# CHAPTER 4 :- MYSTERIOUS SOMEONE
The main lab was in chaos.
Alarms blinked. Consoles flickered. Fingers flew over keyboards like frantic machines—yet no one had a solution. No command could override what had already begun.
The gravitational pull of the black hole… it was unlike anything they had anticipated. Raw. Unstoppable.
And then—the line with Kavya cut out.
That was bad.
But what came next was worse.
They couldn't even track her spacecraft anymore.
She had vanished.
Swallowed by the void.
Silence fell over the lab like a blanket of lead. No one moved. No one spoke. The blinking monitors, the whirring machines—it all felt distant now. Powerless.
No one dared to meet each other's eyes.
Harish Soni stood off to the side, his hand pressed against the cold wall as if trying to ground himself in reality.
Then—
BANG!
He slammed his fist into the wall, the sound exploding through the silence like a gunshot.
"Damn it…" he muttered, his voice raw with helplessness.
Inside the Singularity Probe, warning sirens howled.
Kavya Chandan wrestled the controls, but the craft lurched and shuddered under forces no simulator had ever dared to model. The black hole's pull was brutal—an invisible fist crushing metal and will alike.
Hairline fractures spread across the cockpit window like frost.
"The hull's giving way… I can see the cracks."
A sharp hiss of escaping air cut through the alarms. Red indicators flashed: OXYGEN SUPPLY CRITICAL. She glanced at the emergency canister locker—empty. Too late to matter.
"Even if I had spare O₂… what good would it do? "she thought, sweat beading on her brow despite the freezing cabin.
A deep groan vibrated through the frame as a side panel tore free, spinning into the void. The probe's structure was splintering—seconds from total collapse.
"I chose this mission… but I still fear dying…" She tasted iron in her teeth, jaw clenched. "If I had one chance to turn back, I would take it— but there's no turning point now."
Her visor display flickered, glitching between static and star‑long blurs.
She felt the craft's last bolts shear off.
Kavya's eyes stung with tears she couldn't wipe away.
"Mother… Father… If you were still alive, I'd never have taken this mission. I'm… I'm coming to you."
The spacecraft ripped apart—metal petals peeling into the swirling dark. Wind rushed out with a deafening roar, then silence.
Kavya tumbled free, weightless, adrift in an endless black void.
The last fragment of hull drifted past her visor. Beyond it, only the impossible swirling darkness of V‑9: Shunya.
And then, the universe swallowed her whole.
Kavya Chandan was free-falling.
Her body floated weightless in the black void, ripped away from what remained of her shattered spacecraft. Her helmet had started to fracture—thin, delicate cracks forming like spiderwebs across the visor.
Tears streamed down her face, but in space, they didn't fall. They hovered—small, glimmering orbs—floating inside her helmet like frozen stars.
Her breathing grew shallow. Her eyes fluttered.
She was losing consciousness.
"Just one last memory... If I could hold onto something—let it be that day. That one beautiful day... Shopping with Mom and Dad."
***
"Kavya! Don't run on the mall floor, you'll fall!"
A woman in her mid-twenties called out, her voice ringing through the bright corridors of a shopping mall. She wore a red shirt and blue jeans, her long black hair bouncing behind her as she hurried after her daughter.
Little Kavya, no older than twelve, dashed ahead in a short blue skirt and a pink shirt, her tiny straw hat tilted slightly as she giggled.
Just as she slipped near the food court, a tall man with short black hair and a neat shave caught her mid-fall—his arms strong and warm.
"Now now," he chuckled, lifting her up with ease. "I caught you just in time, you mischievous little rocket."
Kavya laughed out loud, wrapping her arms around his neck. "Papa!"
Her mother finally caught up, a little out of breath but smiling through her frustration.
"She's getting more mischievous every day," she said, brushing a few strands of hair behind her ear. "Alright, enough fun. Let's go home now."
Little Kavya pouted. "Nooo... not yet! Just a little longer!"
Her mother's tone sharpened. "We're leaving. Now."
Kavya's eyes welled up as she whined, "No no no, I wanna stay!"
Her dad chuckled and placed a gentle hand on her head. "Alright, how about we grab something to eat before heading home?"
Her mother sighed with exaggerated exhaustion. "Ugh... both daughter and father are impossible."
Kavya stuck out her tongue at her mom, teasing with playful rebellion.
Her mother squinted at her. "You little—"
Darkness.
Her body drifted further into the abyss.
The memory dissolved like mist.
But that small, innocent smile—that one last warmth—
It lingered just a little longer.
Kavya Chandan floated helplessly in the black void—no ship, no control, just her fragile body trapped in a collapsing reality.
Her limbs twitched uncontrollably.
Her arms felt like they were being pulled from their sockets, the force stretching her body as if it were made of rubber. Her chest ached—like her ribs were grinding against each other, compressing, then expanding.
The pain was unbearable.
Her helmet cracked further, tiny lines webbing across the visor like ice on glass.
"My bones… they're going to snap…"
She screamed—but no sound escaped her mouth.
Her tears floated, suspended around her cheeks, as if mocking the last remnants of her humanity.
Her body… was breaking.
Her fingers stretched unnaturally. Her skin felt like it was being peeled away by invisible knives. She couldn't move, couldn't breathe.
"Is this what it feels like to die in a black hole?"
Her heartbeat slowed.
Her vision flickered—darkness clouding the edges of her sight like ink spilling through water.
Then… just before the pain consumed her completely—
That's when she saw it.
Just before her eyes shut completely…
Something shimmered in the distance.
Through the blur of her cracked helmet—through tears, pain, and fading light—Kavya saw a shape.
Someone... or something... standing on a floating platform of some kind. It hovered like a piece of reality that didn't belong here—impossible geometry against the backdrop of a collapsing void.
The figure stood still, draped in something flowing—impossible to tell what. Light warped strangely around him, as if space bent to his presence.
Then—movement.
He stepped forward.
Not walking—but gliding slowly across the void, as if gravity meant nothing.
Her vision blurred. Her limbs felt numb.
"Am I... Still alive?"
"Am I… hallucinating?"
The figure reached out. His hand extended.
And then—
Everything stopped.
He grabbed her wrist.
The cold vacuum, the tearing pain, the unbearable pressure—
Vanished.
Weight returned. Air filled her lungs.
The black void faded.
And so did she.
And just like that, she vanished from the world she once knew…
Kavya Chandan — The Lost Astronaut.
End of Volume 1: THE LAST GOODBYE
[AUTHOR'S NOTE:- Chapter 5 is on the way coming very soon.....be ready for volume 2]