Isaac drifted above the world, letting himself hang weightless while the panic of the last few minutes bled out of him. The memory of that impossibly vast presence—that burning, searching gaze—still clung to him. He didn’t know who or what had looked at him, but he was sure of one thing: if they had wanted to snuff him out, they …

Tarin wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of a dirt-stained hand. Another day. Another empty sky. He stood at the edge of his parched field, the earth beneath his boots cracked and brittle, rows of withered stalks bending in submission. His mouth was dry, and so was the well—every day he had to walk farther to fetch …

The light consumed everything. Isaac braced for impact, expecting pain, fire, something, but, lucky for him, there was nothing. When the light faded, he found himself suspended just above the planet’s surface, hovering over a vast, windswept plain. Golden grasses rippled below him like an endless ocean, bending in waves under the pressure of a coming storm. Far in the …

Isaac Price hated endings. They always felt too quiet. The only sound in his apartment was the hum of his old desktop PC, its single fan grinding like it was just as tired as he was. The glow of the monitor painted the cluttered room in pale, cold light. Empty coffee mugs stood sentry on the desk like little ceramic …