In the movie, the ship skimmed the edge of a god's drain and time fell off the bone; here, we're not skimming-we're about to crease the paper and press.

No elegant ballet around a gargantua, no poetry of circular horizons-this is the geometry behind the poetry, the hinge itself closing.

the Zypherians are about to make a door where the universe swore there wasn't one.

The room counts down without counting. Lights dim by degrees. The hum drops into the floor, into marrow. My harness takes up the slack the way a hand takes a hand.

Interstellar warned me about tidal forces, clocks that betrayed time.

But nobody warned me about the quiet.

The intimate horror of being carried into a place where direction stops meaning anything at all.

I think of Cooper's fall through the bookcase, love flung backward through time like a message-in-a-bottle to a girl who already knew the answer.

And I wonder-does Spacefold hold ghosts too? Different timeline?

Will there be the cause and effect drift-just enough to let me glimpse a life I lost somehow, somewhere? One where I stayed on Earth? One where I never left earth... or earth had different fate?

The void puckers. The dome shows the starfield bowing in toward an invisible hinge, and my breath stutters because the human brain is not built to watch parallel lines shake hands.

In the movie, the hull screamed.

Here-it's quiet. Too quiet. The ship inhales, and every console around us inhales with it.

For a heartbeat, I feel it-

I am strapped to a civilization's intention. And it is about to tear open reality.

The first pressure arrives sideways, as if the world took a step I didn't. My stomach lifts, my vision tightens at the edges, and the harness bites in a way that feels like being held on purpose.

There's no camera, no soundtrack here to tell me it's time to fear.

Fear arrives in silence-warm behind my eyes, like heatstroke in a dream.

And then I know-

Up and down have made peace behind my back.

Space has rewritten the rules, and didn't bother to leave a note.

Then everything breaks. Not breaks.

Unravels.

The ship doesn't move.

The universe does.

Space folds.

Not like a door being opened-

but like a page turning in a book you didn't know you were inside of.

It's not motion. Motion implies direction.

Here, there is-

nothing.

Time as a thief. Space as a liar.

No forward. No backward. Just a collapse of everything that ever made sense. Time slides in its case. Distance becomes taste or heat or memory.

I don't know.

The chair holds me-only just-and I cling not with muscles, but with mind.

The ship buckles-quietly. Like a whale shifting its weight in the dark.

Every console flares white, then black, then... color I don't know how to see.

The air writhes in place. The room dissolves.

I'm floating but held down. Pulled apart but in one piece.

A paradox stitched and swallowed.

Every molecule inside me feels like it's being politely asked to rearrange. To hold very, very still.

And then-

with the softness of a world exhaling, reality returns.

There's no sound when the fold completes. Not really.

There's gravity. Breath. A heartbeat. I taste copper on my tongue. The world slams into stillness like a boundary restored.

A chime cuts through the stillness, sharp and clinical:

Fold completion. Drift alignment nominal.

But the voice might as well be speaking from underwater.

My ears ring. Something inside me is still folded.

My vision swims. Takes me a few seconds to realize: I'm still holding my breath.

Slowly, I release it.

That's when I feel the shaking.

Not the ship.

Me.

My fingers tremble like leaves in an unshared wind. The restraint harness relaxes its hold, no longer needed, its grip loosening like a sigh. And suddenly I know-not just as a fact, but as a living, trembling truth-that I survived something built to break even light.

I try to steady my breathing-count my inhales like the manuals taught-but it doesn't quite land. Everything feels too close. My skin. My thoughts. The room.

There's an ache at the base of my skull. Dull. Easy to ignore beneath the adrenaline still flooding my system. My fingers feel slightly stiff when I flex them—like I've been gripping something too hard for too long. Which I have. The harness. The armrests. Reality itself.

I tell myself it's normal. Tension. Everyone probably feels like this after a fold.

"Report."

One word. Clean. Clear. Unshaken.

The bridge erupts into motion. Voices rising, status check cascading, data flying back and forth across alien consoles

A voice rises above the hum, crisp and controlled: "Post-fold diagnostics. Report all oscillation discrepancies."

Kridura.

He's already moving-already back in motion-like he didn't just throw himself into the jaws of a rift and drag a ship full of lives through it.

His posture is flawless, every motion measured. His voice commands space again.

The confirmations come in waves: "Navigation stable."

"Hull integrity at ninety-eight percent."

"Gravity wells normalized."

The voices fade, replaced by the low hum of stabilized systems.

When I open my eyes, he is looking at me.

Not obviously—he’s still addressing his officers, still coordinating—but his gaze finds mine across the room, holds for a fraction of a second.

Are you okay?

I nod.

Sam appears at my side, she looks a little shaken but steady on her feet. “You okay?”

Her voice sounds like it’s coming from another room.

My body’s here, but my mind’s still somewhere between the folds—half expecting the floor to move again.

“Yeah,” I say, and hate how breathless I sound. “Just need a minute.”

She studies me—too closely—and I realize I’m favoring my left knee without meaning to. There's a heaviness in my joints now, something settling in like sediment. My wrists ache faintly when I move them—not sharp yet, just a dull pressure that I recognize as a warning

Please no...

“They’re running diagnostics first, making sure the ship didn’t develop any stress fractures.” She glances toward Kridura, then back. “You want water? Something?”

“I’m good,” I say. “Think I’ll go back and lie down for a bit.”

"Got it,” she says. Then a pause. “Be careful.” she squeezes my shoulder once and returns to her station.

I unhook the last restraint. My fingers fumble with the release mechanism, clumsy in a way that makes alarm bells ring softly in the back of my mind. When I stand, my knees protest—not serious yet, but noticeably. A stiffness that wasn’t there before the fold.

As I leave the Command Deck, I glance back one last time.

He’s still there. Unshakeable. Watching the starview rotate over new coordinates. Command embodied.

The walk to Medbay stretches longer than it should. Each corridor feels like it’s doubled in length, and by the time I’m halfway there, I can’t deny it anymore.

My ankles feel tight inside my boots—not quite swollen yet, but heading that way. I can feel the beginning of pressure building. My elbows have a deep, bone-level ache that has nothing to do with the fold itself and everything to do with my body's interpretation of the stress.

Heat is building beneath my skin. Not fever yet—not quite—but the precursor. The warning. My immune system recognizing threat and preparing its response.

Every joint feels slightly heavier, like they're filling with something thick. My hands are stiff when I flex them. My jaw aches from clenching without realizing it.

I lean against the wall for a moment, steadying myself.

Breathe. Just breathe.

You've done this before. You know how this works.

Get to Medbay. Get ahead of it.

By the time I reach Medbay, I’m moving carefully, deliberately—every step calculated to minimize the jarring pain in my knees and hips.

The doors to Medbay slide open, and I’m hit by noise first. Voices overlapping—sharp commands, pained groans, the persistent beep of medical monitors cycling through alerts. The air tastes like antiseptic and something metallic, something that makes my stomach turn even before I see the chaos inside.

The space is packed.

Anaya doesn’t even look up when I step inside. She’s elbow-deep in someone’s treatment—a man whose breathing sounds wet and wrong, his lips tinged faintly blue. Internal bleeding, maybe. Or lung compression from the fold.

I stand near the entrance, unsure where to go, feeling suddenly foolish for being here at all.

A nurse—human, younger than Anaya, with dark circles under her eyes and her hair tied back in a messy knot—spots me and approaches quickly. Her uniform is rumpled, a faint smear of something on her sleeve. Blood? Medication? I don’t ask.

“Injury assessment?” she asks, her voice brisk but not unkind. She’s scanning me visually before I even answer, already cataloging: upright, ambulatory, conscious, not actively bleeding.

“Not an injury,” I manage. “Autoimmune condition. I can feel it starting to flare.. The fold triggered it maybe.”

Her expression shifts—sympathy, but also something else. Calculation. She glances over her shoulder toward the beds, toward Anaya still working on the man with failing lungs, toward the others waiting for care. Then back to me.

“Come here,” she says quietly, gesturing to a corner station—not a bed, just a scanner and a small seat tucked against the wall, away from the critical cases.

I follow her, limping slightly now. My knees feel unstable, like the joints aren't quite tracking right.

She scans me quickly, her expression tightening as the readings come through.

"Inflammatory markers are elevated—not critical, but climbing. Low-grade fever starting—37.6. Mild swelling beginning in wrists and ankles." She pauses. "Pain level?"

"Four, maybe five. It's not bad yet, but I know how this goes. It'll get worse."

She exhales slowly, and I see it: the apology forming before she even speaks.

Behind her, someone cries out—a sharp, strangled sound.

Anaya's voice rises from behind "I need him stabilized now. Prep the trauma pod."

The nurse in front of me flinches at the sound but doesn't turn. Her jaw tightens.

She sets the datapad down and meets my eyes. “I can give you a cooling patch.”

I wait for the rest. The corticosteroid. The pain management protocol. The injector... anything that would take the edge off.

She doesn’t offer it.

“That’s… it?” I ask, hating how small my voice sounds.

Her jaw tightens. “I’m sorry. Medical rationing protocols are in effect. Anti-inflammatories, immune suppressants, and analgesics—all meds above level three—are restricted to life-threatening emergencies only.”

She glances toward the storage unit behind her—locked, I notice now, with a biometric seal. “Fifteen humans were injured in the fold. Two are in respiratory distress. A few have internal bleeding. I have to prioritize.”

The words land like stones. I knew about the rationing—everyone does. But knowing in the abstract and experiencing it are two different things.

“So what do I do?” My hands are trembling now, and I don’t know if it’s fear or the fever climbing.

“Rest. Hydration. Keep the cooling patch on your forehead—it’ll help with the fever, but not much else.” She pulls a small kit from a drawer—basic supplies. “If the fever spikes above thirty-nine, if you experience chest pain, difficulty breathing, or loss of consciousness, come back immediately. Those qualify as emergencies.”

"And if it's just… pain and stiffness?"

Her expression softens, and I see

Guilt flickers there, exhaustion, the kind of weariness that comes from making impossible choices over and over. She’s done this conversation before. Many times.

“Then you endure it. Your body's been through extreme stress. Give it time to recalibrate. Most stress-triggered flares peak within twelve hours and start improving with rest. I’m sorry. I really am. If I could—”

“I know.” I take the cooling patch from her, feeling the slight chill against my palm. “You’re doing what you can.”

She helps me off the bed—steadies me when my knees protest—and presses something into my hand. A small dermal patch, unmarked.

“This is a mild topical analgesic. Not restricted because it barely does anything, but it might help with localized joint pain. Apply it to your worst joints—wrists, knees, wherever.”

It’s not much. But it’s something. And the fact that she’s giving me even this—something probably meant for minor scrapes and bruises—tells me she cares, even if the system won’t let her do more.

"Get some sleep if you can," she says. "Your body needs it."

“Thank you,” I whisper.

As I pass the beds, I catch fragments.

A woman sobbing quietly, her ribs wrapped in bandages.

A man unconscious, hooked to a machine that breathes for him.

My pain is real, building, life-altering—but it's not this. It's not lungs collapsing or blood pooling where it shouldn't.

The doors close behind me, muffling the chaos.

The walk back to my quarters feels endless. Every step is a negotiation with my body. My ankles are definitely swelling—I can feel the pressure, the heat. My wrists protest when I flex them.

By the time I reach my door, I'm tired. Bone-tired. The kind of exhaustion that comes after adrenaline crashes.

Inside, I peel off my boots—relief floods through my feet—and collapse onto the bed. I apply the dermal patch to my right wrist and press the cooling patch to my forehead.

The faint coolness is immediately soothing.The pain is present—a low, persistent ache in my joints, a heaviness in my limbs—but it's not unbearable. Not yet. I know from experience it might get worse before it gets better, but right now, it's just… uncomfortable.

There is throbbing in every joint, fire in my fingers, my knees. Fever prickles under my skin, my body too busy attacking itself to regulate temperature properly.

I curl onto my side, trying to find a position that eases the pressure. There isn't one, but some are better than others.

My throat feels scratchy. My breathing is shallow—not from distress, but from the instinct to move as little as possible.

Fifteen humans injured. Two in respiratory distress. One bleeding internally.

I repeat it like a mantra, trying to convince myself that I don’t deserve the medication. That my pain—excruciating as it is—isn’t life-threatening. That rationing makes sense. That this is fair.

It doesn’t feel fair.

But fair doesn’t matter when resources are finite and people are dying.

I bite my wrist to smother a sound when a particularly sharp flare shoots through my knees. The cooling patch slides slightly on my forehead, and I press it back into place with shaking fingers.

The room spins. Heat and ache take turns.

Eventually, exhaustion wins. I don't remember falling asleep.

Only that the pain, mercifully, dulls as my body finally surrenders to rest.

I wake to stillness.

The fever has broken-but every joint still feels like it's been recast in glass.

And I can't move.

Not because of pain.

But because someone is holding me.

Kridura.

His chest is pressed flush against my back—there’s barely a breath of space between us in this too-small, single-person bed. Every slow rise and fall of his breathing moves through me as if my body has become an extension of his. His arm—heavy, impossibly warm—rests draped across my hip in a way that feels both accidental and deliberate.

His breath ghosts against the back of my neck, a steady, muted warmth that makes my skin prickle. He’s so close I can feel the faint rhythm of his heartbeat through the thin fabric between us.

He's asleep.

My heart stammers so hard it hurts.