[Flashback - Eleanor's Private Quarters]
Eleanor sat in her personal rooms within the ACC headquarters, going through her nightly routine with the kind of automatic precision that came from centuries of habit.
She kept various artifacts from her long career in a secure case – mementos from portal expeditions, items of sentimental value, objects she'd collected over two hundred years of service to humanity.
Among them was a small black cube that she'd found during a portal expedition five years ago.
She'd kept it out of curiosity more than anything else, the spatial properties interesting but seemingly inactive, no threat detected by even the most thorough scans.
Out of habit, she reached for it, intending to examine it as always.
But… the moment her fingers touched the cube's surface, her eyes flashed.
The kind, grandmotherly expression that defined her public persona vanished, replaced by complete blankness – not unconsciousness, but something worse.
Emptiness!
