Chapter One - The Whispering Sky
Night stretched over the city, and the stars were scattered like diamonds in a black cloth.
On the roof of a modest house in a slum, Elias lay.
His thick, dark hair fell over his forehead like a night scarf, and his blue eyes gazed at the sky with a strange clarity, like a mirror reflecting the light of the stars themselves. His face was serene, finely sculpted, with sharp features yet brimming with a quiet beauty, as if fate had carefully shaped him for a journey yet to begin.
Elias was not like others of his peers; his childhood as an orphan had shaped his soul, making him more silent and wise. He was not a man of many words, preferring listening and contemplation to idle chatter. He had more questions than answers, and on that particular night, they were racing through his mind:
The approaching university exam, his part-time job that barely made ends meet, his unknown future...
He raised his eyes to the sky and whispered to himself:
"Could there be something beyond this waiting for me?"
Suddenly...
The sky trembled with a dazzling light, as if a star had been reborn before his eyes.
He felt his body glow from within, as if sacred fires were surging through his veins. Pain pierced his being, nearly tearing him apart. He fell to his knees, panting, but his eyes remained open to the sky.
Then came the voice.
It didn't come from any specific place; it was as if the earth, the air, and the sky all spoke at once:
"O children of Earth... the final countdown has begun. Prepare for the new dawn."
Silence fell.
In a flash, people began to disappear. One by one, as if an invisible thread was pulling them out of existence. The streets, the houses, even the voices faded away. Only the echo of awe remained.
Then the sky opened up to a scene beyond imagination.
Bodyscapes and worlds blended together, as if the universe were blending distant paintings into one immense canvas. He saw planets swallowing continents, stars bending toward a new horizon, and his tiny Earth cracking and melting into a grander world, one millions of times its size.
The final scene was the birth of a new universe.
The Earth was no longer Earth. It had melted into that vast cosmic sea.
… When Elias opened his eyes again, he found himself not in his city, nor even on a planet he knew.
He stood in the middle of an endless forest, its trees so gigantic they seemed to touch the clouds. Its air was strange, alive, whispering in a language he had never heard before.
His breath quickened.
This was not a dream.
He had been transported to another world.