The moment before the universe collapses

A ancient cosmos, once teeming with vibrant galaxies and dazzling stars, now dwindled into a state of profound entropy. The final seconds of creation ticked away, each moment an echo of a past too distant to reclaim.

The great cosmic stretch had reversed. Space itself, once inflating endlessly, had begun to contract, dragging time and matter toward an inevitable singularity. The Big Crunch—the long-prophesied mirror of the Big Bang—was no longer a theoretical event. It was happening, and it was happening now.

Across the universe, civilizations that had survived the eons watched in silence as their skies darkened. For ages, they had peered into the void, hoping to uncover the mysteries of existence. But there were no more secrets left to find. The laws of physics were closing in on themselves, and reality was unraveling.

At the galactic center, black holes that had feasted for billions of years now swirled with fury, their event horizons stretching as if gasping for breath. The last light of the cosmos had nowhere to escape; it was trapped, doomed to spiral into an abyss from which not even memory could escape.

Somewhere, on a small, distant world, the last conscious beings stood together, staring at the heavens. They had long accepted their fate. The universe had grown silent, the radio signals of civilizations long gone had faded into oblivion, and no new messages were coming. There was only the growing darkness, the cold embrace of nothingness creeping into the last remnants of creation.

One of them, an elder whose body was frail but whose mind carried the wisdom of centuries, turned to the others and smiled. “We were here,” they whispered. “That is enough.”

A tremor passed through the fabric of space, a ripple that signified the final convergence of all matter. The walls of reality shrank inward, pressing the cosmos into an infinitesimal point. Even time itself stuttered, seconds stretching into eternities before collapsing into nothing.

And then, there was light.

Not an ending, but a beginning. A new singularity. A new explosion. A new universe, unfolding in its first breath.

Everything was as it had been, and everything was new.

The cycle continued.

One of them, an elder whose body was frail but whose mind carried the wisdom of centuries, turned to the others and smiled. “We were here,” they whispered. “That is enough.”

Across the universe, civilizations that had survived the eons watched in silence as their skies darkened. For ages, they had peered into the void, hoping to uncover the mysteries of existence. But there were no more secrets left to find. The laws of physics were closing in on themselves, and reality was unraveling.

At the galactic center, black holes that had feasted for billions of years now swirled with fury, their event horizons stretching as if gasping for breath. The last light of the cosmos had nowhere to escape; it was trapped, doomed to spiral into an abyss from which not even memory could escape.

Somewhere, on a small, distant world, the last conscious beings stood together, staring at the heavens. They had long accepted their fate. The universe had grown silent, the radio signals of civilizations long gone had faded into oblivion, and no new messages were coming. There was only the growing darkness, the cold embrace of nothingness creeping into the last remnants of creation.

A tremor passed through the fabric of space, a ripple that signified the final convergence of all matter. The walls of reality shrank inward, pressing the cosmos into an infinitesimal point. Even time itself stuttered, seconds stretching into eternities before collapsing into nothing.

And then, there was light.

Not an ending, but a beginning. A new singularity. A new explosion. A new universe, unfolding in its first breath.

Everything was as it had been, and everything was new.