thrumming beneath her skin, shifting in effortless synchrony with her breath.

She did not wear it.

It adorned her.

Kira moved to the railing beside her grandfather, the two of them standing in silent anticipation. The fireflies that had clung so tightly to her presence began to drift upward, their glow pulsing in lazy, rhythmic waves—like the quiet plucking of unseen strings.

Her gaze was fixed on the abyss, unwavering.

Her grandfather could feel it now—the energy stirring within her, gathering around her like an unseen tide. It coiled and wove through the air, wrapping her in something ancient, something vast.

And then—everything changed.