And nothing.

There is a brief moment where my sense ricochets against the otherworldly stone, where perspective stretches and bends around convex lens, but then the lens shatters and my sense is snapped back into its mundane frame.

Nothing happened.

I sit still for a moment. My eyes trace the ornate patterns in the ceiling tile.

Slowly I unravel the cords wrapped around my left arm. I unclench my right hand from around the activation disk and let it fall loosely onto my sheets.

I move to the mirror and behold my haggard face.

What a joke.

To think that this ridiculous idea would warrant results. That by simply abandoning adequate caution I would somehow be more worthy of apotheosis.

I deserve my shame.

Tomorrow I will return to the academy a humbled man. Head low, I will beg for forgiveness from my peers, and should they be merciful, perhaps I can avoid excommunication. A severe demotion will be in order at the very least.

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

But then fear whispers within me.

What of my espionage? Had I produced some grand result I may have been pardoned, but now I am simply a thief of secrets deep and sacred. It surely is only a matter of time before my actions are discovered. The eyes of the Orokin see all within their domain.

Perhaps I will be put to the jade light? As if I were worthy. I am far more likely to simply be judged by Dax blade unannounced within the labs. Perhaps I can at least serve as the annual example among my constituents and spare another from a martyr's fate.

Perhaps I should run to some distant colony and assume a new identity? Should I make one final affront against the academy to invite death in a blaze of defiance? Or should I choose my own fate, here and now, and make peace with what is surely to come?

I see the sunken eyes reflecting back at me in the mirror. Dull. Faded.

For a moment I think to raise my fist against the glass and reflect my impotent rage into the world, but find I have no fire within me.

There is no anger. No sadness, even.

Only a pure and utter defeat.

I will not be a trailblazer like those Archimedeans I aspired to follow. I will not be remembered as a luminary. I will scarcely even be forgotten.

I will simply be lost to time, washed away in its waters. The totality of my existence, barely even thus. A small, nameless part of something far beyond my ability to comprehend.

This, I now realize, is my station.

And who am I to think that I might rise above it?

Who am I?

Who, indeed.

NOTHING [https://i.imgur.com/jJX2DCE.png]