Insufficient

The word, if it could be called that, did not fade. It was a brand on their consciousness, a declaration of such finality that it defied comprehension. INSUFFICIENT. The void left in its wake was more terrifying than any scream, any threat. It was the silence of a predator that had already judged its prey and found it wanting.

Kenji’s mind, a fortress of logic and calculation, fractured. He ran a billion simulations in the span of a single heartbeat, each one ending in the same cold, hard truth: they had offered the sum of their existence, a tapestry of art, science, and history, and it had been dismissed as nothing. Less than nothing. A rounding error in the cosmic equation.

Reyes, ever the soldier, felt the primal instinct to fight rise within him, but it was a useless, vestigial urge. Fight what? A concept? A judgment? He gripped the console before him, his knuckles white, the physical sensation a desperate anchor in the sea of existential dread.

Silas, a man who had faced down death in a hundred different forms, felt a fear he had never known. It was not the fear of pain or oblivion, but the fear of utter, absolute insignificance. He looked at Kenji, then at Reyes, and saw the same terror reflected in their eyes. They were children staring into the abyss, and the abyss had just told them they weren’t even worth consuming.