The scientists of the D.S Butterfly are owed the truth — what happened to them? What did they find in the nebula? I need answers. The universe needs answers. Crimson reds danced along the edge of his fingertips when he reached out for the truth hidden behind the anomaly. No sound travelled through a vacuum, but it yawned and popped his ears as colours mixed through the world. Stars cracked and exploded, but he stared at the crimson sphere and slipped his fingers off its surface with a frown. Defeated, he went to assure Nova.

She was nowhere in sight — though a bunch of unfamiliar scientists stood around him and the anomaly. Uh oh... He grasped for an explanation before it fluttered out of his mind, but before he could open his mouth, another figure walked through the decontamination unit, where behind it it hid weird, misshapen halls. Wait. He left the data arrays and peered into their blank expressions.

He raised his hand and poked one, but stars fluttered over his skin. Tiny little butterflies against time.

"Mx. Orili, it's finally responding," one of the scientists rasped with a point at the same anomaly which sat in the B.H Supernova. Tension wrapped around his shoulders when the greatest anomalous scientist in the world stepped forth, weary. Excitement prickled through, but he slowed when they ignored him. Confusion wrapped through his throat when they stopped in front of the anomaly.

"If this is the D.S Butterfly," he whispered a question to no one. "... am I being shown what happened?" He tapped his temple, but dread pressurized the laboratory. Some of the scientists stepped back when teeth grew out of the black hole. Neo went to calm them, to reassure them, to remind them to not panic, but flames of rage slammed down on his shoulders when black tendrils lashed out.

Impaled.

Crimson-splattered.

It all mingled and mixed the atoms as others out of range of the desolation scrambled out of the way, away from him. Their misty figures fell apart, and he grunted when something knocked him back onto his ass. He shook out the pain, everything happening too fast, but when he opened his eyes, the D.S Butterfly disappeared.

Left with an endless void of a starry expanse.

Neo forced himself to his feet, then looked around at the dark. Gentle waves lapped with an invitation at his boots, and he frowned. "Huh?" He rubbed his brow, but stopped at a pressurized hum ringing his ears. His attention faded from the sight shown to what was in front of his nose when he tilted his head up.

With no reflection in the starry ocean he stood over. A giant, supermassive black hole remained in static time. "Um..." He drew his teeth over his lips then took one step forward. "Hello?"

It hummed, distorting the constant rippling waves beneath it. It stilled across the expanse when he stood underneath it, trying to peer into the abyss for a route to the D.S Butterfly. The low hum changed into a constant, pained whine. Images in the haze fluttered across his vision, too distant for him to grasp. Boundless information. Fingertips apart.

Until it asked an incomprehensible question, and he jolted at the intent in his mind. "... you want my name?" he asked, confused at where it came from, looking around once more for a source of the pressure. "Who is asking? I can't see... you..." He drew his attention up once more to the black hole when it shuddered. "... Are you asking me?"

It boiled.

Energy wriggled him. "That's awesome! You're intelligent... and... somehow I can understand you and I don't know what you are. Are you some sort of Precursor being?" He held onto his question, then answered it, "Sorry! Lost track! I'm Neo Teimea. I'm... an anomalous scientist in internship upon the B.H Supernova, though I assume this isn't the first time you had interactions with someone like me." He threw his hand out. "Have we picked up your container? What..." He slowed his own words. "What was that that I was seeing?"

Waves lapped at his knees, and he pinched his chin to sort out through the thoughts not his own. "Not a container... then..." he mumbled. Jittery thoughts swallowed the formless being's attempt to communicate with him, and he berated himself for not taking his opportunities more seriously. "I am so so sorry," he insisted when it fell too silent. "I didn't mean to disturb you... I just want to know what happened to the D.S Butterfly. Is that what you were trying to show me? Are they in trouble?"

It thrummed.

His shoulders slacked. "What? What ... do you mean that we're in trouble?"

He stiffened when the black hole came closer to him, dragging the light with it. The stars at his boots froze with the ripples. It whispered in his ear, and he listened close for the truth. In the distance, he shook his head at the sound of Nova, and so many others, screaming for their lives.

"I... I don't understand," he whispered as the sounds continued on the event horizon. "What do you mean? What did they do?" He listened further, then blinked. "What? No, that can't be right." He shook his head at the formless force of nature. "We've always figured the nebula wrapping around our galaxy was some sort of anomaly but what you're saying is... is that it wasn't meant to keep us in? It was keeping something out?" He came closer to it. "Please, you have to tell me what happened to the D.S Butterfly, maybe there's... there's an explanation."

A deep sigh rippled the event horizon.

Neo frowned when it drew upwards and a small star birthed at its center. "Wait... this place where..." He tried to pull his boots out of the water, but he froze when starry tendrils locked him in place. "What?" It swirled along a circumference of gravity when twelve large bipedals moved forward and stood on the hands of an unseen clock. "Where am I?" he questioned when the bipedals went still. He drew his hands closer to his chest when the largest bipedal stepped forward, bringing forth a lance of starry light, where the tip drifted across the water.

It ticked. Butterfly wings scattered upon grey stars as teeth followed the circle they made.

It answered.

His heart dropped into the abyss. "The sea of stars?"

He drew his attention back to the large bipedal among the other eleven who stood as silent sentinels. Each tick sprayed the gray stars across the field. "They breached it?" he echoed. "Then... how do you close it?"

Time's hand clicked closer to the peak of both noon and midnight.

"Whoa..." He raised his hands and laughed at the formless being's sense of humour. "Me? I'm just a college student and I can't... I mean, what do you expect me to do? Fight the breach? With what? My hands?" He let out another breathless laugh, but it broke apart in his throat when the bipedals inched closer with the ticks and he pressed said hands against his chest. "... you'll give me a weapon? Uh... I mean... I don't know but if I can get an answer in response then... I'll do what I can for you... if it'll help... though I'm not much of a fighter myself... wouldn't know how to use a knife, if I'm honest—" He stopped when it interrupted him. "Excuse me? My eyes?"

The teeth burst apart into gray cascades and drew into the event horizon above his head. He went to take another step, but the final dong made him sink deeper into the abyss when he raised his head. Another lance of light hung over him, separating itself into two prongs, tight against each other.

Time struck with cruel mercilessness when it slammed downwards.

Blinding white pain filled his senses and made him scream at the sudden thrust of the entire world below. It crackled and the images swirled and danced and burst apart in blood as he drove his fingers into his eyes and tried to tear out the pain.

The truth is right in front of me. Right there. Right there! He tried to stretch his fingers through the intensifying mist which had teeth. His weapon. He wanted to grab onto something, anything.

In the same instant, he stumbled forward and his knees cracked against metal. It burned his brow, but he tapped his eyelids, and shook his head at the rippling whimper escaping his throat.

"Neo!" Nova screeched across the expanse. "Neo!"

"Ow ow ow..." He pushed the heel of his palm into his eyes and stood up on his shaky knees. "Could've warned me that it would hurt. I'm okay Nova, it's just—stars talk about ocular migraine central..." He grasped for his reality, to explain the situation, but stopped at the sight in front of him.

It was himself who drew his hand off the sphere without his pain.

"What?" he rasped.

"Maybe you should go to sleep?" Nova whispered and set a hand on his shoulder.

No!

Neo raced forward. "Nova, hey!" He waved his arms, then shook his head when the two departed. "What...?" He turned back to the anomaly, left alone with it. "What did you do?"

It refused to respond.

Neo gave chase to Nova and the other Neo who took his place in his reality, but the corridors shifted, changed, sped up, slowed down. He ran through people, yelling in their faces for someone to answer him, to acknowledge his existence. "Oh no no..." He rushed to their room as the ticking continued. "Where am I? When? What?" Questions danced when he pushed himself through the realm of possibility and stumbled into his own room.

"Whatever it is, the main directive hasn't changed."

Stars, his own voice pissed him off now that he was on the receiving end. Neo slowed to a stop between them when Nova stared at the false image.

"Don't they want to find a way out?" Nova questioned.

Pain seared through his head at the ripple of movement and voices. "A way out? Stars, it's the opposite, they wanted to find a way in." He tried to grasp at them, but he phased through them as they continued to talk about irrelevant things. A groan left his lips when he brushed the bridge of his nose. Ow... Thoughts jumbled, he tried to blink out the confusion when Nova said, "I need to see who got killed by my droid."

"What?" Neo said with his stupid reflection.

"I need to see the body."

Neo scowled. "That is the last thing you need to be worrying about, Nova..."

"Okay, so!" Neo scowled deeper when his mirror flew out of his chair. "You don't want or need to see that, ever, in my opinion."

"Well you don't have to be so stupid about it..." Neo mumbled and waited for Nova's reaction, with no other option but to step into a scientist's shoes and observe without bias, but he struggled to contain his anger every time the mirror opened his mouth as their conversation continued in circles, and his mirror finally relented to Nova's request. "This is a mistake, you should go back to the anomaly and figure out how to close it."

His mirror turned his back on Nova and held out the infopod. "That should get you access into the morgue—"

"Nova..." Neo shook his head at her when she took it from him.

"—I hope it gives you the answers you need."

"She's not going to get answers from that," Neo argued with himself as his mirror sank into his shoulders with a wince. "The answers are clearly in the anomaly. Anomaly." He drew the word over his lips and crept closer to himself. "Anomaly. Anomaly. Anomaly. How many times do I have to say this?" He stiffened when Nova grabbed onto his mirror to hug him, out of reach and bathed in the cold.

"Thank you, Neo, this means a lot to me."

Neo face-palmed when his mirror gave the most lackluster response he could manage, and Nova ran out of the room. He waited for him to give chase, but he frowned when his mirror simply sank into his seat and buried his head in his hands. "Classy," Neo said with a scoff. "Sure, let's sit here and mope while my best friend goes to look at a dead body. Nice. Idiot." He shook his head at the mirror and rushed out of the corridor. Except it tangled and twisted, and the first step he took brought him to another connection.

Nova, being led into the morgue.

"Nova," he repeated and fell in step with her. "Nova, this is not a good idea. I need you to hear me." He bustled past her, in an attempt to stand in front of her, but she moved forward without a response or acknowledging him. He tried to prod her, or punch her shoulder, but he phased through her.

A ghost.

He played with his fingers and stuck right to her side. "Nova," he continued. "Listen..." he pleaded. "Listen, the answers aren't going to be here. This is not going to be pleasant." He tried to grab onto her, but she fell out of his reach and his useless grip. "Fuck." He sped to catch up as the doctor guided her into the morgue, only to be called away in a blur. "Nova. Nova." He trembled on his toes when her gaze drifted to the left, into the morgue. He stopped at the sight.

Crimson tendrils cracked the windows, but Nova gave no reaction to the oddity. A piercing shriek dug into his temples, and he gasped out his pain when the reality shuddered red. "Nova, don't!" he begged when she drew closer to the door with teeth. He dragged himself forward when she opened the door.

It layered with too many possibilities, but he relaxed at the usual frozen mist over the floor. He came to a stop at the metal slab which held the engineer's body, drawing his attention over the cadaver, where something impaled them through the chest and left nothing inside. "It was so obvious..." he mumbled and shook his head. "It wasn't your fault, Nova, so can we just..." He glanced up.

Her pallor turned ashen as she brought a hand up to her mouth.

"I told you this would be upsetting," he pleaded and rushed up to her, to comfort her. "Why didn't you listen to me?"

"Neo," she mumbled under her breath.

Hope bloomed across his chest at the acknowledgement. "Yes, I know, I'm here. It's okay, I have a lot to explain... but..."

Her gaze never broke past him.

He turned around.

Abyssal stars curdled over the body, a sprinkle of possibility. One blink, so many sat upon the table with the same injury. Every step he took, the faces became familiar. Thuni. Ulin. Izerva.

Nova.

"No. No, this can't happen, this isn't happening," Neo mumbled and twisted back to her. "Nova, you have to tell me what you're seeing!" He rushed back up to her when the tendrils skittered closer to her with its hunger for assimilation. He found himself able to touch her shoulders, sinking past inch by inch. She withdrew out of his grasp and rushed out of the morgue.

Pressure grew in his mind when he followed her out, but crimson splattered the stars.

Her footsteps opened every eye of the amalgamation of a black hole which chewed across the medbay, and with her back turned, she knew nothing of the danger. "Nova..." he rasped and crawled after her when every orb zoned in on her, but never on him. "Nova."

It moved with sluggish speeds and ripped apart reality.

He turned at her disappearing shape as the thing gave chase.

He raced after her when it sped up. "Fuck," she sobbed and scrambled for the escape.

"Oh no you don't." Metal burned on his neck when he pushed her through the fracture, left behind as the thing lunged forward with a long neck full of teeth. As he twisted around to face the truth, a mirage of teeth came from the visage of time and slammed down into its neck. Chains choked him when gray butterflies gathered and formed a carapace of a nebulous abyss.

Crimson splattered stars.

It swept up his knees, and he found himself sinking into them when the thing slid into the vents to escape the little butterflies fluttering around, and added more dead to the morgue.

"WARNING!" an alarm rang out when he clung onto the white-hot good luck charm on his neck, the butterfly necklace, his promise. "ANOMALOUS THREAT ACTIVE AND DANGEROUS. LOCKDOWN Z INITIALIZED."

What... was that? What's happening? He whimpered and pushed himself against the escape time closed behind him, with Nova long out of danger, though her body remained on the slab through the window, a thousand possibilities on the wings of butterflies when they withered at his feet, where a gray nebulous mist rose around him when he touched what used to be his own reality as bodies slumped forward in his own teeth.

What have I done?