[Crawling Out]
In the summer of the year 15983, the solar system was in an uproar over a looming crisis.
It was two days ago that the Solar System Federation made the announcement from its headquarters on Titan, Saturn's sixth moon. Another universe was breaking through the dimensional barrier and heading toward a collision with our own universe — the very cosmos we call home.
Three thousand years ago, dimensional barriers were scientifically proven to exist, and since then countless researchers had built upon that work, ultimately confirming the existence of other universes as well.
Yet none of that had ever touched daily life, and I myself had never given it much thought.
But two days ago, reality had been thrust in our faces. An unimaginable catastrophe — a collision of universes — was bearing down on us.
And then events took a turn that even I, even all of humanity, had never anticipated.
The multiverse itself, they said, was on a collision course with another multiverse.
It was only natural that the Solar System Federation's announcement sent shockwaves through the solar system's one hundred trillion inhabitants.
The multiverse — an immense cosmos containing multiple universes within it — was about to collide with another of its kind. Across all fields of science, from physics to quantum theory, nothing on that scale had ever occurred before, and no one had the faintest idea what to expect or what it would mean.
I too had my home in one of the billions of massive colonies, and while people around me were already evacuating, I noticed, strangely, that I myself felt little urgency. The scale of it all was simply too vast — I had no grasp of what was happening or what was coming.
Even so, within a few days of the announcement, I would be forced to confront a reality I could no longer hold at arm's length.
Something enormous happened.
One morning, as I — an engineer by trade — made my way toward the elevator that would take me down to the colony's drive section, a woman's scream jolted me out of my half-awake haze as if I'd been struck.
I rushed over with the other nearby residents to see what was wrong, and there I found a young student pinned down by a black figure, its hands clamped around her ankles.
On instinct, I hurled the bag I was carrying at it, trying to drive it back. But the bag passed straight through the black shape, as if it were not there.
Then from behind me came a man's startled cry. I spun around to see a black figure climbing up over the body of a middle-aged man, crawling its way up him.
I understood at once that it was shaped like a person.
I stood there, frozen, unable to make sense of any of it — and then one of those black, human-shaped things came crawling toward me across the ground at my feet.
I kicked out at it and broke away, putting distance between us.
I had only run a short way when the familiar surroundings around me suddenly transformed. The colony, which should have been lined with buildings of steel and concrete, became something else entirely — a place that looked like the inside of a human body, slick and glistening, coated in a red viscous fluid.
I nearly screamed — and then, before me, appeared a figure that turned my blood cold. Its entire body was impaled with steel spikes. Black belt-like restraints were wound around every inch of it. Its eyes had been gouged out, and blood dripped steadily from the empty sockets. It was a vision of pure horror.
I cried out and tried to flee. But I couldn't move. My body was locked in place, as if seized by some invisible force. The ghastly figure crept toward me with a wet, sticky sound, and when it pressed itself against me, it bared the only exposed part of its face — blackened, filthy teeth — and sank them into my cheek.
The pain was unbearable. I screamed as those teeth tore a chunk of flesh from my cheek, and I watched my own blood spray before my eyes.
Then the creature's mouth found my throat.
With a searing burst of agony, I lost consciousness.
The multiverse. A place where another branch of humanity had evolved and lived.
[Crawling Out] — End