Through the Distant Universe

I was exiting the depths of the ship. The smell. It hit first—not just a stench, but a concentrated quintessence of a dead world: char, rancid fuel, decomposing metal, mixed with something sickly sweet that turned my stomach. My mask's filters hummed, fighting against it, but it still seeped through, leaving a sticky, chemical aftertaste on my tongue.

A gray, lifeless light filtered through holes in the hangar roof, illuminating the landscape that stretched before me. This was not merely a wasteland. It was a graveyard of worlds. A brownish-black valley, where the earth had long ceased to be earth, presented an unimaginable heap of debris: machinery, rotting metal, ship husks, station frames, sections, panels, veins of burned cables. Mountains not of stone—but of eras. Of structures that once flew, worked, killed, lived. Now—just junk.

I took a step. My new exoskeleton hummed, taking my weight, and I moved forward, stepping over the wreckage. Every movement was controlled, every step—powerful. The pain from my broken rib and dislocated leg was barely felt, muffled by steel and servo motors.

Somewhere beneath my feet, water stirred—not real water, but chemical runoff, ancient and bubbling. I wouldn't risk drinking that, not even after filtration.

Vapors rose in plumes, and above the distant slopes, the air trembled with swirling ash—perhaps gas, perhaps ash, or perhaps remnants of chemical weapons.

I walked, scanning the surroundings. The AI projected brief data onto my visor: "Toxin level: high. Structural integrity: unstable. Avoid open areas. Organic residue fragments detected."

"Organic residue" – these were bodies. Not just dead. Torn, gnawed, with empty eye sockets and mouths frozen in silent screams. The flesh of many had dried like husks, pulled taut over bones. In others—decomposition had halted midway, as if something here had not allowed death to finish its work. They were everywhere. Sometimes—on the walls of collapsed buildings. Sometimes—inside twisted suits. Sometimes—frozen into bulkheads, as if someone had tried to escape, to crawl through, to save themselves, but hadn't made it.

I didn't try to understand how or why they died here. I didn't try anymore. I had seen too much to hope for meaning. I just walked, trying not to look at their faces. My gaze swept over the ruins: medical bays—like torture scenes: chairs, overturned tables, crushed stretchers, dried, dark bloodstains on the walls. Warehouses—filled with dust and debris. Everywhere the same chaos: disorder, devoid of any trace of life.

I checked everything. Every box. Every container. I looked for water. Food. Anything. I found packages—decayed, with dried remnants. Plastic that had turned to crumbs. Cans, swollen with age. Even dying of thirst, I wouldn't have dared touch them.

No weapons remained either. Nothing that could be called firepower. Laser modules had rotted away, ballistics crumbled to dust. My knife, a couple of flares, and the cutter—that was my entire arsenal. But I did stumble upon a box with a belt of large-caliber ammunition—fifty caliber, at least. Anti-vehicle. Anti-creature. Anti-everything. The belt itself was almost disintegrated, but the bullets—they were intact. Heavy, blunt-nosed, like lead dogmas of war. I filled forty of them into an empty metal box and attached it to my armor. Why? I don't know. There was no weapon for them anyway. But powder and lead might come in handy; I could disassemble them with the multi-tool.

And finally, I stepped out of the ship onto its top.

I looked ahead—and saw a "mountain." It seemed to be part of the terrain. But the longer I stared, the clearer I understood—this was no rock. It was a fragment of a station. Overthrown, shattered, yet still majestic in its fall. On it stood the skeletons of towers, torn platforms, semi-destroyed transport arches. It was the size of a city. Or perhaps—a continent. Once, it hung in the sky. Now it was a tomb, grown into the flesh of this dead planet. One of the fragments soared upwards at such an angle, as if trying to take flight—but it had been crucified, eternally driven into the mass of debris. It resembled a techno-cross. From another era. From a faith no one practiced anymore.

And all this—in complete silence. No wind. No birds. No one else. What an exhibit.

I raised my head. And everything else ceased to exist.

The sky above was not just alien—it was hostile. Heavy, oppressive, reddish-brown, like blood infused with ash. It seemed to burn from within. Blood-red lightning silently tore through the thick atmosphere. Its flashes were cold and too fast to follow.

Somewhere between these ruptures, the clouds parted, and for a moment, space opened up—black, cold, indifferent, uniformly dotted with stars. I raised my hand, as if trying to reach them. They were so close... and yet so far.

But that wasn't what captivated my gaze.

I saw a ring.

A planetary ring—not an orbital structure, not a relic of the past, not a remnant of some transcendental engineering will. It didn't just encircle the planet—it pierced the heavens, occupying half the sky like a gigantic hoop, forever pressed into the world's flesh. It was destroyed. Torn apart not by time—but by something else. Voids yawned within it, like ragged wounds on the body of a giant. Some sections seemed to have been ripped out—not just severed, but forcibly torn from their roots, broken off in haste, as if someone had destroyed them with unimaginably powerful weapons. Between the surviving sectors hung skeletons—gravitational plumes, a fog of structures, meaningless arches, twisted bridges leading into emptiness.

The greatest marvel of engineering, overshadowed by the greatest catastrophe. What irony.

But that wasn't all. Far away, at the edge of visibility, in a break in the clouds, something hung in the sky. The planet's moon. Or what was left of it. Once, it had probably been whole—spherical, as it should be. Perhaps it even had an atmosphere. Perhaps it served as a home, a colony, an arsenal, an archive, or simply a celestial body. Now—only fragments. Pieces, torn to shreds, held together only by the gravity of their own mass.

I looked at it and felt something crack inside. Not from fear. From incomprehension. Why would anyone do this? Destroy everything? Why go so far? Why exterminate my kind? This world was not just dead. It was torn apart. Twisted. Desecrated. And left in this state out of spite—or as a warning.

"Distance to target: 121.5 km. Surface activity: extremely dangerous. Maintain course," the machine interrupted me. The AI's voice was calm, but its words sounded like a death sentence in this hell.

Hopelessness squeezed my throat. How, for God's sake, am I supposed to survive? How do I traverse hundreds of kilometers across this scorched, poisoned land, among dead machines and remnants of civilization? Where is the water? Where is the food? Where is any hint that I can get out of here? Why is all this happening to me?

The world offered no answer. So be it.

I gritted my teeth.

I wanted to ask the AI why I even needed to move towards the remains of the ship. Who would I call after 500 years, even if the communication systems survived? But I didn't dare; survival was paramount now. And I had no other option but to follow commands.

I thought—how many people died here five hundred years ago? How many of them held on until the last? They fought, I could see it. By their positions, by the bodies. A last stand. A last hope. Hope for what?

This world didn't just fall. It was turned into hell. And yet… what was it like before? I looked up again at the torn ring in the sky. Such structures are not built by chance, as far as I can tell. This was not a defensive station. It was not a factory. It was more like a marvel, a symbol of progress and might. A world with such a ring was important. Surely there were cities here. Oceans. Towers. Light. The sound of life. Meaning.

And now? Ash. Metal. Dust.

I took a deep breath, trying to swallow it all. Not to break. Not now.

Gathering the last of my will, I continued my journey.

I didn't turn around to look at the buried remains of the ship that had briefly sheltered me from this world. But perhaps I should have.

Because I was not alone.

In the shadow of another twisted ship, something stirred. Not a beast. Not a human. A monster. Two eyes—pale amber, like scorched amber. Glowing. And watchful. Staring directly at me.