In one hand, I held my umbrella. In the other, my backpack, and around me stretched absolute darkness —thick and endless, like the world had been erased.

The bridge was the only thing left. Floating in the void, untouched, familiar.

But I turned away from it and stepped off.

I hesitated for a moment, standing on nothing. My feet were bare. I wondered where I left my boots.

The darkness beneath me felt… solid. Not like a floor. Almost like water. Or something in between. Something that I stirred when I moved.

I kept walking. And with every step, I felt more certain. More sure that this was where I was meant to go.

When I finally looked back, the Pink Bridge was drifting into the distance, swallowed by the void. It didn’t vanish. It faded, like something being forgotten.

Then the darkness began to ripple.

It dribbled and churned like thick ink dropped in water. Shapes began to rise from it—not quite people, not quite shadows. They glowed faintly, flickering like smoke and old film. Like memories.

And then the voices came. Some I recognized. Some I hadn’t heard yet.

They echoed past me, around me—sharp and gentle, angry and kind. Whispers from the past. Shouts from the future. Laughter that hadn’t happened yet.

I moved among them, quiet and unseen. They didn’t notice me. But I noticed them.

And they all seemed to be running—moving deeper into the dark, away from something I couldn’t see. Something still hidden, waiting.

A large white dog appeared suddenly at my side. Its fur shimmered faintly, like it had borrowed light from some place far away. It didn’t bark. Just looked at me with clear blue eyes—calm, almost knowing—then turned and bolted toward the dark horizon.

I ran after it.

And as I did, the horizon began to glow. Just a little. A pale thread of light, stretching wider with every step.

Then the trees appeared.

I was no longer in the void—I was in a clearing, deep in the woods. The ground was soft with moss and layered leaves, all of them damp and rotting underfoot. In the center stood a wooden cabin, slumped and forgotten, half-buried beneath a thick layer of deadfall. Its roof sagged as if it were trying to collapse in on itself.

Beside the cabin stood a tree.

It was completely engulfed in flames. But the fire didn’t crackle. It didn’t move. It just… burned, frozen in place, like a photograph taken mid-roar.

I saw then that it was a fruit tree. The fruit had all fallen. Dozens of red orbs littered the ground beneath it—sunken, bruised, rotting.

I crouched and picked one up. It was red, shaped like an actual heart. Warm in my hand.

My fingers pressed into it, and thick juice spilled over my skin, dark and heavy, like blood.

And then I felt it. A weakness, sudden and deep— like the fruit was feeding on me instead of the other way around. 

Like it was pulling something out of me.

I flung it away.

The moment it hit the earth, it crumbled to ash —and with it, the tree crumbled as well, collapsing into embers and splinters.

Then came the scream. Not of pain, but of fury, a terrible, vengeful howl that shattered the air and drove the clearing into darkness. The splinters of the tree lifted around me, dancing in slow spirals, catching invisible light as they spun. They looked almost like crystals.

I raised my hands without thinking. The pieces rose higher, and then they scattered outward, to every edge of the sky, like something had been released.

I didn’t understand it. But at that moment, I had never felt so proud. 

And then—there was light. And the sounds of waves. I opened my eyes.

I was standing in the middle of the sea.

It was calm.

Still.

Endless.

There was nothing else in the world but me and the ocean.

But something felt wrong. I looked down and understood. I was standing on the water. I could feel the wetness, the movement of the waves beneath me. But I didn’t sink. It was like standing on the soft center of an inflatable castle—little give, a little sway. Like the shadows I walked on before.

I reached for my backpack, filled it with seawater, and took a sip: salty and awful. I spat it out and tossed the bag away. It sank before I could catch it.

Immediately, I regretted letting it go—I’d never tried sailing my paper boats on the open ocean. The water shimmered, the sky above was bright and clean, a picture of the perfect summer day. I wondered if I could walk, if I could just keep going. 

I would be my own ship, sailing until I reached the promised shores of another place. So I lifted my right foot, and in the moment I stepped forward—

I sank.

The sea swallowed me whole.

The sky vanished. The light disappeared. And everything churned into blue.

I tried to swim upward, but I couldn’t. I was sinking fast, the ocean pulling me down like a stone. Fear struck me like a hammer. I screamed, kicked, fought—but still I sank. The world around me turned hazy and blue. The light thinned with every second as I fell deeper into the deep.

Far off in the water, I thought I saw my mother and father—dancing, embracing, smiling. Frozen in time, like figures trapped in glass.

The sea grew darker. But strangely, my fear began to disperse, and peace settled over—quiet and absolute, like everything around me.

One last flicker of light passed by overhead, and then I was wrapped in darkness again, pure and soundless. My feet touched something solid: the black sand of an ocean floor. 

And from that silence, came another light, pouring out like revelation. The light of the night skies. Galaxies spun above, spiraling inward and outward like schools of silvery fish caught in a dance. They illuminated the seafloor: a black desert rising into ruins. Pillars broken in half. Statues eroded by time. Everything that was ancient. Everything that was forgotten.

That’s when I realized I could breathe. 

Though I was completely submerged, I was breathing. My hair floated around me in long, hunting tendrils. And then the sound came.

At first, I mistook it for a ship’s horn. But it was more than that—deeper, louder. It rang through the ocean like a bell carved into the bones of the world. A voice made of pressure.

A presence. 

I opened my mouth, suddenly aware I could speak.

“Is someone there?”

It was all I could manage. The fear returned —slower this time, but heavier. Cold, sinking into my stomach like a stone.

Something was here. Watching me. I wasn’t alone in the deep.

“Please… show yourself!” I called into the dark.

And he listened. 

The light changed, flooding the ocean.

And I saw him. Not all of him. He was too vast, too ancient… too present.

He had no edges. No beginning. No end. Just pieces. A scaled face, a body that stretched across the horizon, disappearing into galaxies and black holes, as if space itself had wrapped around him. But he was older than the sea, older than the stars.

And then he opened his eyes.

Red light poured from them, spilling across the ruins, staining the ocean floor in crimson. His pupils were narrow and black—wells with no bottom. And they were looking directly at me.

“Good morning, my tangerine,” said the sea.

And I woke up.

I didn’t open my eyes at first, but I was aware of everything. First, I was soaked to the bone. My pajamas clung to me like skin.

Second—the world was on fire.

Explosions cracked through the air, and screams split the dark. The walls of my bedroom shook like something was clawing at them.

I sat up in bed. The red digits on my clock glowed: 4:00 AM.

I stood on the mattress and looked out the window. Nothing but smoke. Smoke and light. Orange. Red. Wrong.

The noise grew louder. I stepped down onto the floor. My feet squelched against the wet carpet. Something was wrong. Something had happened.

I ran to the front door and pounded on it with my fists. It wouldn’t open. Then I heard a voice —Aunt Miriam. She lived across the street. She was sobbing in terror as I screamed her name. I kept pounding until, ffinally, Ethan and her opened it and threw their arms around me, holding me tight. Shaking.

“The city… the whole city…” Miriam whispered, frozen in place.

I ran past them into the living room. Ethan yelled something, which I chose to ignore.

I think it was "don’t look."

And before me was our living room window. Its glass was gone, shattered. 

My feet hurt so bad.

The buildings that blocked the horizon were gone now. Now I could see far, so far–across what used to be the city and into the burning horizon.

The stars were falling, and my world had collapsed. 

I stood before the ashes of New Babylon.