Constructive criticism is welcome.

In a remote part of the universe… at some point in time…

An organic stew simmers on Astryx in much the same way life flourishes here on Earth.

Just as tides ebb and flow across Earth’s shores, cosmic energies pulse across Astryx’s surface, guiding life in similar directions.

The atmosphere on Astryx is as rich and complex as the breath of Earth’s forests, carrying nutrients and mysteries with every drift.

Microbial dances occur deep within Astryx’s oceans, mirroring the vibrant yet unseen world of Earth’s waters.

Both nurture vast oceans, diverse ecosystems, and landscapes that shape the lives of their inhabitants. They experience seasonal shifts, cycles of day and night, and the ebb and flow of climate that molds their societies. Human societies.

Both worlds are bound by gravity, their skies alive with constellations, and they share the same curiosity among their people to explore the unknown.

Though Earth clings to sunlight, Astryx embraces its own, a celestial glow that stirs the foundations of life just as surely as it does here.

But, only Astryx has Xelle Evortian.

Xelle (pronounced Kyle) is average in many ways. His height isn’t ideal for basketball. His clumsiness isn’t ideal for most other sports.

His hair is perpetually messy but in a way that feels intentional, and his features, while pleasant, can blend into a crowd.

He’s not the loudest in the room or the quietest, and his sense of humor tends to earn chuckles rather than belly laughs.

Nonetheless, he has an intense energy about him.

When he sets his mind to something, it gets done. Almost as if the universe itself rearranges to match his will.

Well, at least it seems that way… most of the time… Just not this time.

Xelle is cancelled

Xelle, who is just beginning to make a name for himself as a rising TV star, wakes up to a whirlwind of notifications and messages, many filled with vitriol and disbelief.

Ripple™ is the vein of information that Xelle gluttonously suckles from. But today’s stream is rancid. Every scroll reveals another post, another accusation, another lie as he finds his own name tangled in a network of scandalous hashtags: #XelleExposed, #SleptHisWayToTheTop, and, of course, #Xancelled.

He taps on one of the trending threads, and his stomach twists as he sees it—the viral video that everyone’s sharing.

It shows him at an private club, leaning in with a kiss with a well-known studio executive.

A flurry of added captions and edits suggests something much darker than a professional exchange, painting it as a hidden tryst.

More screenshots flood the app, implying that he exchanged favors to land his roles, that his rise wasn’t just meteoric but manipulated.

Xelle feels a wave of helplessness as he scrolls through the comments, each more venomous than the last. Messages from followers he once inspired are now condemning him, some even calling for a boycott… or worse…

He tries to reply. To set the record straight. but every attempt only fuels more backlash. more hate. more anger. His words seem powerless, swallowed by the storm of assumptions and judgments spreading across Ripple™.

He takes a breath and looks around, suddenly hyper-aware of the silence in his apartment. The quiet feels heavy, almost pressing, as if the world itself is leaning in, waiting for him to break. He closes his eyes, wishing, for the first time, to simply disappear, to be anywhere but here.

But as his frustration mounts, something strange begins to happen. There’s no noise. There’s not even a breeze. Yet, objects around him shift… subtly at first…

A small glass on his desk tilts, a stack of papers slides ever so slightly. The floor seems to shiver beneath him. He opens his eyes, blinking in confusion, but the room continues to tremble. A cold, invisible force pulls at him, as if gravity itself is bending and tugging.

Xelle stumbles forward, clutching the edge of his desk as a feeling of weightlessness washes over him. Wait… Not just a feeling…

Xelle is actually weightless. His feet lift from the floor, his grip on the desk the only thing anchoring him to anything solid.

Around him, objects begin to rise—pens, papers, even his chair—floating lazily in the air as if gravity itself has been turned off. A low, eerie hum seems to vibrate through the very air, so deep it feels like the planet itself is groaning.

The light in the room dims—not sharply, but subtly, as though the sun outside is losing its strength. Xelle glances at the window, his heart pounding. The world beyond looks… wrong.

The sky has taken on an unsettling shade of gray, and the horizon curves ever so slightly upward, like the edges of reality are bending.

He pulls himself toward the window, gripping the sill to steady himself. His stomach churns as he looks up. Far above, in the distant sky, a patch of darkness lingers—a smudge of nothingness against the heavens. It’s faint, but it pulses faintly, as if alive. Even from here, he feels its presence.

“What… what is that?” he whispers, his voice trembling.

The smudge grows, its edges rippling outward like a drop of ink in water. Around it, the stars seem to dim, their light bending inward toward the void.

Outside, the street is eerily quiet. A few loose leaves tumble lazily into the air, spinning upward instead of downward. A car alarm wails briefly before cutting off, its sound stretched unnaturally. Xelle’s gaze darts to the ground as a small rock begins to hover, lifting gently off the pavement.

He stumbles back from the window, panic clawing at his chest. The humming grows louder, a deep, resonant vibration that rattles the walls. He presses his hands over his ears, but it doesn’t help—it’s inescapable, pressing against him from all directions.

Hours pass—or maybe it’s only minutes. The pull of the void grows stronger, the horizon tilting further toward the sky. People in the streets begin to notice, their faces twisted in confusion and fear as they point upward, their movements sluggish, as though the very air is thickening.

Xelle’s phone buzzes in air above his desk. He snatches it up, hands shaking, scrolling through a flood of messages and notifications.

Headlines scream at him from every corner of the screen: “Strange Gravitational Phenomenon Reported Globally!” “Scientists Baffled by Sudden Shift in Astryx’s Gravity!” “Single Horny Females Near You” “Unknown Cosmic Anomaly Approaches Astryx!”

Xelle stares at the headlines, his heart pounding in his chest. His thumb hovers over a news link, but, before he can tap it, the phone jerks in his hand, sliding slightly upward, as though eager to escape his grasp. He clamps down on it instinctively, but the sensation sends another jolt of panic through him.

He glances back at the window. The smudge in the sky is no longer faint. It dominates the heavens now, a churning, pulsating vortex that seems to swallow everything around it. Its edges ripple and twist, pulling at the light, warping the stars into spiraling streaks.

The hum grows louder, vibrating through the very marrow of his bones. Outside, the streetlights flicker erratically before extinguishing altogether. The leaves that had lazily floated upward are now streaking toward the sky in tight, chaotic spirals. A car tilts unnaturally, its wheels scraping against a pole as it follows chase.

Xelle’s stomach lurches as he feels the pull more intensely now. It’s no longer subtle, no longer ignorable. His desk slides across the room, dragging the chair with it, both tilting upward toward the sky. His phone buzzes again in his hand, a notification from Ripple™.

It’s a live feed. The title reads, “Black Hole Incoming? Watch the Anomaly Grow!” Against his better judgment, he taps it. The video bursts to life, a shaky, handheld shot of the same black vortex he sees outside. The camera operator speaks in a panicked tone:

“It’s confirmed! Experts believe this is some kind of gravitational singularity—a black hole! It’s pulling everything in, and the closer it gets, the stronger the effects! They say there’s no way to stop it—it’s already too close—”

The feed cuts out abruptly. replaced by static.

Xelle’s grip on the phone tightens as the room begins to shift again. His bookshelf crashes to the ceiling, scattering its contents upward like a reverse explosion. The walls groan as though the very air is squeezing them inward.

Panic surges through him. Is this how it ends? His mind races as he stumbles toward the door, his movements sluggish, like walking through water. Outside, people are screaming now, their voices warped and stretched by the unnatural forces pulling at the atmosphere.

The horizon tilts further, the buildings in the distance leaning impossibly toward the vortex. The vortex itself has grown enormous, its center a void of utter blackness. It is darker than anything Xelle has ever seen. The edges swirl with a chaotic energy that feels alive, an insatiable hunger that consumes everything in its reach.

Xelle struggles to get outside by breaking his window, the pull stronger now, dragging him toward the sky. He jumps and grabs a streetlamp for support, but it bends unnaturally in his grip, creaking as it begins to lift from the ground. People around him are clinging to anything they can, their faces masks of terror.

He looks back at the vortex, its insatiable hunger growing stronger with each passing moment. The pull is overwhelming—debris spirals upward in chaotic patterns, and distant buildings twist unnaturally as they collapse toward the sky. Xelle’s feet lift completely off the ground, his body weightless as the air itself seems to surrender to the force.

Panic courses through him as he flails, trying to grab onto anything to stop himself from being dragged toward the vortex. The streetlamp he clung to moments ago has torn free from the ground, now spinning like a twig caught in a storm.

“What is happening?” he shouts into the chaos, his voice swallowed by the deafening hum of the black hole. It’s a question without an answer, a cry of desperation in the face of a phenomenon beyond comprehension.

Then, everything freezes.

Something catches his eye—a faint glow on his wrist. His family wristlet.

He’s barely thought about it in years, but now it pulses with a soft, steady light, contrasting sharply with the darkness closing in around him. It almost feels warm, a gentle vibration against his skin. Xelle stares at it, momentarily distracted from the chaos, as the light begins to intensify.

“What…?” he mutters, his words trailing off as the glow expands, forming a faint barrier around him. The pull of the black hole lessens, just slightly, enough for him to stop spinning. The objects around him—chunks of asphalt, shards of glass, even entire cars—continue to hurtle upward, but Xelle hangs suspended in an eerie bubble of stillness.

His pulse races. The wristlet has always been there, a gift from his parents when he was young. They’d always joked about it. They called it “Plot Armor” in that way parents make light of things their kids don’t understand. He’d never given it much thought—until now.

Is this thing protecting me?

The glow brightens again, and for a fleeting moment, Xelle feels a strange sense of calm, as if the wristlet is shielding him from the worst of the black hole’s pull. He presses his other hand to it, his fingers trembling as the light pulses beneath his touch.

The vortex roars louder, its edges churning with relentless energy, and Xelle sees the pull intensify once more. The objects suspended around him are dragged into the void, twisting and shattering as they vanish into the blackness. His protective bubble flickers, the light from the wristlet faltering under the immense force.

“No, no, no!” Xelle yells, gripping the wristlet as though he can will it to hold. His bubble wavers but holds steady, even as the world around him is consumed.

The ground beneath him collapses, folding upward into the sky. The city he’s known his entire life—streets, buildings, people—spirals into the singularity… disappears into the endless void. The light from the wristlet flares one final time, enveloping Xelle in a blinding cocoon of energy.

And then… silence.

Familiar Contact

When Xelle opens his eyes, everything is different. The roar of the vortex, the chaos of the collapsing city—it’s all gone. He blinks, disoriented, expecting to feel ground beneath him, but there’s nothing. He’s floating.

He looks down, expecting the familiar streets of his city, but instead, there’s only an endless expanse of space. The stars are still there, glittering faintly in the black void, but the ground—his planet—is gone. He twists in the weightless emptiness, his heart pounding as he searches for something, anything familiar.

There’s no sign of the city, no sign of Astryx. The sun that had warmed his planet for as long as he could remember is nowhere to be seen. Only the cold, distant stars remain, their light sharp and unwavering in the void.

His breath comes in short gasps, panic creeping in as the weight of the situation sinks in. He’s not on his planet anymore. My planet isn’t here anymore.

The wristlet on his arm catches his eye. Its glow, once bright enough to shield him from the black hole’s pull, is now a faint flicker, barely illuminating the dark metal. He touches it instinctively, as though it might explain what’s happened, but it feels cold and unresponsive.

“What…” he whispers, his voice trembling, “what just happened?”

He turns in slow circles, his movements awkward in the weightlessness. All around him is the vastness of space, an infinite expanse of stars and nothingness.

No landmarks. No planets. No sun—just himself, floating alone in the void. The silence is oppressive, broken only by his shallow breaths and the pounding of his heart.

His mind races, replaying the moments before. The black hole—the impossible, churning void that had swallowed everything in its path. The way the city had twisted, the ground had cracked, and everything he’d known had been sucked away. The wristlet had saved him somehow, shielding him from the pull, but now…

Now the black hole was gone too.

The realization hits him like a blow to the chest. The black hole didn’t just destroy his city. It didn’t just tear apart Astryx.

It consumed everything—his planet, his star—leaving him behind, alone in a universe that feels colder and emptier than ever before.

He presses his hands to his face, his fingers trembling. Why am I still here? The question echoes in his mind, unanswered. The wristlet glows faintly against his wrist, a quiet reminder of its presence.It offers no comfort. No explanation.

He looks up at the stars, the only familiar thing left. They glitter faintly, unchanged, as if indifferent to the destruction that has unfolded. Xelle’s breath hitches as he stares into the vast expanse, feeling smaller and more alone than he ever thought possible.

Floating in silence, he tries to steady himself, but the enormity of what has happened presses down on him, even in weightlessness. He doesn’t know how long he drifts—seconds, minutes, hours. Time feels meaningless in the emptiness.

And then… in the distance… a faint light appears. At first, it’s no more than a pinprick, barely distinguishable from the stars. But it grows steadily brighter, larger, taking shape.

Xelle’s breath catches as the light resolves into a spaceship, its sleek, metallic hull unmistakably real. It moves closer, its engines a soft hum that cuts through the oppressive silence.

His pulse quickens as recognition dawns—the design is familiar, a vessel from a neighboring planet. A planet that is inhabited by the same species of human.

Relief mingles with confusion as the ship approaches, its lights casting a faint glow on Xelle’s face.

As the ship slows and prepares to retrieve him, Xelle hangs suspended in the void, waiting, unsure of what comes next.