This is a work of FICTION, made by and for adults 18+. The following chapter includes depictions of panic, terror, bleeding, death, and crude language (shit, fuck). Reader discretion is advised.

The cramped, metallic hallway seemed bleaker than usual but suddenly the dim lamps cut out, leaving only emergency lights to guide their way. “A reminder,” a man’s voice spoke over the intercom, “as a power preservation measure, all lights will be shut off beginning at fourteen thirty from now on.”

“Already?” Brigit scratched their head.

“All non-essential power usage is also prohibited until o’four hundred.” The communication ended with a click.

Brigit sighed. ‘Is this really what you want to be doing with your life, Hermes? Delivering bad news on behalf of the council.’ Shaking their head in resignation, they continued down the hall. ‘I suppose that’s all we have to look forward to these days anyway. Were things ever this dismal on Earth before the sun—’

A buzzing cut them off. “BEE!!” a woman excitedly called.

With a huff, Brigit pushed aside her amber curls to hold their ear. “What is it, Ba’al?”

“I’ve made a breakthrough!! Come to my lab!!”

“Right now? I was about to go to bed.”

“Please! It’s important, I promise!” The buzz ended before Brigit could say anything else.

They lowered their hand. “Well, I suppose I would have been sleeping alone anyway.” After rounding a few corners, Brigit opened a door and entered Ba’al’s laboratory. The strange room was even more eerie being lit only by her strange instruments; Brigit could hardly see the petite albino woman’s sleek hair in the center of the darkness. “Well, I’m here. What did you want to show me, dear?”

Ba’al’s violet eyes almost seemed to glow as she turned. “BEE!!!” She rushed to Brigit’s side and pulled them in. “YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS!!!”

“See what? There’s hardly any—”

“JUST—” They stopped before the device she’d been working on. “Just… watch…” At first Brigit patiently waited as they supposedly stared at the perplexing wheel; as minutes passed, they yawned before impatiently tapping their foot.

“How much—” A flicker of golden light caught their attention.

“SEE?!!”

“See what?! It was just a little light—”

Ba’al turned them by the shoulders. “DON’T YOU SEE?!! MY THEORIES WERE RIGHT!!! It’s possible to convert entropy into usable energy!!! ENERGY FROM—”

“Energy from nothing,” Brigit hushed them, “like I always said.”

“Come on! Would it kill you to act a little excited?! This changes everything!! We can turn the lights back on, end food rationing, resume digital record keeping, start having children—”

“Okay, okay,” Brigit grabbed her wrists to lower them. “I get it, just… Aren’t you getting a little too excited? We don’t even know how well this works. Do you really understand how it works??”

“Does it matter?!” Another blip lit them as Ba’al pressed, “I don’t want to be part of the last generation.” She stepped closer and held Brigit. “You want to be a mother, don’t you?”

Sharing her touch, they confessed, “I do, but, how would we even—”

“Women used to have children together all the time! That’s how Hades’ great-grandmother was born!”

Brigit rolled their eyes, “Hades is always telling ludicrous stories. I’m sure he believes Earthlings actually had three-headed dogs. But even if they were, that was decades ago, how would we—”

“If it was just decades ago, the technology should still exist; we just have to find it and learn how to use it again. Maybe someone actually wrote something down before we lost digital records. Brigit,” she turned them to the device before it glowed once more, “this is our future!”

‘Children…’ Ba’al caught them smiling with a glimmer in their emerald eyes as the luminance became more frequent. ‘A daughter…’ Brigit sighed and looked at their partner. “So, what now?”

“Now we need to wait for it to start generating power. I’ve designed it to work like a water wheel—”

“Stop calling it a water wheel. No Plutonian is going to know what a water wheel is.”

“They’re mentioned in plenty of books—”

“No one on Pluto has seen a water wheel outside of a book, much less flowing water that didn’t come out of a faucet.”

“Just follow me for a minute! I’ve attached the wheel to an electromagnetic generator so it’ll generate electricity. The crystals that convert the entropy also reflect light, which generates force and drives the wheel. Our bodies are serving as a catalyst right now, which is why it keeps lighting up, but it’ll absorb energy from everything around it, including the waste heat of the generator.  Once it’s scaled up, it should be able to absorb entropy from, well, anything nearby.”

Brigit hummed in agreement. “So nothing at all like a water wheel.”

Ba’al shoved them, “Shut up. Like your gravitational research is any easier to put into layman’s terms. All I need to do now is,” she pulled a lever, “disengage the lock and… let it spin.” They both watched as the crystals seemed to glimmer. Steadily the glow strengthened until they could clearly see each other and, finally, the wheel moved. “It’s working!!” It spun faster; Ba’al let go when the device started making noise. “We’re generating power!!!” They could hardly discern the wheel anymore as the lights in the room came on. “A lot of power!!!” Brigit had to smile upon finding glee in Ba’al’s eyes but a whirring caught their attention.

“Hey, Ba’al.” She looked over. “Is it supposed to be doing that?”

“Well… it is spinning really fast… I suppose it makes sense that it’d also make some—” A beeping distracted her. “We’ve maxed out the generator! I didn’t think the lab-scale would be able to produce that much—” The whir deepened while the light dimmed and the wheel slowed for a moment.

“What was that?”

“I…” It happened again, though this time there was a gentle tug that pulled them towards the machine. “That— can’t be normal… I’m ending the test.” She tried to pull the lever again, but it wouldn’t budge. “I can’t stop it!”

“What do you mean you can’t stop it?!”

Suddenly they were drawn in while the lights in the room flickered faster. The sensation stopped and all the lamps went out. Illuminated by only the ever-brightening wheel, they jumped as the emergency alert system activated. “Warning,” a woman robotically announced, “tremor detected in Sector 42. Power interruptions detected in Sectors 38, 40, 41, 42—”

“Oh no,” Brigit whispered. They turned to Ba’al before rushing out, “Try and shut that thing off!”

“45, 47,” the voice continued. “All non-essential personnel proceed to disaster bunkers.”

Brigit’s ear buzzed before a woman yelled, “WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!”

“I don’t know, Kali. Ba’al was—”

“I DON’T WANT TO KNOW WHAT CRAZY SHIT THAT GIRL WAS UP TO, WHY DIDN’T YOU STOP HER?!”

“JUST GET TO YOUR LAB! I think it’s affecting space-time and I need you to monitor—”

“FUCK THAT!!! I’M GETTING TO THE BUNKER BEFORE—” Her words became unintelligible as Brigit was tugged back. They nearly tripped forward as it ceased. “BRIGIT!! BRIGIT!!! WHERE DID YOU—”

“JUST DO IT, KALI!!!” They rushed to their own lab and turned on the instruments. ‘Okay, focus Brigit. It’s creating unnatural pulls and slowing down local time. Check for gravitational fluctuations.’ After observing a few readings, Brigit began to sweat. ‘How is that—’ They were thrown to the floor along with some equipment while sparks lit the room. Once able to stand, they checked the readings and realized, “That’s impossible,” before the machine shut down.

“Warning,” the robotic woman spoke again, “hull breach detected in Sector 42. Power—”

“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?!” Kali explained, “Time is out of sync across multiple sectors! Sector 42 is almost an hour behind!!”

“Ba’al’s generator is somehow producing gravitational waves.”

“HOW IS THAT—”

“I DON’T KNOW!! I don’t know if anywhere is safe anymore but get to the bunker now!” As they left, a powerful force drug them down the hall until they slammed against a wall. It finally ceased and Brigit pulled themselves up—disregarding the lengthening messages—and opened the lab door. “Ba’al!!”

Brigit stared in awe and terror at the wheel, now floating in the air above melted pieces of machinery and glowing brighter than any light they’d seen. “I tried to stop it.” They turned to Ba’al and shuddered at the blood trickling down her face then noticed the splotch on the edge of the table. “I’m sorry.” Brigit could hardly hear here over the deafening whirring.

“We have to get out of here!!” They reached out.

Ba’al shook her head. “It’s too late. I just… I just wanted to help.” The shine burned their eyes as the noise became louder. “To make life more than just… existing.” A bloody tear ran down her cheek. “I’m sorry… I won’t be able to make you a mother.”

In a blinding flash, the world seemed to stop. As if in a dream, Brigit watched as uncountable events passed before them seemingly in an instant. Then, it stopped. Met with silence, they opened their eyes to a white expanse. At first Brigit seemed alone but—as their sight adjusted—they saw people all around them. Hermes, Kali, Hades, her twins, Brighid and Brig; everyone she knew from Pluto. And Ba’al.

The pale woman studied her palms before a black glow appeared between them. The shines coalesced until a rose of vibrant violet alike her eyes appeared in her hand. “You have no idea what you’ve done,” Brigit gawked, “do you, Ba’al?”