The Moon always appears silent from Earth.
But from its surface, that silence has weight—a soundless pressure that clings to the chest, heavier than the vacuum itself.
Louri Gavian stood at the edge of a crater's shadow, his astronaut boots embedded in gray dust that had never known rain, wind, or prayer. In the distance, the Sun hung without blinking, unmoving, as if time itself had forgotten how to walk.
The instruments on his wrist blinked steadily. Oxygen normal. Pressure safe. Heart rate controlled. Every law functioned exactly as it should.
And precisely because of that, he felt uneasy.
"No anomalies," he muttered behind his helmet. His voice returned to him alone, flat, sterile.
In training, they were taught one thing that was never written in any manual:
when everything looks normal, that is when something is waiting.
He knelt, brushing away dust with his gloved hand. That was when the gravity sensor in his mapping equipment gave a brief vibration—too brief to be called an error, too precise to be ignored.
Beneath the regolith, something reflected light not toward the Sun, but toward him.
Louri stopped breathing for a fraction of a second. Not from panic—but because his mind was trying to confirm that what he saw still belonged to the domain of reality.
He dug carefully.
The object emerged without ceremony.
It did not glow. It did not pulse. It emitted neither heat nor cold.
A cube, roughly the size of a human palm.
Yet the longer he looked, the more his mind rejected that conclusion.
Its surface did not reflect its surroundings, yet neither did it absorb them. Its lines were sharp, yet never truly met at corners. It appeared whole, yet had no center. Solid, yet felt empty even before being touched.
"Anomalous object discovered," he reported automatically. The words felt foolish the moment they left him.
Whatever this was, it was not an object.
He named it to remain sane.
"That is merely a human habit," he thought. To name is to confine. And to confine is to be safe.
"Sphere Cube," he said softly.
The name answered nothing, but at least it silenced the panic.
Louri knew the procedure: do not touch alien artifacts. Wait for analysis. Wait for orders. Wait—always wait.
But there was an urge that did not come from emotion or courage.
It came from the silence within him, an empty space suddenly feeling called by another emptiness outside.
He extended his hand.
The moment his glove touched the surface of the Sphere Cube, time collapsed.
Not slowed.
Not stopped.
Collapsed—like a concept realizing it had never been legitimate.
In five seconds—only five—Louri saw everything.
Not one by one. Not in sequence.
He saw the entire universe as a single, unified consciousness.
Galaxies did not rotate—they intended.
Time did not flow—it fused.
Matter did not form—it remembered itself.
He saw birth and destruction as the same event. He saw cause and effect devouring each other. He saw himself not as an individual, but as a minor disturbance within absolute wholeness.
There was no "I."
There was no "where."
There was no "when."
There was only being.
And the human brain was not made for that.
When the five seconds ended, reality returned—but never entirely the same.
Louri fell to his knees. His helmet struck the lunar dust lightly. Warning systems screamed, yet the sound felt distant, as though it belonged to someone else's life.
He breathed rapidly. Too rapidly.
But it was not his lungs that lacked oxygen—it was his mind that lacked boundaries.
"I saw—" he tried to speak, then stopped. There was no language for what had just occurred.
He closed his eyes.
And when he opened them again, the Moon was gone.
There was no transition. No light. No sensation of movement.
The crater, the stars, the Sun—everything vanished, as if they had never been agreed upon as things that needed to exist.
Around him stretched a space that was not space.
Not dark.
Not bright.
Not empty.
A vastness of existence that required no coordinates. Dimensions interpenetrated without collision. Form existed without shape. Distance held meaning without length.
Louri stood—and realized something impossible.
He was breathing.
Air flowed in and out, though there was no air. His heartbeat was steady, though there was no time to govern its rhythm.
His body was not damaged. Not adapting. Not changing.
He was accepted.
"This is impossible," he whispered.
But reality did not argue.
It did not need to.
Louri slowly understood that this place did not submit to biological requirements. Existence here was not determined by compatibility, but by ontological permission. He existed not because he was worthy—but because he was allowed to remain.
In the distance—if "distance" still applied—something moved.
Not approaching.
Not receding.
It became relevant.
The form was layered with meaning. Not fully matter, not fully idea. Its face shifted depending on a perspective Louri did not possess. It radiated power, yet appeared fragile. Eternal, yet flawed.
An entity.
"Human," it said without sound. "You have seen too much."
Louri wanted to ask something, but his tongue felt heavy with awareness. "I… did not intend—"
"There is no intention here," the entity replied. "Only position."
Around them, other existences began to appear—beings that were not born, did not die, were never completed. Some glowed with despair. Some were dark with failed perfection.
They were not good.
They were not evil.
They were merely results.
Louri realized something more terrifying than alienation:
he was not the center of this story.
He was merely a witness who had strayed into a territory before meaning.
"Is this… God?" he asked, his voice nearly shattered.
The entity remained silent for a long time. Or perhaps silence did not apply.
"God," it said at last, "is not here."
"Then where?"
"Everywhere you cannot reach."
Louri felt something collapse within him—not faith, not logic, but the arrogance of the species. The quiet belief that if humans walked far enough, thought long enough, dared boldly enough to ask, then everything would open.
It would not.
Some things were never meant to be touched.
And far beyond all dimensions, beyond possibility and impossibility, the Absolute remained whole—untouched by sight, undisturbed by awareness, unchanged by witnesses.
Louri Gavian stood at the threshold of a cosmos that knew no name.
And a journey without a destination
had just begun.