CITIZENS OF THE VOID

AN OFFICIAL SHORT STORY BASED IN THE BROKEN WORLDS SEQUENCE

In the dome city of Choros – a new settlement placed on Europa – the sky was always a perfect cerulean blue, unmarred and eternal. Artificial sunlight fell in gentle waves, filtered through engineered clouds, casting just the right amount of warmth. The city hummed with controlled life – its walkways scrubbed clean by robo-vacs, its citizens smiling with contrived contentment. Every morning, the speakers chirped: “Unity before division!”
Thera adjusted her maintenance toolkit as she paced along the glimmering corridors of Sector 9, boots echoing against polished synthetic floors. She liked the silence this early in the morning. Her route wound past glossy green parks and monolith towers, and every forty steps a new billboard would bloom to life, advertising PANGAEA’s latest initiative: ‘Clean Sky. Clear Mind.’
She remembered back to the time before Choros. She’d requested to be placed on Europa to get away from Earth. PANGAEA was an ever reaching force, and as a Static Class citizen, there weren’t many prospects for her.
As a young girl she dreamed of reaching for the stars, but as an adult, she’d just counted herself lucky enough to be given a coffee kiosk job.
That’s where she’d met Sable-V98 – one of the many Sentients who had lived among humans since before PANGAEA’s formation. It was Sable-V98 who encouraged her to chase the stars, and whispered rumours of a mission to Europa.
She still remembered the day she walked into PANGAEA headquarters. She came there every day for work, but that day felt different – as if she were standing on the precipice of something vast. She clutched a folder full of documents, as if her life depended on it.
The gates were white and unblemished, security drones patrolling the perimeter. Sentients from the Security Council stood at every checkpoint, still and watching.
‘Hold out your arm,’ one of them instructed. His tone was formal – not unkind, but terrifying in its precision.
She did as she was told. The Sentient didn’t react, merely scanned her white LifeScore band and waved her through the barrier. Trembling, she walked through, more determined than ever to escape this constant fear. But not many were chosen to start over, and definitely not from the Static Class.
Inside the courtyard, sunlight streamed between marble towers. She looked up – and saw a woman framed in a window above, red hair lit by the sun, watching the world below. Dr. Hayes. She knew nothing about her except her name and her coffee order.
Walking through the inner halls of the Scientific Council wing, she smelled ozone and steriliser. She sat stiffly in a reception chamber lined with blue-glass walls, and felt the floor beneath her feet suddenly vibrate with uneven pressure before it subsided. She clutched the folder tighter to her chest. A sharp-looking administrator with a purple LifeScore band approached, tapping something into a tablet without looking at her.
‘Thera Myles. Static Class. Clearance requested for interplanetary departure.’
‘Yes,’ she said quickly, then added, ‘I… I was recommended – by Sable-V98.’
The administrator paused. ‘A Sentient recommendation? Hmm… Wait here.’ He turned away without further word.
Time passed slowly. The screens around her continued to chirp. In one, a woman cheerfully explained the success of the Europa project, while in another, a map of PANGAEA’s reach flared from Earth to the Moon, to Titan, then Europa. No mention of the risks.
Eventually, a Sentient approached. Prism-U53, Dr. Anthony Voss’s assistant.
‘I’ve reviewed your record,’ he said, scanning her with cool, artificial LED eyes. ‘It is irregular. However, you have been approved for an interview.’
‘Thank you,’ she said quickly, her voice smaller than she intended. Her heart pounded in her chest, a quiet drumbeat against her ribs.
‘Follow me.’
The corridor they entered was silent and narrow, lined with seamless white panels that buzzed faintly with unseen circuitry. They passed no one. No footsteps echoed but their own. When he stopped before a sliding door – smooth, without handles – it parted with a soft hydraulic hiss.
He ushered her into a pristine office, the walls an immaculate white, the corners so clean they looked sharpened by design. A single vertical slit of a window let in thin, diffused light, casting pale lines across the glass-topped desk. There was no clutter. No paper. No hint that anyone had ever worked here. Only two chairs, one on each side of the desk, perfectly aligned.
She sat down, unsure if she was allowed to speak first.
Prism-U53 lowered himself opposite her. His movements were smooth, quiet. Measured. His facial plating shifted slightly, his underglow pulsing in a cool lavender colour.
‘What are your qualifications?’ he asked, his voice neutral – more formal than cold, but still devoid of anything resembling warmth.
‘I, uh, worked under Flux-V1 at the New Florida Power Station for four years,’ she said, stumbling slightly over her words. She wrung her hands tightly beneath the desk.
‘Ah. I know him.’ A flicker of green crossed Prism’s facial plating. ‘And what did you do there?’
‘Console maintenance. Core systems. But I had to leave. Static citizens were being pushed out of the Progressive zones in New Florida.’
Prism-U53 was silent, watching her.
‘So I came here, took a job at the kiosk downstairs. Sable-V98 thought my skills might be more useful for the Europa project.’
‘You understand this is a one-way assignment?’ Prism said. ‘The Scientific Council is seeking maintenance technicians for the construction of the Choros Spaceport on Europa. This may take years.’
Thera nodded eagerly.
‘The next Miller IV departs tomorrow. You’ll be responsible for upkeep and system reporting within the Choros dome. Do you agree?’
‘Yes. Absolutely. Thank you!’
Prism paused. His glow pulsed blue, then silver.
‘You know we don’t normally approve interplanetary transfers for Static Class citizens. You’ll be Reclassified as Progressive. This is a favour to Sable-V98. Do not let her down.’
‘I won’t. I promise.’
That was her last day on Earth.
She’d had enough time to thank Sable-V98, and pack a single backpack.
She had been here for months now. There was never any news about the spaceport being built. It was the same day, over and over again.
Despite the repetition, there were small moments of joy.
Each weekend, after the artificial sun dipped beneath the upper dome panels and the simulated twilight shimmered into being, Thera, Maren, and Kieran would climb the emergency stairs to the top of Sector 3’s habitation tower. It was one of the few places left untouched by constant surveillance, its upper levels half-abandoned and filled with old storage lockers and unused garden units.
There, behind a dusty maintenance duct, they kept a stash: three bottles of contraband alcohol, brewed from hydroponic fruit scraps and mineral water. The fermentation was rough, but it got the job done.
‘Cheers to mediocrity,’ Maren grinned one evening, tapping her mug against Thera’s. Kieran raised his mug too. ‘And to the stars we’ll never see.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ Thera said, mock-offended, ‘I’m already halfway there.’
The three of them laughed too hard, the kind of laughter that comes when you’re afraid of what silence might reveal. Later, Kieran passed out using a folded jumper as a pillow. Maren drew a moustache on a stolen robo-vac with a marker. The little unit whirred and beeped in mild protest before continuing its cleaning cycle like nothing had happened.
They’d woken in the morning with splitting headaches and sore ribs from laughing.
‘I think the robo-vac’s trying to tell me I should apologise,’ Maren muttered, watching the moustachioed bot silently pass by again, sweeping up decaying leaves from the rooftop garden.
‘I think it’s judging you,’ Thera replied, laughing.
That night stayed with Thera longer than most. It was the last time the sky looked whole. Before the fractures came. Before silence returned.

Out on a routine border inspection, Kieran and Maren walked beside her, both chewing on nutrient bars and scanning their logs. ‘Four minor energy dips overnight. No dome fluctuations reported.’ Kieran mumbled, his mouth full.
‘Except that one,’ Thera said, pointing to a lower section in the dome nearby. Maren followed to where she was pointing.
There was a smear on the dome. No – a crack. Faint. Hairline. Jagged like a pressure fault.
Kieran squinted. ‘Light refraction maybe?’
‘No,’ Maren said, stepping in for a closer look.
Thera followed her and raised her gloved hand and touched the dome’s inner surface. Her fingers found resistance. A groove.
Kieran stiffened. ‘Report it. They’ll fix it.’
Thera opened her wrist pad. Her fingers hovered, uncertainty buzzing in her limbs like static. Then she logged it: Dome fracture detected: Sector 9A. Pending Overseer inspection.
She stood back and looked up again, squinting against the glare of the false sunlight. It was too perfect. The sky always was. Every hour it was calibrated to match some ancient Earth standard of aesthetic pleasure: morning haze at 9:00, golden glow by 14:00, dusk gradients by 18:00.
But no birds. No real clouds. No wind. Only simulations projected onto the dome’s inner layer. Her eyes returned to the fracture. A jagged hook, no wider than a fingernail, but it was there. She felt the breath tighten in her chest.
‘You ever wonder if they even monitor every log we submit?’ Maren asked, watching her carefully.
‘Of course they do,’ Thera muttered. She closed the report and stepped back from the dome wall, her hand still tingling.
She couldn’t explain it, but touching that crack had felt wrong. Not like glass. Not like plastic. Something else.
‘It’s probably nothing,’ Kieran said again, less convincingly this time. ‘They’ll send a repair drone. They always do.’
The sun panels were adjusted to mimic early summer. Heat radiated gently across plazas while children played under the digital holograms of butterflies. The city looked perfect.
But Thera kept checking the dome. And the crack.
Two days passed. Then three. No repair drones came.
She requested an inspection again.
‘No structural issues detected,’ the maintenance admin told her with a practiced smile. ‘Choros is perfectly secure.’
An Official with a red LifeScore band met her in person the next morning. She wore a white uniform with a black-trimmed badge holding the PANGAEA emblem.
Thera noted her badge had no name, simply: Oversight Relations. Her smile was wide and calm.
‘Technician Thera,’ the woman said. ‘Thank you for your diligence. The anomaly you referenced has been reviewed and logged as a visual distortion. Sector 9 remains within optimal range.’
‘But it’s growing. I measured it. Twice.’
‘Please redirect your concern toward maintenance duties. Clarity brings community. Unity before division!’

Thera woke the following day. She made her way to the tech station to find out Maren was gone. Her locker was empty.
There was quiet talk at the tech station about how Maren had spoken out at a communal forum the night before, asking if anyone else had seen “imperfections” in the dome.
Thera searched around to find Kieran – he lived in the same quarters as Maren, surely he would know something – but when she arrived, his quarters were a mess, glass broken and his belongings thrown everywhere. He had a black eye, a split lip, and nothing to say on how he or his quarters ended up that way.
‘Surely you know where she’s gone?’ Thera asked after injecting him with some pain medication. ‘She can’t have left – there is no leaving this place.’
Kieran stared at her, his eyes glassy from the after effects. ‘Thera. I will say only this. Keep quiet. The cracks do not exist.’
‘Keep quiet? Wha– Wait… What do you mean “cracks”? As in plural?’ She said, grabbing his arm in question. ‘There are more?’
Kieran simply looked away and ignored her.
She left him alone after helping him tidy up his quarters, promising she’d be back later to check on him. Thera asked around, quietly, about what had happened overnight. No one even knew Maren’s name.
Thera grew cautious. The cracks were multiplying, invisible to most, but she saw them – threading like veins beneath perfect skies. It wasn’t just the dome anymore. Something in the systems felt off. Lights flickered more. People were missing time. Even her wrist pad sometimes refused to load her personal logs.
One afternoon, she passed a small family in Sector 7. A boy was tugging on his father’s coat, eyes wide with innocent concern.
‘Dad,’ the child said, ‘I saw the sky break.’
The father froze and glanced around.
‘Shhh,’ he hissed. ‘We don’t say things like that. Not out loud.’
‘But it’s true! There was a–’
The man knelt and grabbed the child by the shoulders. ‘Look at me. It was just a dream. That’s all.’
Thera ignored them and kept walking, heart thudding. Eyes burned into her back, real or imagined. There were more cameras now, subtle but noticeable: lens clusters disguised as wall fixtures, drones with no markings that hovered a second too long.
In the break room later that day, she noticed her terminal access had been restricted. She couldn’t log her usual diagnostic notes. When she asked the floor admin, they smiled gently. ‘We’ve streamlined operations. Don’t worry, Technician Thera. Everything is as it should be.’
But she couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. Like every step, every breath, was catalogued, archived. Waiting for the right moment to be erased.
At night, her dreams grew darker. In one, she stood in the plaza, the dome above her fracturing silently. And in every window of every tower, the citizens just watched. No one moved. No one spoke. Only their eyes followed her.
A week went by. Thera followed Kieran’s advice, and kept quiet. But she continued to scout the outer edges of the dome, saving images and storing them on a hidden tablet beneath her bed frame. She stared at them each night, alone, and stopped reporting them.
She woke up one night, to the faint flickering of light filtering through the single small window in her quarters. Grabbing her tablet, she walked outside and stared up into the dome, and saw on the far side of the dome, a small sector of the artificial night sky flickering, as if glitched.
She remembered back to the habitation tower that herself, Maren and Kieran used to frequent. She climbed in the dark, her hands slipping on polished rungs, the recycled air growing thinner the higher she climbed. She reached the top platform and pried open the service hatch.
The dome above filled her vision.
From here, she could see through the slowly widening cracks. The ones everyone else saw, but denied. She searched for the section that was flickering and saw beyond: an endless field of white and mottled red.
Then she saw them. Spacecrafts. Miller IV’s. Five of them. Stationed just outside the dome. She pulled out her binoculars and zoomed in.
Lines of people. Boarding platforms. Escorts with white uniforms.
She couldn’t believe it, no one was told – especially not the maintenance crew – that the spaceport was finished. If these people were leaving in secrecy, it could only mean one thing, that the Europa project was over, and salvation was only for the Elite.
She snapped some images on her tablet as she felt a slight tremble, almost a vibration in the air, before it dissipated.
Something isn’t right.
She hacked into the comms grid from a relay node on Tower 3. Flux-V1 taught her how long ago, but it was something she avoided doing on pain of being caught by PANGAEA.
She bypassed the filters, redirected visual feeds, and uploaded her cache of images.
‘Attention! Citizens of Choros,’ her voice said, as the dome’s display stuttered.
Images played on the monitors and screens all over Choros: the cracks. The Miller IV’s. The falsified diagnostics. The people who were vanished or hurt.
‘Choros is failing. Seek the truth. Escape is only for the Elite.’
For three minutes, the city was silent.
Then the sirens screamed.
Security found her within minutes. Two officers in grey suits stormed the relay node. They dragged her out of the building and through the plaza, holding her in place by the shoulders, pressing down on her as crowds gathered. Screens changed to the emblem of PANGAEA.
A voice boomed: ‘An act of sabotage has endangered Choros. Please remain calm. Unity before division…’
Then the dome shattered.
Glass fragments rained from the sky like deadly snow. The artificial sun vanished. The false sky peeled back. Thera looked up and saw the real sky, and the fracture in reality within the dark void.
The white split was devoid of matter, like a tear in existence itself – silent, merciless, and almost beautiful.
Citizens panicked. Screams echoed down sterile alleys. Some ran for the assumed safety of buildings. Others froze in place. But Thera tore herself free, adrenaline masking the pain that tore through her shoulder. Sirens wailed overhead. The crowds had turned chaotic – panicked masses stumbling over each other in every direction.
She made her way to Kieran’s living quarters and saw him stumbling to get over a pillar that had crashed by the exit. She ran over and managed to help pull him over it. Hand in hand, she ran with him, only the thought of getting to the spacecraft on her mind.
‘Where are we going?!’ Kieran yelled. ‘What’s going on?!’
There was no time to answer. She pulled him along with her, navigating a sea of confusion.
They passed the outer plaza where the flag of PANGAEA stood proud. A stray cable fell on the pole, creating a massive crack of electricity to arc through the air – igniting the flag. A beam had fallen across the walkway, forcing them to climb over splintered concrete and sparking signage.
‘This way!’ she shouted, tugging Kieran down an access tunnel meant for emergency transit. Lights flickered. Dust clouded the air. Somewhere above, something collapsed with a thunderous groan.
‘Was this–’ Kieran gasped as they ran. ‘What you were hoping for when you joined the project? Running like rats through burning halls?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, voice raw. ‘But I didn’t come here to die under a false sky.’
Ahead, a corridor had partially caved in. They squeezed through a narrow crawl space, scraping against exposed rebar. Her hands bled. Her lungs ached. But she kept moving.
They emerged near the transit terminal. One Miller IV still remained, its ramp lowering in intervals to allow the Elite to embark as security tried to corral the swarming masses. Screams filled the air. Glass rained from above.
As they dashed for the ramp in the next interval, Thera skidded to a stop for half a second.
There it was. The robo-vac.
Still dutifully cleaning the entrance path, a crooked moustache scrawled across its faceplate. It chirped twice as they passed, then continued sweeping.
They pushed through the crowd, ignoring the shouts, the shoves. Someone tried to pull Thera back – she elbowed them in the face. Thera’s breath was ragged. As the doors began to seal behind them. She turned back to watch the doors close on the swarming mass of people just beyond.
The Miller IV’s engines roared. Thera fell to the floor of the loading bay along with Kieran, her chest heaving.
She staggered to her feet and looked through the viewport, her breath fogging the glass as the ship ascended. She watched the glassy dome of Choros crumble below and disappear into dust as the Miller IV took off. In the dark of space, the stars stretched across the sky, and the yawning white void slowly enveloped Europa.
As they boosted away in a slow escape, Jupiter came into view and turned in slow, solemn spirals. Its Great Red Spot – a storm that had raged for hundreds, if not thousands of years – was now almost non-existent, only a ghost of the hurricane it once was.
She watched on as she saw humanity’s fragile hopes for the future, now scattered into space.
She had finally reached the stars.
But the cost still burned behind her eyes – friends gone, truths shattered, the quiet knowledge that nothing would be unbroken again.