Lucien Aetherius was no ordinary human. Before he was born, he possessed exceptional intelligence, but he soon discovered that brilliance is not always a blessing. His keen intellect isolated him; the world became monotonous, meaningless to a society that did not understand him. Friendless, and possibly estranged from his family, he opted for a comfortable life, without luxuries, wasting his talent and not contributing to humanity, simply because his interests differed radically from the norm. A few days before fulfilling a long-cherished dream, a cataclysmic blast ripped through the Earth, destroying the universe. But before the annihilation, a round, bright light struck the planet, preceding the devastating blast. The ground shook; the light, expanding, absorbed everything for miles around, pulverizing most of the population. He alone survived, though he felt his body disintegrating, clinging to life with superhuman willpower, fighting the sensation of something inside him fading away. Then the blast hit him, a torrent of multicolored stars.
As the dust settled - the universe gone - in the starry void, a nebula of blue and other colors began to take shape, the silhouette of a human body, but without skin or bones, just pure energy.
The inert body disappeared with a shadow that seemed to have absorbed it with a bucket it was holding.
...
When I awoke, I looked around in confusion. Hadn't I died? I wondered if there was life after death, but upon searching for my body, I discovered that there was nothing. Upon further exploration, I realized that my consciousness was floating in this vast dark space, separate from my physical body.
That made him anxious because he found himself in a situation that was quite confusing. How did I get to this place? What happened to me? Will I be able to go back to the way I was before?
He spent a long time thinking, after calming down he realized a terrible truth.
It is impossible for me to see my hometown again, maybe the earth was destroyed with that crash. Although he did not fully understand behind what happened, because everything happened too fast to analyze that did not mean that the earth would be safe after that blow. And even if he wanted to go back, he did not know where to start.
He looked around and there was no planet or anything to guide him in locating the earth. Everything was different from what he remembered of planets outside the solar system. Planets he had never seen before stretched across his view.
Another thing that bothered him was that there was no sense of time.
It was the first time he felt cornered at a point of no return.
There was no choice but to discover everything for himself.