Outer space.
When the life-support pod's alarm tore through the silence for the third time, Wildfire's knuckles had already pinched white marks into the edge of the console.
The scene beyond the porthole had long since strayed beyond the records of any star chart.
The azure Orion spiral arm should have spread like silk, but now it looked like a sheet of paper crumpled by a mischievous child. Nebula clouds twisted into bizarre spirals in the void, sometimes freezing like amber, sometimes turning into liquid waterfalls of light that cascaded down and splashed fleeting spots of radiance across the observation screen.
"Coordinates lost. Gravitational parameters fluctuating abnormally."
The AI's electronic voice carried an unusual stutter. Wildfire turned toward the copilot's seat, only to meet an unfamiliar face.
It was Old Chen, the engineer who had died in an accident at Alpha Space Station three months ago. Cooling fluid stains from that day still marked his uniform collar. He held half an unfinished compressed biscuit, the curve of his lips frozen at the final moment before his death.
"Xiao Ye, try this new fla—" Old Chen's voice caught on the final word. His entire body suddenly shattered like broken glass, turning into countless flickering particles that melted into the cabin wall.
Wildfire gripped his safety belt hard, only to discover that his palm was passing through the console's metal shell. What his fingertips touched was not cold alloy, but the bark of the parasol tree in his childhood backyard when he was ten.
Afternoon sunlight filtered through the leaves and fell across the back of his hand. In the distance came his mother's voice calling him home for dinner.
The cracks in spacetime were spreading from the Star-Devouring Beast's feeding point toward every corner of the universe.
In the Karen Galaxy,