The void age

Chapter One: The Girl Who Chased the Sky Year 200052 My mother used to say that every great discovery began with a question. My father believed every question had an answer. I believed neither. Some questions were never meant to be answered. Like why the Comet came six years early. Or why humanity survived when every calculation predicted extinction. Or why, after two hundred thousand years of progress, fear still ruled our lives. Every morning, I woke beneath a sky that my ancestors had died trying to see again. Crystal towers pierced the clouds. Magnetic railways floated between cities. Cargo ships crossed the atmosphere without making a sound. Above us all, Jenny watched over billions of lives with silent precision. To everyone else, the Void was proof that humanity had conquered the impossible. To me... It felt like a cage built from perfection. My name is Lyra Solis. Seventeen years old. Daughter of two of the greatest Comet scientists in the Void. According to my parents, my future had already been decided before I learned to write. I would become a scientist. I would continue their research. I would dedicate my life to understanding the Comet. There was only one problem. I hated laboratories. The air smelled of chemicals and recycled oxygen. Every room looked the same—white walls, polished steel, endless screens filled with equations no one fully understood. I wanted the world beyond those walls. The places people whispered about. The frontiers where the Aphylites fought wars no news channel ever reported. The borders where aliens waited beyond the horizon. My parents called it childish curiosity. I called it living. "Lyra." My mother's voice interrupted my thoughts. She placed a data tablet on the breakfast table. "Review these before school." I glanced at the title. Quantum Instability Within Residual Comet Energy. She smiled. "You'll enjoy it." I smiled back because disappointing her hurt more than pretending. "I'll read it." My father looked up from his coffee. "The entrance examination for the Nova Scientific Institute is in three months." His eyes shone with excitement. "Your mother and I passed it at sixteen." I already knew. I'd heard the story a hundred times. He leaned forward. "You'll do even better." The words should have filled me with pride. Instead... They felt like chains. Outside the apartment window, the city stretched endlessly beneath the morning light. Somewhere beyond those towers... The Aphylites were fighting a war no classroom could teach. And for reasons I couldn't explain... I felt as though that war was waiting for me. I just didn't know it yet. That morning began like every other. None of us knew... It would be the last ordinary day of my life.