The Orb

The story behind this image:

The Threshold

Marcus stumbled backward, that stone pillar still gripped in his hand like it was fused there. The construction site dirt clung to his jeans. The air—it didn't just change. It split. Like someone had taken a knife to reality itself and peeled it back.

And there it was.

A figure. Not here, not there. Somewhere between.

His chest tightened. The thing moved—if you could call it moving—with a rhythm that felt wrong. Like a heartbeat trying to happen but couldn't quite get there. Translucent. Shifting. Its fingers reached toward him, flickering between solid and smoke, between real and not-real.

Through its form, Marcus saw things. Cities that looked like they were designed by someone who'd lost their mind. Technology that made zero sense. Wars that hadn't been fought yet—or maybe never would be.

"What are you?" The words came out as a whisper.

The thing tilted its head.

Then Marcus heard it. Or felt it. The response bypassed his ears entirely, settling somewhere deeper, somewhere in his gut.

Potential. I am what could be. What might never be.

Marcus understood then. His hands trembled around the pillar.

This wasn't a creature. It wasn't a spirit or a ghost or anything he could name. It was possibility itself—all the futures that could branch from every choice anyone ever made, unborn and waiting.

The pillar had been a key. He'd unlocked something that existed in the space between now and tomorrow.

The being extended both hands.

In one hand, Marcus glimpsed visions that made his throat tight: cures for diseases his little sister might get, renewable energy that could actually save the planet, peace spreading like wildfire across nations that had hated each other for centuries.

In the other hand: weapons that would make nuclear bombs look like firecrackers, climate collapse happening faster than anyone predicted, humanity tearing itself apart until there was nothing left worth saving.

The whispers started then. Faint. Unintelligible.

Wait.

He'd heard these before. In dreams. In moments when the world felt too heavy and too light at the same time.

"I don't choose what becomes real," the entity communicated, and Marcus felt the weight of each word pressing against his ribs. "You do. All of you. Every moment."

Just like that, it began fading. The portal—or whatever the hell it was—closing.

Marcus was left alone in the fog-bathed ruins, the pillar warm in his trembling hands. His legs felt weak. He should sit down. He should run. He should—

He looked down at the artifact, then out at the city lights in the distance. Every person there, making choices. Building futures. Destroying them.

His throat felt dry.

Neither danger nor blessing, he realized, the truth of it settling into his bones. Both. Always both.

The question was simple and impossible at the same time: which would humanity birth into being?

Marcus closed his eyes, feeling the weight of the pillar. Feeling the weight of everything.

When he opened them again, the fog had thickened, but the city lights still burned in the distance, waiting.

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