STARLIGHT UNBOUND by Deus Ex Machina - HTML preview

STARLIGHT UNBOUND

And then, without realizing it, he slipped under, into the void.

***

Lucien stood in the center of the empty city. The streets stretched to infinity in every direction, their polished surfaces reflecting the artificial lights overhead. The buildings loomed, their sharp, geometric facades devoid of life.

He took a tentative step forward, his footsteps echoing unnaturally in the stillness. There were no voices, no distant sound of drones, no movement—just an oppressive, deafening silence.

“You’re looking for something.” Lyra’s voice pierced through the void, soft yet undeniable.

His head snapped up.

The sky was wrong. At first, it appeared normal —muted shades of twilight blending into the deep navy blues of night. But as he stared, fractures began to appear, thin cracks spiderwebbing across the sky. They widened, splitting apart in jagged lines, and shards of light fell in slow, deliberate arcs. Each fragment hit the asphalt, shattering and dissolving into nothingness.

Lucien ’s stomach knotted, his breath catching as he stumbled backward. The city itself began to warp —the buildings bending, twisting in on themselves like molten glass. Above him, the heavens continued to unravel, stars plummeting from the sky, their brilliance snuffed out before they ever touched the earth. He raised his arms instinctively as a blinding white fissure erupted in the sky, splitting it in two.

When the light receded, the world around him shifted. The scene peeled away, dissolving like a discarded veil. The ground vanished beneath his feet.

Lucien found himself balancing on the edge of an infinite void. A tightrope stretched out before him, impossibly thin, suspended in nothingness. The air filled with energy, a pulse vibrating deep within his chest, rising and falling in a rhythm he couldn ’t quite grasp.

He took a cautious step forward. To his left, an endless chasm yawned wide, filled with swirling silver-gray clouds, shifting and whispering as if they carried secrets long forgotten. The void tugged at him with a quiet insistence. Should I jump?

He imagined it—falling with no gravity, surrendering to the unknown, letting the clouds swallow him whole.

Above him, the universe stretched endlessly, stars gleaming in perfect clarity. They pulsed and shimmered, alive in a way he had never felt before,

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