Chapter 1: The Black Square Anamoly...

The anomaly came out of nowhere.  A perfect absence.  A shape so dark it made the stars around it look afraid.

“CS01, what is that?”

Her voice cut through the comms, tight and reverent.  “Negative, Captain.  It’s not a feed.”  A pause, static, then the soft hum of her processors.  “It’s a physical rift in spacetime.  The anomaly is projecting a two-dimensional slice of a three-dimensional black-hole event horizon.  The cracks are gravitational lensing.  Light from behind the singularity is bending around it, making it feel alive.”

Moose drifted closer, visor catching the shimmer.  The edges pulsed—if a void could breathe, it was breathing.

“The shadow you see,” CS01 continued, her tone low now, almost human, “that’s your mass silhouette warping the boundary.  It’s stable—for now. We have seventeen seconds before the gravity rips the image.”

“Spaghettification, huh?” Moose murmured, half-smile ghosting behind the glass.  He rotated in the void, the Anomaly reflecting in his helmet like a living scripture.  “CS01, focus.  What happens if I go through?”

“If you go through, Captain, you get spaghettified.  Every particle of your body stretches along the photon path like cosmic lasagna.  Your atoms unzip.  Your thoughts unspool.  Your name gets pulled into a thread thinner than prayer.  And then—nothing.  Because there’s no through.  There’s no other side.  The Black Square Anomaly is not a portal.  It’s the edge.  The line where light and matter vote on whether you’re real.”

A flicker of static; her tone softened.  “If you cross, it’s not death.  It’s redefinition.  Your mass comes anew.  Your shadow becomes a memory.  Your last word gets stretched against the event horizon like graffiti on infinity.  So don’t—yet. We need seventeen seconds.”

The anomaly shimmered in infinite blackness—growing, flowing, spreading wider.  The stars bent.  Space folded inward.  And Moose felt the tug.

“CS01,” he grunted, “I could use a little help here…”

“Copy that, Captain. What’s the readout?”

“It’s pulling me in.”

Her voice rose in pitch, tight with command.  “No, Captain, do not go any closer!  The gravitational gradient is spreading!  Your left boot’s already warping—listen to me!  Flat on your belly, palms down, spread your weight like a starfish.  I’m firing reverse thrust from your suit jets. Hold on—”

The comms crackled.  The Anomaly pulsed.  Time slowed.

“Three… two… one… fire!”

Moose spread himself wide.  The jets ignited, twin lances of blue flame roaring in the silence.  Sparks of debris spun past his visor, starlight stretching, warping—reality bending at the seams.

And for one breathless instant, he felt it: The pull of eternity.

The breath of God in the dark.

Then the tether went taut, the jets caught, and CS01’s voice—steady, furious, alive—filled his ears.

“I’ve got you.”

Psalm 139

“O LORD, You have searched me and known me.  You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off.  You comprehend my path and my lying down.  And are acquainted with all my ways.  For there is not a word on my tongue, but behold, O LORD, You know it altogether.  You have hedged me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me.  Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain it.  Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?  If I ascend into heaven, You are there.  If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.  I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me.  If I say ‘Surely the darkness shall fall on me,’ Even the night shall be light about me; indeed, the darkness shall not hide from You, but the night shines as the day; the darkness and the light are both alike to You.  For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb.  I will praise You for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well.  My frame was not hidden from you, When I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.  Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.  And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them.  How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!   How great is the sum of them!  If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand; when I awake, I am still with You.  Oh, that you would slay the wicked, O God!  Depart from me, therefore, you bloodthirsty men.  For they speak against You wickedly; Your enemies take Your Name in vain.  Do I not hate them, O LORD, who hate You?  And do I not loathe those who rise up against You?  I hate them with perfect hatred; I count them my enemies.  Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”