THE FIRST RIPPLES
The universe was never meant to be perfect.
A long time ago—by human standards at least—there was nothing. No stars. No dust. No galaxies spinning in slow motion across an infinite canvas. It was a vast emptiness. A vacuum so deep, so absolute, that nothing could exist within it. Yet, something did. Something quiet. Something imperfect.
It began, like all things do, with a disturbance. Not an explosion, not a roar, but the slightest of ripples. A shiver across the fabric of nothingness, so small that even the emptiness could barely recognize it. Yet it was enough to unravel a cosmos.
From that ripple, stars were born. But they weren't perfect. Their light flickered before it burned. Their trajectories were off, wobbly, as if the very laws that governed their paths had no solid footing. They lived—burned bright for a time, then crumbled into black holes, their light forever lost. Not because they failed, but because imperfection was simply part of their nature.
In the vast stretch of the universe, on a small, aging planet orbiting a dying star, there was a city—almost forgotten in the shadow of a million cosmic tragedies. It was a city of metal and glass, high-rise structures that reached toward the heavens but never seemed to quite touch them. The inhabitants called it Terra Nox, though it was never night here, only the perpetual twilight of a world suspended between the unknown and the inevitable.
The people of Terra Nox lived under the weight of a sky that should have been perfect but was not. The planet's orbit had shifted years ago—only slightly, but it was enough. The days were now irregular, the seasons warped, creating a landscape where time itself seemed to bend. It was the first sign that their world was doomed to imperfection.
At the center of the city stood a massive observatory, its telescope aimed at a distant star—a star that had long ago burned itself out, but whose light still reached them after eons. The scientists here, pale and drawn, stared at the star through that ancient lens. They were looking for something. They weren't sure what. Some called it hope. Others, an answer. But the truth was, they were just looking for order in a universe that offered none.
In the observatory's shadow, a young woman named Karis stood on the balcony, her gaze tracing the horizon, where the last of the day's light clung to the jagged skyline. Her face, pale and freckled, reflected a quiet curiosity that didn't match her surroundings. To most, she seemed out of place. But Karis knew she belonged in this city, this world, even if it was crumbling around her.
She had never believed in fate, not in the way the ancient texts spoke of it. But as a child, she'd watched the stars die, one by one, and wondered if they, too, had once believed in something. Or maybe they just burned because that was what they were meant to do.
"Any change?" a voice asked, pulling her from her thoughts.
She turned. It was Erik, her older brother. Though he shared her freckled face, his expression was sharper, harder. The years had made him something of a cynic, whereas Karis had always held on to the quiet belief that the universe was somehow still waiting for its purpose to unfold.
"Nothing," she said, her voice barely rising above a whisper. "It's just the same. The light is still there, but it's... wrong. It's not the same as it once was."
Erik stepped beside her, his eyes scanning the star-strewn sky. "It's never the same, Karis. It never was. The universe doesn't care about perfection." His words were blunt, unfeeling, a stark contrast to the quiet optimism that Karis clung to.
"But why not?" Karis asked, her fingers curling around the cold iron railing. "What's the point of all this—if it's just a mistake?"
"A mistake?" Erik chuckled, the sound hollow in the air. "You're looking for meaning in a place that never had any. We're nothing more than a byproduct of cosmic accidents. The universe didn't make us on purpose. It just... happened."
"But why?" Karis repeated. "Why are we here? Why is the world falling apart, and yet we still exist? There's got to be something more."
Erik sighed, turning away to lean against the railing. "Maybe. Or maybe the universe isn't some grand story. Maybe it's just a series of mistakes that led to us, and one day, we'll be another mistake that fades away."
Karis watched him, unsure whether to argue or to accept his words as truth. The stars blinked in and out of existence above them, each one a tiny flame in the void. Each one an imperfection.
Across the city, in the hollowed-out archives of a forgotten library, an old man sat hunched over a cracked tablet, his fingers trembling as he traced symbols on the surface. He was the last of the historians, the last who remembered the ancient texts. Most had forgotten, or perhaps chosen to forget, the lessons hidden in the stories of the past.
He muttered to himself, voice hoarse, the words ancient and heavy. "We were born of the void. Our ancestors believed the stars would guide us, that they had a plan. But the stars were never meant to be our guides. The cosmos doesn't make sense. It doesn't care. It is only in its nature to be flawed."
The old man paused, as if sensing the presence of something unseen. But there was no one there.
He continued. "The first ripple—the first mistake—the error that shattered the stillness of eternity. From that error, everything was born. And from that error, everything will die. We are but echoes in the chaos."
Karis stood at the edge of the city, staring out at the ruined landscape beyond. Her brother's words echoed in her mind, but she refused to accept them. She had never believed that the universe was a mere series of accidents. Not because she knew the answer—she didn't. But because there had to be more to it. There had to be a reason that everything was imperfect, even if it wasn't clear yet.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, the stars above twinkled into view. They seemed to flicker in time with her heartbeat.
The universe, like her city, was imperfect. But in that imperfection, there was beauty. And maybe—just maybe—there was hope.