The stars were silent.

  In the vast stillness of the cosmos, a lone figure stood motionless. It had no need to breathe. No need to speak. It's eyes, like polished obsidian, held neither warmth nor hatred. They simply watched.

  Before it stretched the remains of a dying universe.

  Planets cracked. Suns dimmed. Space itself twisted and collapsed. Everything — from the smallest grain of dust to the mightiest civilizations — was being swallowed by something unseen. It wasn’t fire, nor cold, nor rot. It was slower, quieter. A corrosion of essence. Decay and corruption. It clung to the bones of stars and settled into the hearts of gods.

  The being's body was no exception. Decay crawled over it's limbs like a second skin, wrapping it in tendrils of inky rot. His flesh pulsed with corruption, black veins rising beneath translucent skin. The mindless whispers had long begun, murmuring inside its skull like wind through shattered glass. Yet it's gaze remained clear, as if used to the madness.

  It muttered something.

  A phrase in a language long dead. The syllables echoed without sound, and even the decay paused to listen.

  “...So close.”

  It's voice was calm. Almost numb.

  It looked down at his own chest, where the corruption pulsed thickest. With a sharp, practiced motion, it drove it's fingers into itself.

  There was no cry. No hesitation. Just the wet, soft sound of flesh being torn.

  It pulled out a translucent light that in the shape of circle. no, closer to a human heart.

  It beat with rhytm — thump, thump — drenched in thick, dark fluid. It wasn’t ordinary. It pulsed not with blood, but with will.

  Holding the heart in one hand, the being gathered what remained of it's power. Void threads shimmered into being, drawn from the remains of forgotten dimensions — long, dark strands woven from pure emptiness. He stitched the corruption and decay into the heart, anchoring it in place.

  Then, slowly, he reached beside his head and plucked a single white thread. It resisted — a sliver of clarity, of something untouched by corruption. He threaded it in.

  He turned his gaze outward. Far in the distance, beyond the dying stars, one particular point of light caught his attention. A star, still alive. A universe still untouched.

  He didn't know its name. It didn't matter.

  With effort, he drew a few faint threads from that star, weaving them carefully into the heart. They glowed faintly as they intertwined with the black and white — hope tangled with ruin.

  The decay reached it's throat now.

  Darkness gnawed at the edges of it's sight.

  With what little strength remained, it ripped open the void. It hissed and bent around it's will, forming a narrow wound in space. He hurled the heart into it.

  Then it sank to it's knees.

  The light in his eyes flickered once.

  And went out.

  -Near a Blue Star-

  In a remote part of a quiet world, the night was calm.

  The sky, however, was not.

  A streak of light tore across the stars, brighter than any meteor but with no sound. It burned white and black, twisting in the sky before disappearing behind a distant ridge.

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  The mountain rumbled faintly.

  Two figures ran through the underbrush, guided by instinct and the scent of smoke. A man and a woman — hunters by trade. They were lean, rough, and quiet.

  “I saw it land here,” the woman said, crouched low. Her voice was steady, but there was a hint of unease in it.

  “Wasn’t a meteor,” the man replied. “meteors don’t flicker like that.”

  They moved cautiously through the treeline, bows in hand. The ground was scorched in places, charred leaves still curling from the heat. Up ahead, the slope of the mountain had caved in slightly, forming a crater in the earth.

  And in the middle of that crater… was a man.

  He was lying on his back, completely naked. His body was unblemished, his skin pale, almost luminous in the moonlight. Strangely, he wasn’t burned. No blood, no wounds. He looked human — yet everything about him felt wrong.

  The woman raised her bow instinctively.

  “What the hell…”

  The man beside her muttered a curse.

  The figure in the crater stirred.

  His chest rose slightly. Then again. Breathing — slow, but steady. Not unconscious. Not dead.

  They watched in silence as the man opened his eyes.

  Dark. Cold. Focused.

  He didn’t look confused. He didn’t ask where he was.

  He simply stared back.

  “What do we do?” the woman asked under her breath. Her grip on the bow tightened.

  The man lowered his weapon. “He’s not a beast. And… look at him. He isn’t normal, either.”

  As if on cue, a gust of wind swept through the clearing, and the hunter realized they were standing in the middle of a place where nothing but a man standing butt naked.

  Still, the stranger hadn’t moved. He sat up slowly, looking at his own hands, his arms.

  He blinked, then touched the center of his chest, where something faint glowed beneath the skin. A strange, seamless line — as if something had been stitched there.

  The woman finally broke the silence. “Who are you?”

  He didn’t answer right away.

  His voice, when it came, was soft. “...I don’t remember.”

  It wasn’t a lie. And it wasn’t the full truth.

  The man frowned. “You fell from the sky. That much we saw.”

  “I fell?” the stranger asked, as if testing the words. He glanced at the sky. Then back at the hunters. “I see.”

  They stared at each other for a few moments. Finally, the woman sighed and lowered her bow. “We can’t leave him here.”

  “Should we even bring him back?” the man asked, quieter. “We don’t know what he is.”

  “We don’t,” she agreed. “But the elder will.”

  The stranger said nothing as they handed him a spare cloak, which he wrapped around himself wordlessly. As they began to descend the mountain together, he walked behind them, barefoot and silent.

  Yet every step he took was deliberate.

  He did not look back at the crater.

  He did not look ahead, either.

  He simply walked.

  Somewhere deep within him, something pulsed.

  Thump. Thump.

  Author Note: I created this with extensive research and put all my ideas into it, slowly building the story into a vision I had.

  Thank you for reading.