"Elara! Come back! Stay with me!"
The voice was distant, a tiny spark of violet in a sea of white. It was Silas. He was the only thing keeping my consciousness from dissolving into the atmosphere. I could feel him standing on the ruined helipad of the Observatory, his shadows anchored into the rock, his hand clutching the empty air where I had stood moments before.
I forced myself to contract. It was an agonizing process, like folding a mountain range into a suitcase. I pulled my essence back from the core, back from the forests, and back from the screaming souls in the pods. I felt the sharp, cold bite of reality as my feet touched the broken metal of the helipad.
The white faded. The world returned, but it was a world I didn't recognize.
We were no longer in the solar system. The sun
