"Sir, we're almost there," a calm, measured voice spoke. The girl behind the control panel was slender, her long black hair framed by bangs. Her fingers moved fluidly over the controls, her gaze focused but hopeful.
Beside her, a coffee sat cold and still, accompanied by a notebook and a pen. The ship's interior was plain—neither flashy nor futuristic—but the silence within was almost tangible. It felt like they were drifting through an empty, endless expanse. How much longer would this stillness last? Was it the calm before something inevitable?
Juwana Taliah, second-in-command, glanced over her shoulder. Her black pupils, deep yet full of light, met the man sitting at the back of the ship. "We're about to pass through, sir."
In the shadows, a man sat in silence, his figure poised yet burdened. His hair was black, his brown eyes lacking the usual spark of life. His body was weary, as though worn by years of unspoken stress.
"Finally..." His voice cracked as the words escaped, heavy with a weariness that seemed to resonate in the silence. "It... felt like eternity."
Taliah didn't speak, but her eyes softened. She knew the weight of those words. After everything, it felt as though something—maybe everything—was finally coming to fruition.
She turned back to the front of the ship. Outside the cockpit window, colors exploded in a brilliant dance across the vastness of space. The stars seemed to swirl in a way that felt both new and ancient, as though the universe was offering them a glimpse of its secrets.
A tremor shook the ship. Coffee, once warm and now forgotten on the control panel, rippled as it vibrated. Stains on the desk, the pen, and the notebook trembled with increasing intensity. A strange phenomenon—the void around them shouldn't be capable of such disturbances.
But neither of them reacted. This was nothing new. It was just another unpredictable moment in their work.
The vibrations grew stronger, more intense, until their senses began to blur. They were nearing the threshold of something unknown, something they had only imagined.
Taliah's voice was barely a whisper as she turned toward Akhira. Her eyes glistened, filled with the quiet terror of the unknown. No words came—only the suffocating white light that began to envelop them, consuming their thoughts.
A vast, endless whiteness surrounded him. There was nothing but blankness, stretching infinitely in all directions. Slowly, a figure emerged—clad in a white trench coat, standing stark against the void. His brown eyes—dark, without a trace of light—stared ahead, confused and disoriented.
"Where's Taliah?" he called out, his voice echoing back, but only to meet silence. "Where am I? We were just in the ship... How did I end up here?"
The oppressive white light swallowed him, pressing in from all sides. His heart pounded as the dread of being lost—utterly and completely—settled in. He had left behind everything on the journey, but now, alone in this void, he was reminded of how fragile everything truly was.
His thoughts were consumed with finding Taliah, dragging her back from whatever nightmare they had wandered into. He couldn't let her be trapped here alone.
Determination set his jaw as he began walking. Each step felt like a battle against the infinite expanse surrounding him. His black hair, a stark contrast to the whiteness, seemed to shrink with each passing moment as he made his way through the endless void.
Time lost its meaning as he moved. Seconds stretched into minutes. Minutes bled into hours. And still, the void stretched on.
But he did not stop.
He had to find her.