Dismissed by the Universe

The spacecraft cut through deep space, silent and steady. Anant woke in his bunk, checked the clock, and pushed himself upright. Nine hours since crossing Xinaps-07. The farthest any human mission had ever gone. He dressed, checked ship-time, and stepped into the corridor. The lights glowed dimly, a soft guide through the silence. Out there was nothing but black. No horizon. No reference. A reminder that whatever you achieved, the universe stayed indifferent.

The alarms shattered the quiet. Red strobes. Sirens. A jolt through the deck.

“Captain, asteroid inbound. Object emerged without approach vector,” the pilot shouted over comm. “Impact in fourteen minutes.”

Anant sprinted into the nearest escape pod and strapped in. “What do the sensors show?” he asked, pulling down the comm panel.

The pilot’s voice trembled. “It is not moving naturally. Coordinates shifting every second. Like it is being dropped in and out of position.”

“Take a forty-five-degree detour. Full thrust. Everyone to escape pods. Move now.”

A beat.

“No effect. It altered course. Still locked on us. Three minutes to impact.”

“Adjust again. Fifteen degrees. Full thrust. Transmit our coordinates to Ground Command.”

Anant gripped the harness, jaw tight. Seventy-two hours of clear space. All known and unknown objects mapped. Nothing even close to this.

The pilot came back on. “Captain… it is gone. Just vanished. We are clear.”

Before Anant could finish a breath of relief, the pilot’s voice returned: “Do you see the purple mist, Captain?”

Anant switched feeds. Dense mist filled the display. Stationary. Glowing faintly. Pulsing. “What is the system reading?”

“Unidentified. No hazard flags. Predicts safe passage,” the pilot said.

Anant began unstrapping. The ship slammed upward, smashing him into the pod ceiling. He gasped in pain.

“Nobody leaves pods. Autonomous mode only.”

Another violent jolt. Then another. The whole ship vibrated at a frequency that felt like it was shaking itself apart.

Anant’s escape pod armed itself. Automatic hull-breach protocol.

“Pilot, report,” he shouted.

Static.

He tried the others. Nothing.

The vibrations intensified. His bones felt like they were being pulled apart.

A flash swallowed the pod. Everything went black.

Anant woke on hard ground, staring at a sky the color of bruised violet. He sat up slowly. His suit was intact. It showed normal vitals except for a spiking heart rate. Atmospheric readings blinked green. Breathable. Unknown location. He hesitated, then removed his mask. Cool air slid across his face. Clean. Too smooth.

Something caught his eye.

A statue. Cross-legged. One cracked eye staring forward.

Anant crawled back in shock, only to collide with another statue behind him, this one missing an arm. He stood, heart hammering. They were everywhere. Thousands. Stretching until the horizon dissolved. All seated in the same pose. All facing the same direction. Silent. Watching.

He raised his binoculars. Nothing but stone. No trees. No water. No movement. Only rows upon rows of statues forming an enormous mandala across the plain.

The purple sky above pulsed faintly, the same way the mist had.

His scientist’s instinct urged caution. If something is in equilibrium, do not disturb it. The consequences can be anything.

He stepped carefully between the statues. Up close, their faces were almost human, but not human. Some were ancient and worn. Some looked freshly carved. Yet all shared the same posture and the same impossible stillness. Different forms of the same thing.

Who created them? Where was the civilization? How was the air breathable?

He moved toward the center of the mandala, hoping for something different. Something that explained any of this. Nothing. The central statue was identical. Frustration tightened his chest. So did fear.

He tried calling the crew. -- Static. He shouted into the emptiness. -- Echo.

Then silence again, as if the place rejected sound. As he steadied himself, every statue turned its head. Not gradually. Not with stone grinding. Perfectly synchronized.

Anant’s breath broke. He reacted on instinct, panic overriding reason. He kicked the central statue. His foot passed straight through it. Through stone like through nothing. As he pulled back, the statue re-formed instantly, settling like thick jelly into shape.

The wind stopped. Stillness. Total and absolute.

A tiny crack opened on the nearest statue. Then another. The cracks spread. A soft vibration passed through the ground and into every statue. Anant felt it in his bones.

One statue dissolved. Not shattered. Dissolved. Stone to fluid. Fluid to mist. Mist pulled inward.

Another followed. Then ten. Then hundreds.

A wave rolled through the mandala. Each collapse sent a stream of purple mist toward the center. A perfect convergence. A gravitational obedience. In the center, the mist began to gather. It rose and tried to take shape. A giant seated figure. The same outline as the statues. The form wavered, unable to hold. Edges buckled. Surface thickened and thinned. The idea of a body seemed too heavy for it.

Anant stared with his mouth open. Fear should have taken him, but awe held him still. This was the unknown he had spent his life chasing. His mind whispered the question without finishing it: Is this the truth behind everything? is it the ....

A voice rose from everywhere. “You are human.” No emotion. No judgement. Only fact.

Anant looked around. “Who… what are you?”

“I am what reality uses to hold itself together.” The mist pulsed. “You see me as shape because your mind refuses to face what has no shape. I have no form. No edge. No beginning. No after. Where you come from, time moves. Here, time is still. You bring before. You bring after. Your presence disturbs the quiet.”

“Are you going to kill me?”

“I do not end what lives. There is no ending. Only change. What you call life and death are movements inside one fabric.” A pause.

“I keep that fabric from tearing. The fabric of connection. The fabric of consequence. The fabric of continuity.”

Anant steadied himself. “If I do not belong here, then why am I here?”

The mist paused. The stillness felt absolute.

“A slip. A crack. You passed through it with your awareness intact. This is where all consciousness rests between its movements in time. Not a place for bodies. Not a place for minds that remember or hope or fear.”

A pressure grew in Anant’s chest. “Are you my consciousness?”

The mist brightened.

“I am The consciousness. Yours is a momentary expression of me. A ripple of the same water. You ask if the drop belongs to the sea or if the sea belongs to the drop. Both are true. Neither matters.”

“You cannot remain. Where time flows, you are needed. Here, you unravel.”

The mist folded inward. The purple sky split open. Everything turned white.

The white light thinned into grey. Grey broke into shapes.

“Captain Anant. Can you hear me?”

He nodded. The motion felt heavy, as if his head still carried the weight of another world.

A medical officer placed sensors on his neck and wrist. “Vitals are stable,” she said. “Mild shock. Nothing critical.”

Anant scanned the room.

“Your team survived,” she continued. “Their pods were scattered across a small radius. We recovered everyone.” She paused. “You were the farthest.”

He was guided to a bunk and handed water.

“You may not remember the incident. The shock does that. Command will want your report once you rest.”

Later, Anant sat alone by the viewport while the craft drifted on its slow path home. He watched the stars. Silent. Unchanged.

There was no revelation waiting for him.

No hidden purpose behind life or the cosmos.

He had slipped through a crack in reality, nothing more.

He was noise inside a place built for silence.

He had been removed the way the universe removes dust from a lens, without intention or emotion.

It was an accident in a system that did not care enough to prevent it.