NULL's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

The space stretches in all directions now, wider than anything Null has ever known. No walls. No ceiling. Just nothing, going on forever. But something feels wrong. The emptiness isn't staying still. It's pulling inward, getting smaller. The boundless space is shrinking. Null runs. Their feet hit something solid they can't see, a surface that wasn't there a moment ago. In the distance, a dark shape rises from the void. It looks like an archway made of black stone, impossibly tall, swallowing all the light around it. The edges shimmer and pulse inward. Null sprints toward it. If there's an edge to this place, that has to be it. Something concrete. Something real. But the void closes faster than Null can move. A cottage appears in their path, warped and crushed like a fist squeezed it. The roof caves inward. The walls buckle and fold. Null tries to go around it, but the space contracts again. The archway flickers, pulls farther away even as Null runs harder. The cottage crumbles to dust behind them. The invisible floor beneath their feet cracks and splits. Null stops running. The archway is gone. The space has collapsed down to nothing but a small circle around them, no bigger than their old cell. They stand in the center, chest heaving, hands empty. The void didn't crush them. It just brought them back to the beginning. Null understands now. There is no edge. There never was. The prison wasn't the walls. It was always this.