At first, everything was dazzling — breathtaking. A cosmic carnival, as though the stars had conspired to throw me a welcome party. Sounds, colors, music — oh, the music! — a wild, intergalactic drumbeat pounding from the ether — the universe itself with a sudden taste for jazz. 

Meteorites pirouetted through the void in a parade of flamboyant show-offs. A celestial ballet, and somehow, I was the star performer. 

Which, in hindsight, should have been my first clue. 

Suddenly, everything — planets, stars, even the damn space dust — leaned in, as though the universe had pulled up a chair to watch me squirm. I could feel them whispering, murmuring in strange, ancient frequencies, like a council of cosmic elders debating my worth. 

I should have basked in the glow of a million supernovas exploding in perfect synchrony. Instead — I hesitated. 

Absurd. I never hesitated — not before the unknown, not charging into chaos, not even when common sense begged otherwise. Hesitation was for people who checked the weather before sailing into a storm. Not me. 

And yet there I stood — suspended between awe and panic, my thoughts tumbling like rogue asteroids in a gravity well. Why did this insidious dread slither up my spine? 

Fear? Me? Laughable. 

Nevertheless... something about this throne, this kingdom made of nothing but light and expectation, felt wrong. 

What if this was the point of no return? 

Fear is a funny thing. You expect it when staring down the gaping maw of a beast or the enemy’s blade at your throat. But genuine fear slinks in when you’re still — when there’s no immediate threat, just the unbearable weight of possibility. 

What if I turned back? Would the stars mock me? 

Would the cosmos sigh in disappointment — Another one bites the stardust? 

No, that wouldn’t do. 

With a deep breath (or whatever passed for one in a vacuum), I steeled myself. The great unknown would not wait. And besides — what story is it if I quit? 

Still, the grandeur was almost too much, too surreal, even for me. And I’d seen things: stood at the edge of empires, whispered to gods (or persuasive conmen claiming divine ancestry), and danced on the precipice of madness more times than I’d care to admit. 

I had stirred crowds into frenzies, toppled regimes with a word, slain dragons so arrogant they believed themselves my equals. And yet — here I was. Rooted to the spot, as if some unseen force had clamped ethereal hands around my ankles. 

Worse still, my mind — my brilliant, scheming mind — was silent. No witty plan, no revelation, no sarcastic commentary. Just silence. 

And that was the most terrifying thing of all. What did it know that I didn’t? Had it glimpsed some great cosmic punchline at my expense? Was hesitation a warning, a whisper from fate itself? 

Could this be it — the adventure cut short before it began? Ridiculous. Me, walk away from the unknown? Never. I had built a throne upon the very concept of why not? I would not dismiss this as if it were an ill-timed dinner invitation: Oh no, I’m not in the mood for existential peril today. Maybe next century.

Excerpt From
The Vastness of Lost Dreams
J.F. Baraão
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