By Norman Goodman
She stepped into the chamber alone, the suit compressing her breath into slow, mechanical gasps. The ship’s interior was not built; it had grown — walls pulsed faintly, as though inhaling her presence. Translucent veins threaded through the walls, carrying sluggish streams of light that shifted colour as she passed — the ship tasting her. At its centre stood a single object: a mirror, freestanding in the dark.
She approached. Her reflection wavered, like heat over asphalt, then solidified.
Not her face.
Billions of faces, flickering too fast to count. Infants, corpses, lovers, murderers — every human who had ever lived, stacked like panes of glass, staring back with a single gaze.
Her pulse thundered in her ears.
The vision began: cities rising and collapsing like lungs inflating, the oceans boiling into nebulae, Earth cracking open like an egg. Something vast moved beneath the surface of memory, stretching, coiling. She understood then — humanity was not a collection of individuals. It was an organism.
And it was gestating.
She saw its true form, a silhouette that blotted out stars, its tendrils made of thought, its hunger measured in centuries. The aliens were not invaders; they were midwives, tending the womb.
Her reflection leaned forward, lips moving in unison with her own.
“When you awaken,” it said, “you will not remember being small.”
Her body convulsed as the vision consumed her. Every face became her face; every voice became her voice. She felt herself dissolve, not dying, but dispersing — into the swarm, into the thing waiting to be born.
Outside the ship, the world waited for her return. Nations held their breath, clinging to the fragile hope that she would emerge bearing an answer.
They did not know they were dreaming.
They did not know the dream was almost over.
About the Author
Norman is the published author of five novels, all written in Serbian language, published in the Serbian market.
The short story "Line 54(4)" became the winner of the annual contest of the "Mirko Petrović" library in Negotin (esat Serbia) in 2022.
Short story, "The right to die" became a winner on annual competition "Miodrag Borisavljević" (Serbia) in 2024.
Short story "Belgrade butcher" was published in US magazine Dark harbor in 2025.
Short story "Samsara – The house of pain" published in Gothic Gazette , pulp cult magazine, "Withered love" edition, in 2025.
Short story "Gospel of Ashes" published in Laughing man house publication — Smitten Land Issue 3, themed "Televangelism horror" in 2025.
A contract was concluded with the publishing house “Baynam Books Press” (UK) for the publication of the novella titled "Indigo".
Website: www.nenadmitrovic.rs
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