Nathan approached the wormhole. Ten meters. Five.
Nathan, said The Noise. Stop. You don't know what it is. You don't know what it could do.
But Nathan didn't stop. From this distance, he could see that the circle's edge wasn't static. It undulated, pulsed, as if breathing. The infrasound emitted by the wormhole made the air around him vibrate, creating a distortion effect similar to what you see above a hot road on a summer day.
It's dangerous, The Noise insisted. Go back. Call someone. Do the smart thing.
Nathan ignored it. He pulled the notebook and pen from his backpack, starting to write without taking his eyes off the phenomenon.
Distance from wormhole: 5m. Preliminary observations: edge shows periodic instability, with period of approximately 17 seconds (consistent with previously measured magnetic field oscillations). Perceptible mechanical vibration, infrasound.
He stopped. Something didn't add up.
The light emanating from the wormhole was intense—blue-white, pulsating, almost blinding if you stared at it directly. Yet...
Nathan extended a hand in front of him, palm facing the luminous circle. Nothing. No heat. It was like standing in front of a television screen, not an energy source emitting that amount of light.
Impossible, he thought, and the thought made him tremble with excitement.
He wrote furiously:
CRITICAL ANOMALY: Despite intense light emission, no perceptible radiant heat. This directly violates the Stefan-Boltzmann law, which states that radiant energy emitted by a black body is proportional to the fourth power of its temperature. An object emitting this amount of light SHOULD radiate significant heat.
Possible explanations. First: the light is not caused by thermal radiation but by a completely different effect (could it be the Čerenkov effect?). Second: the phenomenon does not follow conventional thermodynamics laws. Third: we are observing something completely new to physics.
Nathan, said The Noise, more urgent now. You're documenting an impossible physical anomaly in the middle of the woods, at night, alone. Does this seem like a good idea?
Nathan looked at the notebook. He was writing as his father had taught him—observe, document, hypothesize. As if this were a normal physics experiment. As if he weren't looking at something that would bring down everything humanity thought it knew about the universe.
What's on the other side?
The question burned in his mind.
You don't know, said The Noise. And you don't want to know. Not like this.
But Nathan wanted to know. Desperately.
He looked around. The ground was covered with dry leaves, fallen branches, forest debris. His eyes found what he was looking for: a rock, fist-sized, smooth and round.
He picked it up. Weighed it in his hand.
Scientific method, he thought. Observe. Hypothesize. Test.
He had observed. He had hypothesized. Now he had to test.
No, said The Noise. Nathan, don't do it. You don't know what—
Nathan took the rock. Weighed it again, mentally estimating its weight. About two hundred grams. Approximately spherical shape. Density... probably granite, so about 2.7 grams per cubic centimeter.
He took a step back. Raised his arm.
If it's really a wormhole, he thought, the rock should go through it. Not bounce. Not stop. Go through. Go... somewhere else.
He threw the rock.
***
The stone crossed the air in a predictable arc, obeying the laws of physics Nathan had known since childhood. Gravity, momentum, ballistic trajectory. All normal, all calculable.
Then it reached the circle.
And disappeared.
It didn't bounce. It didn't slow down. It didn't make a sound. One instant it was there, the next it wasn't. As if it had never existed.
Nathan held his breath.
It went through! It went... somewhere else.
His knees buckled slightly. With fingers trembling from excitement he wrote:
EXPERIMENT: Test object (rock, mass ~200g) thrown through the opening. RESULT: Complete disappearance. No bounce, no reflection, no impact sound. Object passed through the structure. CONCLUSION: Not a hologram or optical illusion. It's a real opening to... to WHAT? Another region of space? Another instant in time? Another dimension? Impossible to determine without direct passage.
He stopped. Reread the last sentence.
Impossible to determine without direct passage.
Part of him—the part that had read too many science fiction books, that had dreamed of exploring the universe—wanted to do it. Wanted to cross. Wanted to see what was on the other side.
One step. Just one step. And he would discover something no human being had ever seen.
Nathan. The Noise was loud now. Clear. Think about it. One second. Just one second.
Nathan hesitated, his foot already raised.
What's on the other side?, The Noise continued. You don't know. You can't know. It could be another planet with a breathable atmosphere. Or it could be a planet where the air is pure methane. It could open onto the surface of an asteroid. Or worse—into the vacuum of space.
Nathan lowered his foot.
Think about the odds, said The Noise, and for once its voice wasn't critical, wasn't judgmental. It was almost... gentle. How many planets in the universe have an atmosphere compatible with human life? One in a billion? One in a trillion? And if the other end simply opens into interstellar space? How long does a human being last in a vacuum?
Nathan knew. Fifteen seconds of useful consciousness. Then ebullition of bodily fluids, hypothermia, asphyxiation. Death in less than two minutes.
Statistically, The Noise concluded, crossing that wormhole is equivalent to certain suicide. The odds of survival are practically zero.
Nathan took a step back. Then another.
The Noise was right. For once, it was right.
You've documented everything, said The Noise. You have the proof. You have the notes. Now go home. Talk to someone. Let real scientists, with real equipment, study this thing. Don't be stupid.
Nathan nodded slowly, to himself more than to The Noise. His heart was still beating hard, but the adrenaline of discovery was giving way to rationality.
He turned. He was about to put the notebook back in the backpack—
And he heard the voices.
***
Nathan froze, hands still on the half-open backpack.
Voices. Distant but approaching. And footsteps—many footsteps, heavy, coordinated. They weren't casual hikers. They weren't teenagers coming to make bonfires. There was something too disciplined about those footsteps.
Hide, The Noise shouted.
Nathan looked around frantically. A few meters from him, two massive oaks flanked the wormhole like silent sentinels. Their trunks were wide enough to hide a person.
He moved without thinking, slipping behind the nearest oak, flattening his back against the rough bark. He held his breath.
The voices became clearer.
"...move, we don't have much time."
"Is the gateway stable?"
"For now, yes. But we don't know for how long."
English, Nathan noted. They're speaking English. With an American accent.
However, their voices were metallic, distorted, almost robotic. They're using voice modulators, Nathan realized. But why?
Figures emerged from the darkness between the trees. Nathan peeked from the edge of the trunk, trying to see without being seen.
Five people. No, six. Five moved with military precision, dressed in dark clothing, with tactical equipment visible even in the wormhole's flickering light. They had no flashlights—they wore night vision goggles mounted on their helmets. And they carried weapons. Nathan recognized the silhouettes—assault rifles, short, tactical.
The sixth...
The sixth had a black hood over his head and his hands tied in front of his body. He stumbled, was pushed, dragged. The clothes were different—civilian. A wrinkled blazer, dress pants. Certainly not appropriate attire for a walk in the woods.
A prisoner, Nathan realized. They're bringing someone to the wormhole. And they're using voice modulators to avoid being recognized.
Stay hidden, The Noise ordered. Don't move. Don't breathe. Don't—
The soldiers—because now Nathan was sure they were soldiers, or something similar—arranged themselves in formation around the wormhole. Two covered the perimeter, weapons raised, eyes scanning the woods through night vision goggles. Two others controlled the prisoner. The fifth—the one who seemed to be the leader—was extracting something from a tactical backpack.
A device. Small, the size of a cell phone, but with a series of LED lights that blinked in sequence. The leader pointed it toward the wormhole, pressed something.
The lights flashed. Yellow. Yellow. Green.
"The gateway is stable," the leader announced. "Mass authorized for single human transit confirmed. We can proceed."
They have a device that interacts with the wormhole, Nathan thought, his heart accelerating. They know exactly how it works. This means that maybe... maybe they created it?
No. It couldn't be. The technology necessary to create and stabilize a wormhole was beyond anything humanity possessed. Unless...
Unless they'd obtained it from the other side.
The prisoner was pushed forward. He tried to resist, to plant his feet in the ground, but one of the soldiers grabbed him by the arm and pulled hard.
"No!" The prisoner's voice was muffled by the hood, but Nathan could hear the fear. "Please, I don't know anything! I didn't do anything! I'm just—"
"Silence." One of the guards hit him lightly with the rifle butt.
The leader approached the prisoner. His voice was calm, almost kind, despite the voice modulator.
"Professor, you know why you're here. You know what you must do. Cooperate, and everything will be fine."
Professor?, Nathan thought. Who is it? A scientist?
He had to see better. He had to understand what was happening.
No, said The Noise. Stay still. Don't—
But Nathan was already leaning forward, trying to see the leader's face, trying to catch any detail that could—
His foot found a dry twig.
Crack.
The sound seemed deafening in the silence of the woods.
***
"Freeze!"
The shout tore through the night.
All heads turned in his direction. The night vision goggles—those damn night vision goggles—had already spotted him.
Three tactical lights mounted on rifles blinded him—white light, violent, impossible to sustain.
"Hands up! Now!"
Nathan raised his hands by instinct, his heart pounding in his chest. The notebook and pen he was still holding slipped from his fingers, falling to the ground with a dull thud among the leaves.
No no no no—
"Who are you? What are you doing here?"
Nathan opened his mouth. No sound came out. Fear had closed his throat.
More lights pointed at him. The soldiers approached with weapons drawn and aimed in his direction.
"What the hell! He's just a kid!" said a voice. Surprised. Not exactly hostile.
"Doesn't matter. He saw. He saw everything." The soldiers stopped a few meters away from him and lowered their weapons slightly, and with them the lights. Nathan could finally see their faces, or at least part of them, illuminated by the wormhole's flickering light.
The leader approached. Nathan could see him better now. Complete black tactical clothing, no insignia, no badges. Balaclava covering his face except for the eyes. Those eyes were cold, calculating.
"Step away from the gateway," the leader ordered. His voice was firm, without emotion. "Slowly. Hands where I can see them. No tricks." The soldiers behind the leader moved in sync, aiming their rifles and lights at Nathan again.
Nathan nodded frantically. His legs trembled as he started to move, one step at a time, away from the oak, away from the wormhole.
Stay calm, said The Noise. Do what they tell you. Don't give them a reason to—
"Faster," said another soldier. "Move!"
Nathan quickened his pace. The ground was uneven, covered with wet leaves and hidden roots. The lights blinded him, making it hard to see where to put his feet.
One step. Two. Three.
His left foot found a root.
He didn't see it—he couldn't see it, with the lights pointed in his eyes. He only felt his foot slipping, his ankle giving way, his balance disappearing.
The world rotated.
Nathan fell backward, his arms windmilling in empty space looking for a grip that wasn't there. He saw the starry sky above him, the tree branches, the soldiers' faces shouting something he couldn't hear.
And then he saw the wormhole's edge approaching.
No—
He went through it.
***
There was nothing.
Not darkness—darkness is something. This was the absence of everything. No sound, no light, no sensation. Nathan couldn't feel his own body, his own thoughts, his own—
Air.
There was no air.
Panic exploded in his chest—or where his chest should have been. He tried to breathe and there was nothing to breathe. He tried to scream and there was nothing to scream with.
I'm dying, he realized. I'm dying I'm dying I'm—
But even that thought seemed distant, hazy. Consciousness was dissolving. Nathan felt it slipping away like sand through his fingers.
Images. Fragments. Pieces of a life scrolling before him like a fast-forwarded movie.
His father at the telescope. See that star, Nate? That's Polaris. It never moves.
His mother in the kitchen. I'm proud of you, you know?
Maya in the parking lot. When you talk like that, it feels like everything makes sense.
Mom, Nathan thought, and the thought was the only thing that seemed real. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I didn't tell you.
I'm sorry I was so weak. That I spent two years pretending instead of living. I'm sorry I wasted all that time.
Maya. Her face. Her eyes.
You don't get to decide who bears your weight.
You were right, he thought. You were right and I—
The book. The book he hadn't opened. The book she had bought for him.
I'm sorry.
Consciousness was dissolving. Nathan felt it slipping away, like snow melting in the sun. Soon there would be nothing left. No thoughts, no fear, nothing...
Maya... I should have told you so many things. I should have—
The last thought was of the stars. Of the North Star, fixed and motionless while everything else spun.
There's always a fixed point, his father had said.
But Nathan was falling, and there was nothing to hold onto.
Only the void.
Only the total void.