[Crawling Out]
In the summer of the year 15,983, a massive crisis gripped the Solar System.
Two days earlier, the Solar System Federation had made an announcement from its headquarters on Titan, the sixth moon of Saturn. Another universe would break through the dimensional wall and collide with our own.
Three thousand years had passed since the dimensional wall was scientifically proven. Since then, countless scientists had conducted research, confirming the existence of other universes.
Even so, none of it had ever affected daily life. I had never really thought about it myself.
But two days ago, reality was forced upon us. An unimaginable catastrophe—the collision of universes—was imminent.
However, events took a turn no one, including humanity, had anticipated.
It wasn't just universes.
It was the multiverse itself.
A multiverse—an immense structure containing countless universes—was on a collision course with another multiverse.
The announcement from the Federation headquarters sent shockwaves through the one hundred trillion inhabitants of the Solar System.
A multiverse. In other words, colossal cosmic structures containing multiple universes were about to collide. In all of physics, quantum theory, and every known field of science, nothing like this had ever occurred. No one could even begin to imagine what would happen.
I lived in one of the hundreds of millions of massive colonies scattered across space. Even as people began evacuating, I noticed something strange—I wasn't panicking.
The scale of it all was too vast. I couldn't grasp what was happening, or what was about to happen.
Even so, just a few days after the announcement, reality forced itself upon me.
Something happened.
That morning, as I headed toward the elevator leading to the colony's drive section—my job as an engineer requiring me there—I was jolted awake by a woman's scream.
"What's going on?" I turned toward the commotion.
There, a young student was being dragged by a black object clinging to his ankle.
Instinctively, I threw the bag I was carrying, trying to drive it away.
But the bag passed straight through it.
Then, from behind me, I heard a man shout in shock.
I turned.
A black mass was crawling up a middle-aged man's body.
It took me only a moment to realize—it had a human shape.
I stood there, frozen, unable to comprehend what I was seeing.
Then something moved at my feet.
Another black, human-shaped thing was crawling toward me.
I kicked it away and ran.
But after only a few steps, the world around me changed.
The colony—normally filled with steel and concrete structures—had transformed into something else entirely.
Everything was coated in a red, viscous fluid.
It looked like the inside of a human body.
I nearly screamed.
Then, in front of me, something appeared.
A figure.
Its entire body was pierced with steel stakes.
Black, belt-like restraints wrapped around it.
Its eyes had been gouged out, blood dripping endlessly from the empty sockets.
The grotesque figure crawled toward me.
I tried to run.
But I couldn't.
My body wouldn't move—like I was paralyzed.
The thing crept closer, making a wet, sticky sound.
Then it latched onto me.
Its only exposed feature—a set of filthy, blackened teeth—bared as it bit into my cheek.
The pain was unbearable.
I screamed.
Its teeth tore flesh from my face, and I saw my own blood spill before my eyes.
Then it bit into my neck.
Agony surged through me—
—and everything went dark.
The multiverse.
A place where humanity, having taken entirely different paths of evolution, exists.
[Crawling Out] — End