The Ending in The Past
Year 2700.
For ninety-nine years, humanity survived on Iluminae, an artificial satellite built around the planet Gámatra after the abandonment of Vitarus, the world they once called home. As the decades passed, Iluminae stopped being seen as a refuge and began to be presented as something far greater: the beginning of a perfect society.
There was no poverty. There was no hunger. Violence was so rare that many young people grew up without witnessing a single fight in their entire lives.
Every inhabitant had a purpose assigned within the system. Medicine. Engineering. Manual Labor. Armed Forces. Nothing seemed to fall outside control. Peace was so absolute, so carefully maintained, that even fear itself began to disappear from collective memory.
Or at least that was what everyone believed.
While the population prepared to celebrate Iluminae’s centennial, something was beginning to change within the emptiness of space. Due to the alignment of their orbits, Gámatra, Iluminae, and another planet belonging to a nearby solar system were slowly beginning to approach one another. For most people, it was nothing more than an unimportant astronomical phenomenon.
But for those who knew the true history of Iluminae, it meant something far worse.
Because that planet...
was where they escaped from.
And if the calculations were correct, both worlds would soon be close enough to allow direct contact for the first time in decades.
Fear was returning.
And alongside it, the truth would begin to return as well.
That night, hidden among the endless illuminated structures of Iluminae’s central district, the Basthet household remained silent.
Gherd Basthet held the handle of a door while staring into the darkness of the room in front of him. Despite carrying one hundred and forty-eight years upon his shoulders, his tan skin and brown hair barely reflected the passage of time. Only the permanent exhaustion in his brown eyes revealed the true weight of those years.
From inside the room, his granddaughter’s voice broke the silence.
“Good night, grandpa.”
Gherd opened the door just enough to nod silently before closing it again. Then he let out a tired sigh and began walking through the dark hallway of the house.
The main living room looked abandoned. The only visible color came from the dark blue walls covering the entire home, giving the place a cold and artificial feeling. Gherd pulled a small remote from the pocket of his jacket and pointed it toward one of the walls.
A rectangle immediately lit up.
The wall transformed into a gigantic screen integrated into the architecture of the house, and the emblem of a flag appeared before giving way to the broadcast of a local news program.
“The most tragic and catastrophic moments in our recent history,” the male anchor announced solemnly.
The images behind him began to change. Stretchers were rushed into ambulances while several bodies lay scattered across the ground, partially censored by digital mosaics.
“And among the other incidents that occurred during the centennial,” the female co-anchor continued as new footage appeared on screen, “a young woman engaged in armed combat against a group of conspirators.”
The recording showed the interior of a rectangular gray bunker. A girl held a set of keys in her right hand while violently attacking several people attempting to avoid her strikes.
“In a heroic act, she attacked all those who violated the anti-defamation laws against the Gladinders,” the woman continued. “This event took place inside the Central Park bunker, where more than one hundred people were exiled for disturbing public peace.”
“Unfortunately, twenty innocent people were injured,” the anchor added with visible discomfort. “But you all know how this goes... no sacrifice, no glory.”
The broadcast then showed several guards violently shoving handcuffed people while escorting them out of the area.
“That’s correct. Exactly one hundred and twenty-two false ones were detained alongside the young woman who attacked them,” said the co-anchor. “However, the girl was released due to the lack of any official records about her, since the only thing known is that she is related to the mechatronic scientist Gherd Basthet.”
The screen displayed Gherd’s own face.
Within the darkness of the living room, the real Gherd slowly tightened the remote control in his hand while watching the broadcast with increasingly undisguised anger.
The anchor remained silent for a few seconds, as though carefully choosing words he could say without getting himself into trouble. The discomfort on his face was obvious even through the screen.
“It doesn’t matter that she has no identity,” he finally said. “She will be remembered as a heroine.”
He sighed quietly, but the tension never left his expression.
“Even if she stopped a sect of defamers, what she did was wrong...” he continued, this time more firmly. “You can’t hurt innocent people like that, especially not in a place that’s supposed to be saf—”
The image abruptly cut off.
For three seconds, the screen became trapped in violent static interference. The sound screeched across the room before stabilizing once again on the co-anchor’s face. The woman’s smile looked unnaturally stiff.
“Changing the subject.”
New footage began playing behind her. A perfectly blue sky filled the screen, crossed by small glowing points moving at high speed.
“The approach of another missi—”
The transmission cut out again.
This time it was worse.
Heavy impacts against tables could be heard, along with muffled voices and a metallic noise that lasted only an instant before vanishing beneath the interference. The screen became completely consumed by static until it was swallowed by a pure, bright blue color.
Then an artificial voice spoke.
Cold.
Empty.
Without a trace of humanity.
“This program has been suspended for disturbing public peace. Do not fall into disorder.”
The words slowly appeared written across the blue screen. Beneath them, a distorted smiling face emerged, motionless, staring from the television.
Gherd immediately shut the screen off.
The massive television camouflaged itself perfectly back into the blue wall of the house, as if it had never existed. For a few seconds, silence ruled the living room once again.
Then Gherd threw the remote onto the floor.
He stomped on it once.
Then again.
And again.
The durable plastic cracked beneath his shoes, but it refused to break.
Then a sharp ringing sound invaded the room.
Gherd shut his eyes tightly and covered his ears while the interference grew louder and louder. The noise was unbearable. A violent electrical short circuit exploded somewhere inside the house and, only moments later, sirens began echoing in the distance.
Gherd’s eyes snapped open.
He quickly turned toward the source of the sound.
Then everything violently reversed.
The past few minutes rewound like a videotape playing backward at an impossible speed, until the exact moment before he left his granddaughter’s room. We return several minutes earlier...
Now he was sitting beside the bed once again.
The closed notebook rested in his hands.
“And I’m sorry for taking away something that’s part of you,” he said with strange calmness. “It’s your art, and I won’t question it again.”
He slowly stood from the chair, left the notebook on the bedside table, and walked toward the door.
“Good night, Amaranth. Get some rest.”
“Good night, grandpa.”
Lying beneath her light blue blankets, Amaranth watched him leave the room. Her dark brown hair rested against the pillow, framing her aquamarine eyes and tan skin.
She was the same girl the news had just been talking about.
N/A: Some stories begin with a war. Others begin when someone tries to hide it.
Answers begin in the next chapter.
