Critical system lights flared up all over the dash, the bridge awash with colour and the keening of sirens. None of it mattered. They’d slipped past the edge of the event horizon and were being pulled inexorably into the black hole where they’d be pulled apart, atom by atom. The captain didn’t have it in him to spend his last moments panicking. Instead he sighed, cursed his bad luck, and silenced the alarms with an executive command. In the following silence, he considered going out playing some of his favourite music, but instead elected to listen to the creaking of the ship instead. The unfiltered universe can, at times, stop being so terrifying and be quite beautiful.
Paddy Dobson
27th November 2023