Three in the morning.
By Martian time, this means the sky is still dark red, and the stars glitter like ice shards caught in red fabric.
Dr. Nora Al-Zahrani hasn't slept.
Couldn't.
She stands before her screen in the Great Chasm Observatory—that massive structure carved into the walls of Valles Marineris, the deepest canyon in the entire solar system.
Outside the window, the universe watches her.
Inside the room, she watches the oldest star in the galaxy.
"System restart."
Nora whispers, her voice carrying that scientific monotone which hides deep despair.
"Attempt number seven thousand two hundred and forty-three."
Her eyes—light brown, inherited from a Saudi father and a Spanish mother—are fixed on a tiny point on the screen.
HD 140283.
"Methuselah Star," as the scientists call it.
The oldest known object in the universe.
Age: 14.46 billion years.
But Nora knows something no one else knows.
[Three Months Earlier]
"Your theory is insane, Nora."
Professor King tosses her research paper on his desk.
"Completely insane."
"You're saying that stars... remember?"
Nora sits on the edge of her chair. Her hands clasp together, hiding nervousness behind a polite smile.
"Not memory in the human sense, Professor."
"Gravity is the memory of the universe."
"Every photon, every particle, every wave passing through a star's gravitational field..."
She pauses.
"Leaves a mark."
"Interferes."
"Stores."
King shakes his head.
"In quantum physics, yes. But you're talking about retrieving these marks."
"Reading the entire history of a planet from starlight."
Nora looks him straight in the eye.
"Because I did it."
Silence.
Long.
Heavy.
Then:
"Show me."
[Now]
In the dark depths of the chasm, Nora is about to do it again.
Her device—"The Mirror"—is a structure of cooled quantum crystal.
The size of a small car.
Hanging from the observatory ceiling like a metallic heart watching the sky.
Not built with university funds.
No.
With her life's savings.
A loan from Moon Bank.
And selling her parents' apartment in Jeddah.
After they died.
Everything.
For this moment.
"Settings ready, Doctor."
Aya's voice.
Soft as silk.
Aya isn't just a program—Nora programmed her herself.
Gave her a voice similar to her mother's.
The mother who died when she was a child.
"Begin countdown."
"Ten..."
"Nine..."
Nora closes her eyes.
In the darkness, she sees her father's face.
The last time.
Before they left for Hajj.
Before they died in the shuttle accident.
"My daughter, the stars aren't far."
"We are far from them."
"Three..."
"Two..."
"One..."
The Flash.
Chapter 1 (Part 2): Inside the Light
There was no body.
No observatory.
No time.
Nora—or her consciousness, or her soul, she doesn't know—floats in a sea of colors.
Colors with no names in human language.
This is how "The Mirror" works:
It doesn't move you through space.
It moves you through time.
Through the folds of gravity itself.
Here.
In this moment.
She sees the past.
But not her past.
The past of a planet.
Star HD 140283 was a witness.
A witness to the birth and death of thousands of solar systems.
One of them—she had pinpointed its coordinates—was 12.3 light-years from Earth's current location.
A small planet.
Blue-green.
Orbiting a medium yellow star.
Earth?
No.
Older.
By a billion years.
"Aya, are you recording?"
"Recording in progress, but..."
The AI pauses.
Strange silence.
Unprogrammed.
"Doctor, there is..."
"Something in the data."
Nora tries to focus.
In the world of colors, shapes begin to form.
Not real.
But memory.
Impressions compressed into photons across billions of years.
She sees a city.
Not in the human sense.
Crystal towers growing like coral reefs.
Connected by bridges of light.
Creatures...
No.
Shapes...
Moving between them.
Slow.
Full of wisdom.
As if time for them is water, not fire.
Then,
She sees the message.
It wasn't language.
It was mathematics.
Patterns repeating deliberately.
Carved into the fabric of the place itself.
Nora knows mathematics.
She was the smartest child in Jeddah.
Then in Madrid.
Then on the International Space Station.
Then on Mars.
These patterns...
Were a prophecy.
"Aya, translate. Now."
"Analyzing..."
Silence.
"Doctor, these equations concern..."
"A future?"
"Whose future?"
Longer silence.
"Our future."
"Earth Standard Date: 2187."
"The current year."
Nora feels gravity return suddenly.
Pulling her down.
Crushing her.
How?
How can a civilization a billion years old—
extinct before humans even existed—
predict her current year?
Then she sees the final part.
Not mathematics.
It was an image.
One creature from those crystal beings.
Standing before what looks like...
A mirror?
No.
A display screen.
And on the "screen,"
She sees something that stops her heart.
Her face.
Not exactly her face.
But...
Similar to her.
A woman.
Same brown eyes.
Same wavy black hair.
Same dimple that appears when she smiles nervously.
Under the image,
One number only.
"7"
Chapter 1 (Part 3): The Return
She opens her eyes.
On the floor.
Mouth foaming white.
Muscles shaking as if electrocuted.
"Doctor!"
"Heart rate 180!"
"Your pressure—"
"Stop."
She raises a trembling hand.
"Save the data."
"All of it."
"Then erase it from the main records."
"But—"
"Now, Aya."
She sits up slowly.
Looks out the window.
At the stars.
Those stars now look at her with different eyes.
Not glowing rocks.
But witnesses.
Witnesses to something waiting for her.
In her pocket,
Her phone vibrates.
A message.
From an unknown number.
"Dr. Al-Zahrani."
"We are watching your experiment."
"The number 7 is not a number."
"It is an appointment."
"You have six days to understand why the Methuselah civilization disappeared."
"And why we are next."
She looks at the message.
Then at the stars.
Then at her hands.
Right hand—carries a childhood scar.
Left hand—always trembles when afraid.
Six days.
Then what?
[End of Chapter 1]