Hundreds of years ago, the universe changed in ways no living being could have imagined. A black hole appeared suddenly, a darkness so immense it seemed to swallow not only light but thought itself. Entire universes vanished into its void, their stars collapsing like fragile crystal, their galaxies folding in on themselves as if reality itself had been ripped open. The sound it made could not be heard in any ordinary way. It was a grinding, sucking roar that resonated in the bones and the airless emptiness of space—a noise so deep that even imagining it made the mind shiver.
And then, just as suddenly as it had appeared, it stopped. For centuries it lingered, motionless, consuming nothing, a void that stretched and flattened until it became a bar of unimaginable scale. Wider than hundreds of universes, longer than any distance a mind could track, it drifted silently in the emptiness. Stars reflected faintly on its surface, but the blackness seemed to drink the light instead of returning it. And then one day, that bar split, cutting open the void like a wound.
From the opening poured swarms of flies, countless and terrifying, each one larger than a city, each one hungry for destruction. They moved with a single, unthinking purpose, consuming everything they touched. Planets, moons, entire civilizations—they vanished as if they had never been. Humanity and countless other species could only watch, helpless, as the swarms carved through existence. Generals organized fleets, gods were invoked, but the creatures did not hesitate. The Morningstar had come, and no one could stop the chaos.
I sat cross-legged on the floor of the evacuation tent, staring at my grandfather. He held the book in his hands, the cover worn and cracked, edges fraying from centuries of use. His fingers traced the lines of text as he read aloud, but his voice was calm, almost detached, as if reading about the end of the universe was no more remarkable than reading a weather report. Outside, the wind rattled the tent's thin canvas, carrying the faint scent of scorched rock and fuel from the evacuation ships. Somewhere beyond the planet, the Milky Way swirled in distant brilliance, a glittering spiral that promised danger as much as beauty.
The words spilled from the book: battles fought in the universe called Alop, where my father had once been. The chronicles described entire worlds conquered by demon flies, their civilizations devoured until nothing remained. Planets burned, seas boiled away, and the skies themselves were filled with the buzzing, ceaseless swarms that swept over everything. I had read parts of it before, but hearing my grandfather speak made it different. There was weight in his silence between paragraphs, the kind of quiet that suggested he had lived more than the pages could hold.
"Did… did they survive?" I asked quietly, almost afraid to hear the answer. My voice sounded small in the vastness of the evacuation tent.
Grandfather did not respond. He simply closed the book, letting the leather thud softly against the table beside him. He looked at me, eyes steady and unreadable, and did not say a word. I knew then that some stories were too large, too terrible, to be put into language. Some truths could only be felt in the empty space between sentences, in the silence that followed.
A guard appeared at the edge of the tent, carrying two cups of noodles and a small bowl of rice. The steam curled in thin, white ribbons, warm against the chill of the evening. We ate quietly. The tent smelled of smoke, dried food, and the subtle, metallic tang of tension that never seemed to leave an evacuation site. Outside, the wind shook loose pebbles and small rocks, sending a soft clattering across the barren surface of the planet. Somewhere distant, a starship hummed, its engines vibrating faintly through the ground.
I watched my grandfather eat slowly, almost mechanically. He did not speak. Every so often, his eyes drifted toward the distant spiral of the Milky Way, its arms glittering with countless stars. Beautiful, yes, but every bright cluster marked a battlefield. Every planet a prize that someone, somewhere, had fought over. The galaxy had become a monument to endless struggle, and we were small, fragile creatures trying to survive amidst the ruins of what had been.
I tried to imagine the black hole, the way the universes had been ripped apart. The chronicles described it in stark, simple words, but no language could truly capture the scale of the destruction. It had been a grinding, tearing roar, a noise that bent reality itself. Stars twisted as they were pulled toward the void, galaxies shredded like parchment, and the swarms of flies emerged from the bar-split with a hunger that could not be sated. I pictured it in my mind, the grinding, the sucking, the endless swallowing. It was terrifying, and yet it was part of our history it is a history that had shaped my family, my world, and every life that had come after.
The evacuation tent was quiet now. Children had fallen asleep on mats, their small bodies curled against blankets. Families clustered together, sharing warmth and the small comforts they could carry. I took another sip of the noodles' broth. It was warm, grounding, a tiny anchor in the midst of all the chaos the universe had seen. I could feel my grandfather's gaze on me, patient and heavy with memory, though he did not speak. The silence was complete, and I found myself leaning into it, letting it fill the spaces in my mind.
Outside, the planet stretched bare and silent. Craters pocked the surface like scars, and distant rocks shimmered faintly in the light from the evacuation ships. Somewhere, far beyond the Milky Way, untouched universes waited, whole and silent, their stars bright but unseen. But here, in this place, we were just small fragments of life, huddled together, surviving against odds so vast they were almost meaningless. And yet we survived. We ate, we breathed, we listened, and we remembered.
Grandfather opened the book again, flipping carefully through the pages, each worn crease speaking of years of study, of stories repeated until they were almost ritual. The words described more battles, more lost universes, more swarms of demon flies consuming everything. Yet he read without emotion, as if stating the facts of existence were enough. I watched him, the way his eyes traced the lines, the slight tension in his shoulders, and I realized that even when life seemed endless and brutal, even when the universe had thrown everything into chaos, the act of remembering and of passing the story down—was itself a kind of defiance.
I did not ask another question. I did not want the silence broken, nor the stories tampered with by my own impatience. I finished my noodles slowly, listening to the soft scratching of utensils against the cups, to the whisper of wind over canvas, to the far-off hum of engines. Outside, the stars gleamed cold and indifferent, their brilliance marking nothing but the passage of time.
And in that quiet, I understood that the universe was vast, dangerous, and relentless. But here, in the tent, listening to my grandfather, eating the simple warmth of noodles and rice, I felt a fragile, stubborn thread of life. A thread that stretched back through wars, through swarms, through universes lost to the black hole. A thread that carried memory, survival, and the weight of all who had lived and fallen.