Dark. Only dim stars light the blackness. A point of light. Not a star. The light stretches to a line. The line grows longer, then thicker. It tears in the middle. A rift in space. Spilling out murky light the color of moss, it expands. Specks of color move and float across the darker light. fading in and out, like foam on the sea. One of the specs holds shape. It gets bigger, better defined. It takes on clearer form, it is seen for what it is. A space capsule. It breaks free of the rift, racing away at speeds it was never meant to travel.

Now something else can be seen in the rift. Long and tapered, like the tentacle of an ancient mariner’s nightmare. More appear, and the rift widens. There is something more in the rift. A dark void, incredibly large. The rift increases. Big enough to swallow a solar system. The void moves from side to side. Scanning. Searching.

The rift is impossibly large, almost blocking out the stars. What’s within, revealed for for what it is. An eye. The void is the tall slanted pupal, like a reptile. Light coming from the iris. The mossy green the wet leathery skin that surrounds it. The eye scans back and forth. Then, it stops, having found it’s desire. The ship. The tentacles reach out of the rift. Faster than should be possible. The life the ship contains lure the tentacles like a sirens call.

The little capsule runs for all it’s worth. Fueled by hope, and running out of gas.