Adam had dreamed of becoming an astronaut since childhood.
When he was young, he truly believed it could happen. He wanted to go into space, explore it, and see what was hidden beyond Earth.
But as he grew older, he realized something simple. In his country, people were not building rockets in a way that could take him there. If he wanted to become an astronaut, he would have to go to another country.
At first, Adam thought about that seriously.
Then another idea came to him.
'Why don't I build my own rocket?'
Because of that thought, he began studying the subjects he needed. He studied whatever looked useful for rockets and space. He kept learning, but the more he studied, the more limitations he found.
In the end, his life moved somewhere else.
Now Adam worked in a company that manufactured parts used in airplanes.
He had reached something close to his dream, but not the dream itself.
That regret stayed with him.
He had a job. But the one thing he had wanted most, going to space and exploring what was hidden there, had slowly fallen apart.
That thought burned inside him even now.
That night, Adam returned from the office and came back to his room. He lay down on his bed and looked at the ceiling.
'What was the point of studying so much?' he thought.
His eyes stayed on the ceiling.
'What was the point of working so hard? I could have done something else. I could have chosen anything. What is the use of a dream that can never be fulfilled?'
He stayed like that for a while.
Then reality cracked in front of him.
Adam froze.
Right above him, in the air, thin cracks appeared like cracks in glass. But there was no glass there. The cracks spread silently, cutting through the space in front of his eyes.
Adam sat up at once.
The cracks were still there.
Then more appeared.
They spread around his hands, his legs, his body, and even near his head. Everywhere around him, reality looked like it was breaking.
Adam stared at it in shock.
He had read a lot about space. He knew about theories, wormholes, and strange things that could happen to space itself. Seeing something like this in front of him should have terrified him.
But excitement rose inside him too.
'Is this real?' Adam thought. 'Is this kind of phenomenon actually happening to me?'
There was no pain.
His body was not breaking. His skin was not tearing. His bones were not cracking.
It was reality that was breaking.
The cracks spread faster.
The room began to distort. The ceiling, the walls, and the space around him no longer looked stable.
Adam tried to move, but his body did not respond properly.
Darkness began spreading around him.
There was still no pain, but something was happening to his consciousness. It felt as if his thoughts were being pulled apart.
The room disappeared.
At the last moment, only one question remained in Adam's mind.
'Am I being pulled into a wormhole?'
Then everything went dark.
For a long time, Adam felt nothing.
There was only darkness.
Then he heard voices.
At first, they were faint. It sounded like many people were talking somewhere around him.
Adam's thoughts slowly returned.
'Voices?'
He felt confused.
'How can there be sound in space? Where am I?'
He slowly opened his eyes.
The first thing he saw was not space.
He was lying on the ground.
The floor under him was not made of tile or cement. It was rough dirt.
Adam blinked and looked above him.
There was a low roof over his head, made from cloth and wooden supports. The place looked like a small house, but not a proper house. It was closer to a tent made into a room.
Adam slowly sat up.
The front side of the tent-like house was open.
Through it, he could see outside.
There were many people moving around. Some women were walking past. Some children were outside. A few men were standing and talking. Their voices were the same sounds he had heard earlier.
Adam looked at them.
Then he looked at the dirt floor, the cloth roof, and the open entrance again..
He was somewhere else.
'Where am I?'