A man and a woman were sitting at a table.
They were in a garden.
Or at least, it seemed to be a garden.
Everything was white.
The ground was white. The trees were white. The flowers were white. Even the sky above them stretched into an endless, unbroken white.
There were no shadows, no colors—only a vast, silent emptiness.
Their faces could not be seen.
Not because of distance, not because of darkness. It was as if the world itself refused to reveal them.
On the table between them were two cups.
They drank quietly.
The woman lifted her cup slightly and said,
"It begins."
The man looked at her and replied,
"Yes."
That was all.
Yet even in this empty, colorless void, something could be felt.
An invisible pressure hung in the air.
Even without seeing their faces, one could sense it—both exuded an extraordinary aura, something far beyond ordinary existence.
They were not sitting there as companions.
They were not exactly opposing each other either.
The silence stretched and pulsed, heavy and expectant.
And then… the scene changed.
________________________________________
I was in a classroom.
It was the fourth period.
The classroom had an air conditioner, but it wasn't working. The warm air clung to my skin, sticky and slightly suffocating.
At the front, Aditya Sir was teaching mathematics, explaining quadratic equations as his chalk scratched against the blackboard. A smart board was fixed beside it, unused and silent.
I, Saurabh, was sitting in the last seat, second row from the window.
Beside me, Akash slouched, his eyes fixed on his notebook with a pained expression. Most of the pages were empty.
He hadn't done his work. Again.
He clicked his tongue and leaned toward me.
"Bro," he whispered, "tell me something. Why does Aditya Sir only hit boys? He never hits the girls."
I glanced at him, then at the front of the class.
Akash continued, low and irritated.
"Look at them. Half of them aren't even listening. But if we don't do the work, suddenly he becomes very strict."
I almost laughed.
The reason was obvious.
Akash hadn't completed his homework. Not today. Not yesterday. Probably not for many days.
"I told you to do it," I whispered.
He sighed. "From tomorrow."
I didn't believe him.
At the front, Aditya Sir turned and wrote on the board:
| ax² + bx + c = 0
He given an question.
"Now solve this," he said.
The classroom filled with the soft scratching of pens and the shuffle of papers as students bent over their notebooks.
Everything seemed… normal.
And then it wasn't.
________________________________________
Everything started shaking.
It felt as if an earthquake had erupted beneath the school, rumbling violently through the walls and floor.
The scene changed.
Far beyond the atmosphere, in the endless void of space, an extraordinary building appeared before the Earth.
It was immense—beyond comprehension. Its silhouette spanned thousands of kilometers, stretching across the void like a dark monolith of the cosmos.
Its walls were etched with intricate patterns, strange and arcane symbols that pulsed faintly with light that should not exist. The surface shimmered and shifted subtly, as though alive, breathing, aware.
The spires reached outward into the infinite darkness, vanishing into the nothingness. Colossal gates yawned like silent mouths, carved with runes older than stars.
Around it, the emptiness of space seemed to bend. Light curved unnaturally. Stars wavered. Even distant galaxies recoiled.
The building radiated a presence so immense, so ancient, that the universe itself seemed to shrink in its presence. Time and space felt… tentative, as if uncertain whether to continue existing.
Then, slowly, it began drawing the Earth toward it.
The pull was unlike anything known—stronger than gravity, sharper than magnetism, yet impossibly silent. Oceans, mountains, cities, forests—all disappeared as the planet was absorbed. And in an instant, the Earth vanished, leaving the cosmos darker and heavier, as if it had lost something vital.
No sound. No explosion. Just a void filled with oppressive anticipation.
And yet, none of this reached my perception.
________________________________________
Back in the classroom, I noticed something even stranger.
When an earthquake occurs, everything around should collapse, fall, or break. But here… nothing moved. Not a single pen. Not a single paper. Not even a chair shifted.
Everything remained perfectly still, as if reality itself were bending to some unknown force.
Then everyone around me started fainting.
I was shocked.
I grabbed the edge of the table tightly with both hands and pressed my head down onto it.
I felt myself slipping… my vision blurred… my body weakened…
The last thought that crossed my mind, barely coherent, was:
"It's strange."
Around me, the classroom dissolved into darkness.
Everything stopped.
________________________________________
The scene shifted, though I didn't notice.
Across the world, in classrooms, offices, and streets, the same invisible force claimed its victims. People collapsed silently, as if gripped by an unseen hand.
Back in the classroom, the oppressive atmosphere lingered.
Silence. Heavy. Suffocating.
Nothing stirred. Nothing moved.
The room felt… empty.