When Nhilly's eyes fluttered open, he was no longer in the car. He drifted weightlessly in a realm that defied comprehension. His body was frozen, completely unable to move, tethered to nothing but the vast, endless expanse around him.
The cold was unlike anything he had ever experienced. It pierced through his skin, sank into his bones, and gnawed at the very core of him. Every breath was a blade of frost, as if ice itself forced its way into his lungs. His limbs ached as though the atmosphere, if it could be called that, was intent on stripping every ember of warmth from his body. The cold was not just outside him. It had invaded him, lodged deep in his veins, inescapable.
And yet, in that suffocating freeze, there was beauty.
The place was dark, oppressively so, but not empty. The air itself shimmered with disembodied lights; dots of brilliance scattered across the void like ancient stars. They flickered in strange, unearthly constellations, as though obeying laws unknown to mankind, their purpose only to exist in an eternal, unmoving stillness.
The beauty was haunting.
There was no ground, no horizon, no end—only sprawling darkness broken by the flicker of far-off cosmic lights. The silence was total, oppressive, perfect. No wind. No sound. Only Nhilly's pounding heart and the frozen sharpness of his mind, trapped between awe and terror. He felt insignificant here, a speck of dust before infinity.
But somewhere deep inside, beneath the fear and the cold, something stirred. A truth settled in him with quiet finality.
He was here.
He had arrived.
So this is Yarion's front desk, he thought. Could've at least put out a chair.
His jaw wouldn't move. His lungs dragged in ice and gave him back knives. Words wouldn't come, so he settled for the smallest act of defiance he had left: he looked.
The void answered anyway.
From the endless dark emerged a towering figure, draped in a cloak of deep purple. Its hood concealed where a face should be, but when Nhilly looked closer, there was nothing—only a hollow void, swallowing what little light dared to near it.
It did not speak aloud. Its words bloomed directly inside Nhilly's mind, heavy and absolute:
Would you like to receive your Star?
Ah, he thought. Straight to paperwork.
If he'd had control of his mouth, he might have tried a joke. Might have asked if refusing meant he got to sleep through the rest of eternity. Instead, his thoughts did the talking where his lips couldn't.
A choice, then. At least pretend there is one.
He'd heard the stories his whole life—Returnees standing on stages, talking about the moment they got their Stars with eyes that never quite focused on the crowd. None of them ever said no in those stories. Maybe some had, back before anyone knew what this was. Before the world learned to build lecture slides about it.
What would you even say?
No thanks, I'd rather stay a ghost?
Some thin, bitter part of him wanted to laugh. He was already disappearing back on Earth. Here, at least, something was offering to remember him. Even if it was a system that treated human lives like dice.
Hope didn't surge in him. It crept. Small. Mean. Stubborn.
Maybe, just this once, he wouldn't draw the worst lot. Maybe he wouldn't be "nothing" over here as well. Black Hole was a fantasy; even Neutron felt like a joke. But something… sharp. Something that didn't make him a bystander in his own story.
His throat burned as if he were forcing words through ice. When sound finally scraped out of him, it was low and hoarse.
"…If I say no," he managed, "you just let me float here forever?"
The figure did not move.
All Dissapants are offered a Star.
The answer slid into his mind like a statement of weather, not mercy. Not threat.
Refusal is permitted.
Refusal is rarely chosen.
Of course it is, he thought. People will gamble on anything if the alternative is nothing.
Silence stretched. The cold bit deeper. His heart thudded, steady and small in all that space.
"Fine," Nhilly said, the word barely more than a breath. "Give me something I can use."
It wasn't a plea. Not quite. More like a signed form.
The cloaked figure raised a hand. Its next words resounded in his mind, stamped with a finality that didn't care what he wanted:
Nihilus has received the Poor Man's Gravity Star.
Rank: Nebula.
The words didn't just echo in his thoughts—they branded themselves into his very being. A sudden pressure pressed down on him, like the weight of an unseen planet anchoring him to existence. His frozen body shuddered as if the void itself bent ever so slightly around him.
Poor Man's Gravity.
Of course, he thought numbly. Even my miracle sounds broke.
For a fleeting second, he thought he could feel gravity itself ripple, tugging at the edge of his skin, heavier and lighter all at once. A phantom force brushed past him, subtle yet undeniable, like a thread tying him to the stars above.
Then it was gone—quiet, invisible—but he knew it hadn't left. It was there now, coiled within him, waiting.
Nhilly gasped, lungs dragging in the icy air as though he had been reborn. The stars around him flickered faintly in response, constellations shivering before returning to stillness.
He clutched at his chest, his heart hammering. He had nothing before, and now…
Now he carried a Star.