It is the barest speck, a mere subatomic particle floating through the darkest reaches of space. And yet, it is the marker of certain and inevitable doom. According to mechanics understood by nothing in this universe, tendrils of energy — so fine as to be invisible to the naked eye — connect it to every atom and molecule everywhere. It touches everything at once, and when it quivers, whole worlds tremble in response.

It is not meant to exist here. It was only ever intended for the endless void of nothingness between universes. How it breached the threshold into ours will never be known.

It is nothing if not living potential. It carries within itself the building blocks of another universe, a fact that would mean cosmic obliteration should its internal processes ever actuate. Those building blocks would explode outward, billions of miles in a microsecond, annihilating this universe and replacing it with the birth of another. All it needs is a catalyst.

It is only a matter of time before it finds one.