March 14, 2025 — Mahalangur Himal Observatory, Nepal
04:08 AM
The metal decks of the observatory groaned quietly, as if the mountain exhaling its own gravity. Lina Qureshi sat in Dome 3, hair pulled back into a tangled knot, a container of instant coffee growing cold in her shaking hand. She refreshed the data repeatedly, each successive decimal cutting into what little composure she had remaining.
Outside, Helios-B climbed higher every morning, a pale, accusing eye above the Himalayas. It looked less like a sunrise and more like an interrogation lamp trained straight at Earth, questioning every choice humans had ever made.
Lina leaned her forehead against the glass. Her breath fogged a small, imperfect circle.
"Stay in place. please," she muttered, her voice sounding much smaller than she meant.
---
March 14, 2025 — Dome 3 break room
She shuffled into the small break room, her slippers squeaking like miniature mice. The walls were covered in printed memes, pinned sticky notes, a couple of half-faded polaroids of former researchers, futile efforts to render this icy metal tomb human.
She tapped her wristband and dialed her mother. The signal fluctuated, flickered, and at last her mother's round, perpetually animated face appeared, bordered by a hijab splattered with bright sunflower prints.
"Lina beta! You resemble a skeleton with dark circles! Didn't you eat again?" her mother snapped before Lina could even greet her.
Lina snorted, releasing a laugh that sounded more like a pressure valve exploding.
"Ammi, it's difficult to think of parathas when the sun is behaving like it has an existential crisis."
Her mother scoffed, eyeing her suspiciously.
"You always speak as if you're addressing a conference hall! Eat something! Or I will personally get up there and force-feed you."
Lina grinned, reclining.
"Ammi, you can't even walk up the market stairs without using your inhaler. You intend to climb half of Nepal to deliver me roti personally?"
Her mother's eyes sparkled with feigned threat.
"Don't dare me. I bore you, I can out-climb Everest if necessary."
They both burst into laughter. And for those brief moments, it seemed as if the universe stalled, the behemoth sun outside being ignored.
Her mother's voice became gentler.
"Be safe, my moon. Promise me you won't let your brain outrun your heart."
Lina touched her fingers to the screen, blinking rapidly.
"I promise, Ammi. Always."
---
March 15, 2025 — Geneva, UNSA High-Level Emergency Briefing
07:45 AM
The air in the bunker was heavy with antiseptic and tension. Lina's hologram hovered over the conference table, her sunken eyes still defiant.
Director Matsuo spoke barely above a whisper.
"How many weeks until ecosystems collapse?"
Lina gasped.
"At best, weeks to months until agriculture begins to fail worldwide. We already have strange shifts in jet streams, unexplained tidal surges. The longer Helios-B lingers, the more dominoes fall one by one."
A Senior Officer stood up, almost spilling his water.
"Then we require mass shelters! Shields! Evacuations!"
Lina's eyes cut like a scalpel.
"Are you going to lecture the sun into obedience? Tell it to become dim politely?"
Silence engulfed the room completely. Even the hum of the ventilation seemed to subside.
---
March 16, 2025 — Mahalangur Himal Observatory
05:12 AM
Lina wrapped herself in a chair, knees drawn up tight against her chest. The second dawn rose once more, shrouding the mountain ridges in cold blue like an otherworldly ocean tide.
Her tablet pulsed with a deluge of messages:
"New reports of coastal flooding."
"Auroras reported as far south as Mumbai."
"Saturn ring anomalies registered."
Each ping was like the tolling of a funeral bell for the planet.
She looked at her comm again, hoping maybe her mother would call. Static.
She let it fall on the table, hiding her face in her arms.
"We always thought the sky was ours," she said into the blackness. "Turns out, it never really was."