*"There are many stars in space, big, small, alive, dead — the variations are infinite. But they all have one thing in common: they all illuminate the void, creating what we call... the Universe. You understand, son?"*
---
The darkness was complete. Then, little by little, space revealed itself — an immensity of distant stars and infinite silence.
It was in that silence that she appeared.
A spherical creature, covered in snow-white fur, with a thin tail that swayed elegantly as she flew through space. Her smile was far too wide for such a vast place, and she swayed in the nothingness as if the entire cosmos were her own backyard.
— Wu-lii! — she hummed, happily.
The shadow arrived before the sound.
A large, heavy darkness descended over the creature, swallowing her light. She looked around, confused, her body spinning in search of an explanation.
— Wu-lii? — she murmured, without understanding.
The noise came after — a mechanical, metallic rumble that grew until it made space itself vibrate. And then a colossal block of iron passed like a silent avalanche, pushing the creature and hurling her into the void as if she were a grain of dust.
She spun, tried to steady herself, every strand of fur standing on end from fright.
— Nha! — she protested, finally managing to stabilize her flight. She looked toward the iron with an expression that mixed irritation and disbelief — until the irritation gave way to pure astonishment.
— Oooh... Wu-lii...
The frame widened. There it was: a colossal space colony. A construction that defied any simple adjective — filled with spherical ships circling like bees around an iron hive, gigantic structures connected by corridors and platforms, artificial mini-planets floating in calculated orbits, and everything, everything revolving around an immense metallic core, curved with lines of energy that pulsed like living veins.
A voice echoed through the radio system, warm and false as a salesman's smile:
*— Welcome, cubes! To your stay of indefinite length at the Mother Colony...*
Along the main energy road — a floating thoroughfare that extended in every direction across the colony — spherical guards soared on boards of blue translucent material. Their iron armor was robust, their red visors revealing nothing but obedience.
*— ...a place where there will be fun...*
The voice guided the eye toward a large metal sphere — a facility packed with ship bays. Inside, a long corridor. And along that corridor, row after row of cells with energy bars pulsing between the prisoners.
*— ...safety...*
A spherical camera rotated slowly on the ceiling, sweeping the corridor with its single, indifferent eye.
*— ...and plenty, plenty of... space. A place most truly... inescapable.*
Somewhere in the colony, inside a ship larger than the others, a dark room harbored a secret. The only thing visible was an eye — robotic, red, glowing with a calculated coldness among the shadows.
— So... — said the voice that belonged to that eye. A long pause, like someone savoring the silence. — Enjoy your stay, everyone... Hm-hm-hm-hm...
---
The floating cage flew at high speed across a colossal bridge suspended between two metal pillars. Inside it, a cubic being was slowly regaining consciousness, like someone surfacing from a sea of mud.
He was dark blue. His fur was thick and disheveled. Over his eyes, a pair of inventor's goggles made of copper, with lenses. On top of his head, three tufts of hair in decreasing sizes, like an accidental crown.
— Ugh... my head... — he murmured, trying to focus his blurry vision on his surroundings.
When the outlines of the cage came into focus, the blue cube opened his eyes fully.
— Hm! — He fell backward, startled. — Stacy?! Liam?!
— Wuki?! — he called, looking frantically around. Without thinking, he pressed his hand against the energy bars of the cage.
The shock was instant.
— Ow!! — He recoiled, shaking his fingers. But the fright quickly gave way to something else — a deeper dread, rising from his stomach and tightening his chest. — No... no-no-no... this isn't happening! I-I... hm!
Then came the flashback.
*Him in the air — hands gripping a technological cage.*
Back to the present, breathing with difficulty.
*A robotic red eye, enormous, filling his entire field of vision.*
His breathing grew more uneven.
*A cage pulling away. Inside it, a yellow cube screaming with everything she had.*
— Willy!!!!
Her name tore through the memory like a knife.
— Calm down, Willy... — he said to himself, squeezing his eyes shut. — Focus. Try to focus. You need to focus...
He breathed deeply. Once. Twice.
He opened his eyes.
The blue cube — Willy — looked ahead. The enormous bridge led straight toward a large ship full of bays, with other cages converging from every direction. Wherever that thing was headed, he was certain he did not want to find out.
— Hm! Ok... place I definitely do not want to go.
He looked around carefully, methodically. Up, down, to the sides.
Then he noticed: beneath the upper portion of the cage was a camouflaged panel.
— Hmm... — He stretched, pulled hard. The panel gave way, revealing a tangle of interwoven cables. — Wires! — He looked strangely at it. — Or something like that...
He analyzed the energy bars. He traced the cables with his eyes until he found one, specifically, that was throwing irregular sparks at its entry point.
— Ugh... — An ironic smile spread across his face. — Source of the electricity...
He breathed in. Looked at the wire. Looked at his own hands.
— This is definitely going to hurt...
He grabbed the wire.
The electricity ran through his entire body at once, making every strand of fur stand on end. He trembled, resisted, pulled with all the strength he could muster — and the cable snapped.
Willy fell, every hair standing straight up, smiling in a slightly dazed way.
— Did I do it?
The energy bars of the cage simply dissolved. The upper portion of the structure toppled and was left behind.
— Hm? — He looked to the side, surprised. — I did it? I *actually* did it?
He smiled for real, this time.
---
Meanwhile, a spherical guard passed over the bridge with the numb expression of someone who had made the same route a thousand times over. Elevator music — infuriatingly calm — echoed from somewhere.
Willy walked past him as if nothing had happened.
The guard looked to the side.
Willy looked at the guard, with no expression at all.
Two seconds of total silence.
— Ugh... he noticed, didn't he?
The alarm answered for him.
Willy looked back: three guards were approaching at speed, with that silent, robotic determination of those who know no hesitation.
— Ugh... — He sighed, already running. — Can't even celebrate one thing in life, can I?!
---
Somewhere among the structures above the bridge, a figure watched in silence. Hanging from the beams like a shadow with a triangular shape, she had violet eyes with white pupils that missed nothing. Her gaze followed Willy and the guards with calculated curiosity.
— Hm...
---
Back on the bridge, the chase was heating up. One of the guards brought his board alongside Willy, holding an electrified baton that crackled with barely-contained energy.
— [spherical language]! — he ordered.
— That's... probably... no? — Willy smiled nervously, still running.
The guard roared in fury and swung. He missed Willy by a centimeter — but struck the motorized base of the cage that Willy was still dragging underfoot.
— Ugh... he hit the moootor!!!
The base went into mechanical panic. It accelerated on its own, with no direction, taking Willy along on an absurd and completely uncontrolled run. He held on as best he could, trying to keep his balance as the platform zigzagged between the bridge's pillars.
— Turn-turn-turn-nooooo!
The base ignored all pleas for mercy entirely and collided with the railing at the edge of the bridge, smashing it into pieces that tumbled in a long, frightening fall down an enormous drop.
Willy went with them.
— Aaah-ah-aaaaaah!
He landed on the slope with the base and shot off downward at high speed, every hair standing on end again, trying to maintain some control over the situation.
— Aaah! — An iron pillar appeared ahead. Willy yanked the board, swerving by inches. — Arg! Stop, you weird iron thing!!!!
The base struck a platform just below and catapulted Willy into the air.
He looked down, then to the sides, with the look of someone who had already accepted the inevitable.
— Thanks, weird iron thing...
---
Willy landed at the bottom of a dark alley, among the structures supporting the bridge. Above, shadows. Around him, the constant hum of the colony.
— Ow... — He steadied himself, looked up. — Hm!
Spherical guards were flying past up above, searching. Willy flattened himself against the wall and waited, holding his breath.
They flew straight past.
Willy let the air out slowly.
Then he turned to the side — and stopped.
His inventor's goggles captured the reflections of thousands of lights. He stepped toward the edge of the platform, and what he saw left him without a reaction for a long moment.
The colony opened before him in all its impossible grandeur. Thousands of floating structures, entire sectors spinning in synchrony, ships crossing the space in every direction like steel shooting stars. And far behind it all, gigantic and silent, a planet. Of cubic shape.
Willy slowly lowered himself, leaning his back against the iron pillar, eyes still fixed on that horizon that made no sense at all.
*The city in flames. The ships flying overhead.*
*Stacy being taken in the cage, rising, disappearing.*
*Stacy screaming his name.*
— Stacy... — he whispered.
The silence of the colony answered with the distant rumble of machinery.
— That wasn't a dream — said Willy, more to himself than to anything else. — As crazy as it seems... it's real.
He stood up. Breathed deeply.
— If I ended up here... the others did too. — He looked out at the immensity of the colony with eyes that mixed uncertainty and determination. — I need to find them. But... how?
---
— [spherical language]!
Willy spun around with a startled leap: four spherical guards were advancing toward him.
— Aah!
He backed away without looking where he was stepping — and fell face-first to a level below, landing flat against an iron platform.
— Ugh... my face... — He lifted his head. — Hm!
He ran.
The guards jumped onto the platform after him and activated a feature Willy had definitely not anticipated: they curled into balls and began rolling at high speed, leaving luminous trails behind them like cosmic bowling balls.
— You've got to be kidding!?
Willy reached the edge of the platform and braked, nearly losing his balance. Ahead: a metal plate fell and disintegrated upon touching an invisible force field below.
— Hm!?
The guards spread out, surrounding him. Willy looked to both sides, calculating. Ahead: the force field. To the sides: guards. Behind: more guards.
The electrified batons were activated with a deafening click.
— Haaam...
The guards closed in, slowly, methodically.
— Aah!
---
The white trail arrived before any explanation.
It passed like a bolt of lightning and knocked down the first guard without ceremony. The other three took up positions, alert, scanning the area with their red visors.
— Hm? — The second guard turned his head.
The trail returned. The second guard met the wall with a metallic thud.
The third raised his baton in time. The trail slowed — and revealed itself.
It was a being of triangular shape. Black as the absence of light. With serious violet eyes and white pupils that never seemed to blink.
— What!? — Willy recoiled, staring at it.
The third guard roared and charged. The triangular being positioned itself and ran straight toward him, without swerving. When the baton came down, the being slid *beneath* it along the ground, turned completely white for an instant — and then launched at maximum speed, striking the guard from behind.
The fourth guard trembled.
The triangular being fixed its violet eyes on him. That gaze asked nothing. It simply advanced.
— Aaah! — The guard fired a sequence of guided missiles.
The triangular being stopped running for exactly half a second — and then changed course, weaving between the projectiles while running toward a vertical wall. It climbed the wall as if gravity were merely a suggestion, with the missiles tracking its trail like obedient dogs. At the top, it jumped, spun in midair and plunged back toward the guard, leaving a white trail that sliced through the space between them.
It passed over the guard and kept going.
The guard looked in confusion at the being that had passed right over him without touching him. Then he looked ahead.
The missiles were right there.
The explosion was colorful.
The triangular being walked toward Willy through the smoke without even turning to see the result.
Willy tried to back away and bumped into someone.
It was the triangular being, who had appeared at his side without making a sound.
— Aah-ah-aaaaaah! Wait! I-I-I don't want any trouble!
Without a word, the triangular being tossed something to Willy — a small earpiece.
Willy caught it awkwardly, looking at it strangely.
The triangular being pointed to the side of its own head.
— It's... — Willy didn't move.
— [irritated] [trigonal language]
— Ok-ok-ok! I get it! Just relax...
He put the earpiece in. For an instant, voices in dozens of different languages exploded inside his head all at once, words layered upon words, in a cacophonous and dizzying calibration process.
— Ahm-hm... — Willy smiled in a completely dazed way. — Hehe... words in the sky...
— Hm. Dramatic. — The triangular being was already moving forward.
Willy blinked. He snapped back to normal with an expression of genuine shock.
— Hm! You... *talk*!?
— I talk, I sabotage, I destroy... — The triangular being shot a quick glance at Willy, violet eyes gleaming. — All for the mission.
— Mi-mission? — Willy furrowed his brow, processing. — But... what mis—
The triangular being reappeared at his side from one instant to the next, without warning.
— And you, cube?! — The question was delivered with the same coldness of a technical assessment.
— Aah! — Willy fell backward from fright, again.
— Do you know how to do anything besides talk?
Willy looked at the triangular being without understanding anything. The triangular being looked back at Willy with the expression of someone who had just confirmed a discouraging hypothesis.
— Great. Now it seems you can't even do that.
And it positioned itself, ready to go.
— Whoa-whoa! Wait! — Willy got up quickly. — Where are you going?
— To a safe area. — The triangular being stared at him for a second. — And if I were you... I'd do the same.
And then it vanished — a white trail cutting through the air toward a large distant gate.
Willy stood still. He looked to the side: in the distance, other cages passed by, full of cubes. He looked ahead: the white trail disappeared into the darkness.
He closed his eyes. Thought of Stacy. Thought of Liam. Thought of the red eye in the shadows.
— Arg...
He ran after.
---
Up above, in the vast and indifferent space that surrounded everything, the letters formed like stars:
**BE CUBE COLONY STARS**