Cosmic Dominion: Rise Beyond Realms

The next morning started like it always did—or at least, that's what I thought.

The lights in the crew quarters slowly brightened from midnight-blue to a gentle white, mimicking Earth's sunrise. The hum of the ship thrummed softly beneath my bed.

I sat up groggily. My body obeyed the command to sit up, but my mind lagged behind. It felt sluggish and muddy. The dream—or vision, or whatever the hell it had been—still clung to me.

I sat on the edge of my bunk longer than usual, rubbing my face and trying to shake off the memory of the black box. I'd woken up at least twice during the night, convinced something was watching me from the shadows of the room.

My fingers twitched involuntarily as I rubbed my temples. The black box, the pull I felt, the hell I witnessed… it hadn't faded with the morning like dreams usually did. It was still there like a stone lodged just behind my ribs.

"Shin, you alive in there?!" Joseph's voice snapped me out of it. He was leaning in the doorway, a toothbrush in his mouth, hair messy, uniform halfway on.

"Yeah," I said automatically, though it didn't sound convincing even to me.

"Cool. Thought the weird dream you saw last night got you again," he said, winking before vanishing down the corridor.

I didn't smile.

I moved through my routine—clean up, uniform, brushing my hair, breakfast—like I was on autopilot. My hand even reached for a cup of coffee I didn't remember making. Maybe Joseph made it for me. Or maybe I had finally achieved crew-level muscle memory. I didn't have much of an appetite, so instead of going to the cafeteria, I choked down a protein bar in my room.

I stepped out into the corridor and joined the quiet flow of crew heading toward their respective stations. Joseph gave me a half-wave from logistics. I nodded back but didn't say anything. 

I made it to the navigation hub on time. Everything looked the same—floating star charts, shifting data streams, the faint hum of the ship's core systems.

Normally, I loved working in nav. It was the quiet part of the ship, filled with soft lights, responsive holograms, and an unspoken sense of responsibility. The others might not have seen it that way, but for me, plotting trajectories across the stars was almost meditative.

But today?

My focus was gone.

I took my seat and logged into my station, and activated the control panel. Screens lit up. Star paths and sub-route data flickered into view. I brought up the ship's current path, blinking hard to clear my vision. My fingers hesitated for a beat longer than usual before touching the console.

The first mistake came within five minutes.

I stared too long at one coordinate stream and completely missed an orbital variance flag. The system flashed red, automatically correcting it, but not before a small audio chime warned me of the oversight.

Warning. Drift margin exceeded for plotted trajectory.

I blinked again. "What?"

I shook my head and tried again—this time inputting the realignment values for tomorrow's course check. But my hands typed the wrong sequence. Numbers are in the wrong order. I knew they were wrong the moment I entered them.

A soft beep.

Invalid entry. Check navigation code.

I frowned and retyped them. But slower. Carefully. Almost like I was trying to trick my own brain into functioning.

A nearby crewmate named Ava turned to glance over.

"That's rare for you," she said, blinking at my screen. "You alright?"

"Yeah… yeah. Just a misclick," I lied, clearing the error. "Was aiming for… a different quadrant."

Ava raised a brow but didn't press. She returned to her station.

I shook my head. Focus, Shin. Come on.

I realigned the star maps and tried to reset the navigational drift logs. It should've taken me five minutes.

Instead, I somehow rotated the entire stellar map projection upside down.

"...Okay, I don't even know how you managed that," said Amir, one of the engineers passing by behind me. "You've been working this hub for two years. You literally train people on it."

"I might be sleepwalking today," I muttered.

Then I accidentally hit a shortcut that turned the entire UI language into German.

"What the hell?" I stared. "Why does this ship have a German mode?"

I spent the next hour pretending to work.

My fingers moved, the screens changed, but my brain was playing catch-up with every action. I had to double-check everything. Triple-check, sometimes. Like my instincts were short-circuiting.

The rest of the crew didn't say much, but I saw the glances. Little side-eyes. Quiet exchanges. They noticed. Of course they did.

"Are you sure you're okay?" another voice asked. This time, from Haro, one of the operations techs passing by my station. "Not trying to be nosy, but it's not like you to miss protocol entries."

I looked up. His tone wasn't accusatory. It was concerned.

"I'll be fine," I said, keeping my voice steady. "Just a rough night."

He gave a slow nod. "Alright. If you need a break, say so. No shame in stepping out for air."

"Thanks," I said. "I appreciate it."

He walked off. I sat back in my chair, exhaled slowly, and stared again at the coordinates. They didn't seem wrong anymore—but they didn't seem right either. They were just numbers.

For a split second, I saw the black box flicker on the screen where the planet marker should be.

I blinked. It was gone.

Hallucination?

By the end of my shift, I'd corrected most of my mistakes and stopped the ship from flying into a blackhole. But my brain still felt like it was dragging itself through molasses.

Even now, hours later, I felt, if I closed my eyes for even for a second… I might find myself back there.

In the lava.

When my shift finally ended, I logged out and walked the corridors and went straight to the communication bay.

The soft lights of The Odyssey's halls guided me as I made my way through the winding corridors, past the science labs and hydroponics bay, until I reached the communication deck. It was quieter here. Calmer. A space sealed off from the mechanical buzz of the ship. This was the part of The Odyssey that reminded us we weren't cut off. A place where the endless cold of space could soften for just a little while, replaced by warm faces and familiar voices that waited light-years away.

I slid my access card into the panel, entered my encryption code, and waited as the system calibrated the long-range communication link. There was a delay. There always was. Signal lag, relay relinking and so on…

I tapped the console.

CONNECTING TO: MAKI NAGAMURA – EARTH – TOKYO REGION.

The line pinged once.

Twice.

Her face appeared.

Her warm brown eyes instantly chased away every single ghost of my day. Her short, dark hair tucked behind her ears, soft brown eyes that always seemed to be smiling even when her lips weren't. She was curled up on her couch, wrapped in a cosy sweater with a cup of tea balanced on her knee.

"Maki…" I breathed, the tension in my shoulders immediately beginning to unravel.

Her smile lit up the whole screen.

"Shin!" Maki's voice carried a lightness that hit me straight in the chest. Her eyes lit up with that familiar warmth, and I couldn't stop the smile tugging at my lips.

"Hey, beautiful," I said, leaning a little closer to the screen. "You're glowing today."

She tilted her head with a playful grin. "It's the 40% Earth sun, 60% video filter."

I chuckled, rubbing the back of my neck. "Nah, it's all you."

She paused for a second, her expression softening. "You look tired. Long day?"

"You have no idea."

She leaned forward slightly, her face filling the screen. "Tell me about it. But first… just let me look at you for a second."

I did the same.

There was a silence that wasn't awkward. Just… full. Like a pause to hold hands through a window.

"I miss you," she whispered.

"I miss you more."

Her cheeks reddened just slightly.

"I've been counting the weeks," she said softly. "It's not so far now, right?"

"Sixteen months," I murmured. "Give or take a few course corrections."

She smiled and glanced down for a second, hesitating. "I'm still waiting for you… You know that, right?"

"I never doubted it."

Her voice dropped into something gentler, almost shy. "And when you get back... I want us to finally do it."

I blinked, surprised. "Do what?"

She turned fully red. "You know… have kids."

My mouth opened, but nothing came out.

Maki covered her face with both hands and peeked at me through her fingers. "Ugh! Don't make me say it twice!"

My heart thudded in my chest, a goofy smile tugging at my lips. "You want to have kids?"

She peeked again. "Well, you're the guy I married to and the only guy I ever imagined raising little brats with. So… yes."

"I… wow." I scratched the back of my neck, feeling a blush heat my face. "You really know how to short-circuit a guy."

She laughed again. "You're cute when you're flustered."

I reached out, fingertips brushing the screen, wishing it could be more than just photons and glass between us.

For a moment, it was just us and the stars.

Then the weight of the day came rushing back.

I sighed and leaned forward, hands clasped in front of me. "Maki… can I tell you something?"

"Of course."

I told her everything.

The dream, the hell I saw and that ominous-looking box. How I couldn't focus, how I was making mistake after mistake all day, how it felt like I was walking around inside someone else's head.

She didn't interrupt.

She listened.

When I was finished, she set down her mug and looked directly at me. Her gaze was steady, thoughtful.

"I think," she said gently, "that you've been pushing yourself too hard."

I opened my mouth to protest, but she held up a hand.

She nodded slowly. "Sometimes when we're too deep into work—too isolated—our mind starts trying to force us to slow down. I've seen it happen with many people. You've been under pressure for months, Shin. And you always push through, pretending you're fine."

I exhaled. "I didn't think it was catching up to me."

"It always catches up eventually," she said, her voice gentle. "You're not weak for needing rest. You're human."

I looked at her through the screen, suddenly overwhelmed by just how much I missed her presence. Not just her face, or her voice, but her steadiness. Her ability to see me clearly than I saw myself.

"I just… don't want to mess up. Not out here."

"You won't," she said. "Even if you stumble. You're Shin. The same guy who taught himself orbital mechanics in his off-hours and once made a paper model of the solar system to cheer me up when I broke my arm."

"Hey, that model took three hours and twenty paperclips."

"And it was adorable," she smiled. "Just like you."

She reached toward the screen, fingertips brushing her side of the glass. "Promise me you'll rest. Even if it's just for one night."

I looked back up, met her eyes again. "I promise."

She smiled. "Good. Because when you get back, I expect you to be in one piece."

"Emotionally or physically?"

"Preferably both."

There was a soft beat of silence between us again. Then she leaned forward, pressing her fingers gently to her lips.

"Goodbye kiss?"

I did the same.

We touched the screen in sync, an imperfect mimicry of something we both ached for.

"Goodnight, Maki."

"Goodnight, Shin. I love you."

"I love you more."

She gave me one last radiant smile, and then the screen flickered to black.

I sat there for a while, alone in the quiet hum of the communication deck, her words still ringing in my ears.

Maybe she was right.

Maybe I wasn't losing my mind.

Maybe I just needed to breathe.

I stood, stretched, and made my way back to my quarters.

And this time, when I lay down, I wasn't afraid to close my eyes.

And maybe tomorrow would be better.

TO BE CONTINUED