March 6th, 2027. Deep orbit, en route to the outer satellite loop. Aboard the S.S. Horizon V, the fifth commercial spaceflight to ever ferry civilians into the stars.
For most, this trip was the culmination of generations of dreaming. A chance to see Earth from above, touch the stars, and return with stories no one else could tell. For Kiran Ren, it was an escape. A question. A plea to the universe.
Eighteen years old, days from graduating high school, and utterly lost.
He sat alone in the cafeteria, tray untouched, staring through the massive observation dome. Earth loomed below like a marbled sphere—blue, white, green. Beautiful. Fragile. Alone.
Kiran looked the way you'd expect from someone who'd been forced to survive, but never allowed to shine. Light tan skin, the kind you got from walking to school every day under a tired sun. Sharp blue eyes that flicked from person to person, rarely lingering long enough to invite conversation. Hair the color of burned walnut—thick, stubborn, and often a little messy no matter how carefully he combed it. His frame was athletic but wiry, a product of long walks, restless nights, and quiet training. He carried himself with an odd balance—neither hunched nor proud, as if he expected the world to ignore him and had learned to return the favor.
He wasn't unattractive. In fact, objectively speaking, he was above average—in both looks and intellect. But no one cared to see it. Society didn't reward muted excellence wrapped in secondhand jackets and shoes a half-size too small. They saw what he lacked: money, status, a future. That was enough to dismiss everything else.
He didn't mind being overlooked—not really. It gave him room to think. To observe. Kiran had always been good at reading a room, mapping social tension like radar. He knew how to stay invisible when he wanted to be. And sometimes, when he was feeling reckless, he'd say just enough to be noticed, then disappear before they could form an opinion.
But lately, even those little games had lost their appeal.
His whole life had been a string of failures and misfortune. His parents—dead in a war he barely remembered. The foster system—cold, overcrowded, impersonal. His intelligence—undeniable, yet irrelevant when the lights at home didn't always work. No one looked at him and saw a genius. They saw poverty. They saw baggage. They saw a future dropout.
But he wasn't just a victim of the system. Kiran had always been... aware. Sharp. Adaptable. When others grew bitter, he stayed watchful. When there was nothing to rely on, he built routines to give his days meaning. And when his world offered no place of comfort, he made one.
He fiddled absentmindedly with the cuff of his jacket—a black, asymmetrical piece he'd stitched together from the remnants of a windbreaker and the inner lining of a broken school backpack. The zippers were mismatched, but the seams were precise. Even the reinforced cuffs had a quiet elegance, designed for utility but cut with intent.
Tailoring had started as a necessity. A broken belt loop here, a sleeve torn during a fight there. But over time, it became something else. Not passion, exactly, but presence. A quiet form of self-assertion. In a world that refused to see him, altering clothes gave him the power to reshape what they did see.
He remembered sneaking into donation bins, fishing out discarded clothing that didn't fit anyone. He'd cut, resew, reshape. What began as a patchwork necessity grew into a quiet talent. Somewhere in the quiet hours between secondhand textbooks and community center microwaves, a dream had taken root.
There was a period—short, but bright—where he sketched logos in the margins of his notebooks, practiced brand names under his breath, and imagined a future where his designs weren't just one-offs made in secret but worn by people who mattered. He posted his work online. Two people bought his clothes. One of them left a review.
"This fits like it was made for me."
Kiran had stared at that message for hours. Saved it. Reread it. It was the only time something he did felt like it left a mark.
But starting a clothing brand isn't cheap—and for an orphan who could barely eat every day, it was an unclimbable wall. So, while he still altered and fixed clothes to make some money, he gave up on his dream of owning a brand once he was old enough to understand the realities of life.
Eventually, the sketches stopped. The uploads ended. The dream dimmed.
But the stitches remained.
Even now, drifting in the vast silence above Earth, he carried a folded piece of graph paper in the inside pocket of his jacket. On it were designs he no longer expected anyone to wear.
He sighed and leaned back in his chair.
"Do you want to know something?"
Kiran blinked. A kid—maybe ten years old—had appeared next to him out of nowhere, short legs dangling off the seat.
"Uh… sure?"
The boy grinned. "If the sun exploded right now, we wouldn't know for five minutes. That's how long it takes the light to get here."
Kiran raised an eyebrow. "Cool, I guess?"
But when he turned back to respond fully, the boy was gone.
Kiran's brow furrowed. He looked around. No sign of the kid. No footsteps. No doors opening. Nothing.
Trying to shake off the chill crawling up his spine, Kiran stood and made his way back to his cabin. He needed sleep. Maybe more than that, he needed silence.
The room was plain: reinforced windows, a narrow cot, and the hum of recycled air. He stared out the window, watching the curve of Earth.
So small.
So pitiful.
Just like me, he thought.
He sighed and lay down, eyes fixed on the planet below. For a moment, he tried to imagine what it would be like to stand up there looking down—not from a ship, but from a position of power. Someone important. Someone with a legacy.
But his imagination failed him.
Maybe space would give him answers. Or maybe it would just confirm what he already suspected:
There was no place for people like him.
Sleep came quickly.
Beep! Beep! Beep!
A blaring siren shattered his dreams.
"Attention all passengers! Return to your cabins and await further instructions!"
Kiran sat up, heart pounding.
Another alarm wailed. Then another. The emergency lights strobed red. He staggered to the window and what he saw made his blood run cold.
Earth—once blue and green—was now a cracked, seething sphere of red and black.
He blinked.
No. That couldn't be right.
He rubbed his eyes, looked again.
Still red. Still black. Still... wrong.
The planet looked scorched. Charred. Like it had been stripped of life in an instant.
He bolted out of his room, feet pounding against the floor as he sprinted down the corridor. His mind was already racing toward the one place that might hold answers—the captain's cabin.
Captain Ryden had known his father. They served together. The only reason Kiran had been able to afford this trip was because of him. If anyone knew what was happening, it was Ryden.
He reached the door. It was slightly ajar. Inside, the captain was hunched over a terminal, his fingers trembling as he typed, screens flashing red warnings.
"Captain!" Kiran gasped. "What's going on?"
The man didn't respond.
"Captain!"
Only after the third shout did the man turn.
"The pressure and temperature outside the ship—" he said, voice hoarse, "they've spiked beyond anything we've recorded. But I don't know what caused it. It's like the whole solar system is collapsing in on itself."
Then—
Light.
So much light it blinded them both. A sound followed, a deep groan of the universe tearing open.
They turned toward the observation window just in time to see it:
The sun... gone.
In its place: fire, wreckage, a torrent of light and matter streaming outward in a massive shockwave. Fragments of Mercury, Venus—maybe even Mars—spinning like shrapnel. A beam of burning plasma heading straight for them.
Kiran couldn't move. He could only think one thing:
"I guess that kid was wrong."
The impact hit like a god's hammer.
A sharp pain split his vision as a jagged piece of asteroid pierced the ship. The master console shattered. The window burst open. Kiran saw the world twist—and then everything went black.
Status: Kiran Ren – Deceased
____________________________________
A moment of nothing.
Then wind.
Cold, dry, furious wind.
Kiran opened his eyes.
He was falling.
Not in space.
From the sky.
Thousands of feet above a vast, sunlit wasteland. His body tumbled through the clouds. He screamed—raw, primal, hopeless.
The ground rushed up to meet him.
Boom.