Planet Oogulu, Andromeda Galaxy:

The sky of Oogulu didn’t fade; it vanished. One moment, the blue star, Azuri, bathed the stone castle overlooking the local village in incandescent blue light, making the arches shimmer and the radiant flora pulse with internal luminescence. The next, an absolute, suffocating darkness slammed down like a physical weight. Not twilight, not an eclipse’s eerie dimness, but the utter negation of light. In the village below, torches flickered to life and the chirping of Ophyr birds grew to overpower the other animal sounds.

Panic erupted instantly, raw and primal. Shouts of terror tangled with the sickening howls of beasts near the castle. Shuttering cones of pale blue light only deepened the impenetrable shadows beyond their reach, illuminating faces contorted with confusion and fear. “Azuri! Where is Azuri?” voices howled.

In her spacious but modest bedroom, high in the castle, twenty-three-cycles-old Deja froze, the half-tended glow-vine she was showing her twin Earth sisters how to graph, slipped from her fingers. The sudden sensory deprivation was overwhelming, but unlike most Ooguluans, whose senses were tuned to light and harmonic resonance, Deja possessed something else: a spatial awareness that felt the universe. It wasn’t sight; it was a deep, internal map of distances, presences, and the subtle flows of cosmic energy. And what she felt now wasn’t the comforting presence of Azuri, or even the distant warmth of their sister planet, Oogoru. Instead, she perceived a vast, impossibly smooth curve encompassing the entire planet, humming with a low, dissonant frequency that grated against her nerves. It felt… artificial. Implacable. And utterly, terrifyingly opaque.

“What the frig?” Tanisha exclaimed.

Tara, her pupils slow to adjust, reached out in the darkness for an anchor and found Deja’s arm. “Deja, what’s happening? Is the planet under attack?” she asked nervously.

“No, it’s not an attack,” Deja whispered, her voice swallowed by the dark. “I don’t hear any explosions. I sense that the Diqis Sphere has been activated.” The word surfaced from fragmented memories, half-remembered from Amma, the Creator’s many technical lessons. “A Diqis Sphere is the ultimate protective barrier, only to be deployed in cases of extreme external danger and only disabled from inside.”

“Then what is happening?” Tanisha asked.

As Deja was about to answer, her mother’s voice sounded through the open door, echoing from the lower level of the castle. “Deja! Are you guys ok up there?” Khadija asked.

“Yes mother, we’re okay!” Deja shouted back. 

Deja moved toward the window as Tara and Tanisha followed like invisible shadows. High above, piercing the unnatural gloom like falling stars, points of intense crimson light began to appear. Deja’s spatial sense screamed as she recognized them: the Sentinel Orbs. Twelve autonomous energy spheres, orbiting Oogulu in perfect synchrony, linked directly to the planetary defense hub on Oogoru. They were the planet’s eyes and ears, its first line of detection. Now, severed from their power source and control matrix by the very barrier meant to protect them, they were falling. One by one, they streaked downwards, silent but for the roar of atmospheric friction igniting their hulls, crimson fireballs etching brief, agonizing trails across the black canvas before impacting the distant plains with ground-shaking booms that resonated through the castle’s foundations.

“You said the planet is not under attack, Deja, but aren’t those missiles?” Tara asked

“No, they are the sentinels; they’ve malfunctioned because they’ve lost communication with the master computer on planet Oogoru. ”

“Deja, will Amma come or maybe send Leonard to protect us?” Tara continued.

“I’m afraid not, Tara. The Diqis Sphere is impenetrable. And if it stays in place for too long, everything on Oogulu will die, including us.”

“What do you mean?” Tanisha panicked. 

“The Diqis Sphere blocks all solar radiation, essential for photosynthesis. Without photosynthesis, the plants will die and our oxygen will run out. We have seven days until total biosphere collapse. Seven days until the vibrant flora turned to ash, until the air grew thin and poisonous, until every breath became a struggle resulting in death.”

“Seven days? What are we supposed to do; just wait to die?” Tanisha cried. Her words hung in the air, heavier than the darkness.

“Well, consulting the castle keepers is useless, likewise, the village elders. They don’t have the technical knowhow to understand what to do. So, I’m not sure.”

Deja’s innate ability wasn’t about telepathy or complicated equations in quantum physics. It took her a while to realize that her spatial sense was spiritual, a connection to the underlying fabric of reality. She could feel distances, perceive anchors across the void. She also knew she had an anchor, a steady, warm pulse against the backdrop of infinity that was a billion light-years away on a blue-green planet called Earth. It was the spirit of her brother, Minkah. She felt his presence even now, but without a compatible interface, she cannot communicate with him.

Thinking back, Minkah had tried to warn her about Amma’s secrets, his work in soul reincarnation – theoretical astrophysics blended with organic psionics. Amma referred to her ability as ‘spatial empathy,’ a nascent form of consciousness interacting with the quantum field. ‘No wonder her lessons were different from her brothers’. Amma was training her, playfully at first, then more seriously as her talent grew, teaching her meditation techniques to focus her awareness, to reach across the void, feeling physical forms. She’d never attempted anything on that scale, across such unimaginable distances, but with the entire planet’s life depending on her, she now had no choice.

Footsteps sounded, drawing their attention toward the door. Khadija emerged, led by Golumori, the lead female castle keeper, her glowing nocturnal blue eyes finding the way. Then, just as quickly as Golumori had appeared, her eyes disappeared again, back into the darkness.

“Thank you very much, Golumori,” Khadija said while watching her soft glow fade into the darkened hallway.

“Auntie Khadija! Tanisha called out, rushing to hug her tightly.

After seven years of living on Oogulu, Khadija’s eyes had begun to develop a blue aura as well, though not as bright as Deja and Golumori’s. Nevertheless, they were bright enough for Tanisha to locate her in the dark. They embraced tightly, after which they both used Deja’s glow to to guide them back to a group huddle by the window.

“Have you been able to communicate with Amma or your brother, Deja?” Khadija asked.

“Not yet, mother. We’re trapped in a Diqis sphere. The Sentinel Orbs must have activated it before they malfunctioned. Now they’re all crashing to the ground. I fear we’re all doomed. If it is not deactivated in seven days, we will all die.”

“Do you have to say it so cold? Don’t you see the fear on your sister’s faces? Don’t you think they’ve been through enough trauma in the past few years?”

Deja leaned in to hug her sisters. “I’m sorry,” she apologized. I’ll get us out of this,” she said with a tone of conviction that surprised even herself. 

“What are you going to do,” Khadija asked.

“I’ll think of something, mother,” Deja replied while searching a bag of collected gems she retrieved from her dresser drawer. Among them was a hand size clear crystal ball.

“Whatever you’re going to do, maybe you should have something to eat first. Golumori was in the process of preparing lunch. I think she was close to finishing before everything went dark.”

“Maybe later, I’m not hungry. You guys go so I can think quietly,” Deja advised her mother. She crossed the room to snap a stem off one of the bioluminescent plants hanging by a window. “Here, this will guide you,” she stated.

“Okay, but I know that spiritual stuff takes a lot of energy out of you. Don’t wait too long,” Khadija said, taking the stem to gently cradle it between her fingers.

“Maybe we can bring back something for you?” Tara suggested.

“Okay,” Deja agreed.

A sudden sense of foreboding washed over Deja. After watching her mother and sisters leave her room, she sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by the faint, failing glow of her bioluminescent vines. She focused on her brother’s face, his laughter, the safe warmth of his presence. Clutching her crystal tetrahedron between her hands, she pushed her awareness outwards, straining against the suffocating dissonance of the Diqis Sphere. And as her crystal began to glow with a blue aura, the force was like screaming into a hurricane. Exhaustion hit her like a physical blow and within minutes, she collapsed, trembling, the void outside mirroring the void of failure within.