The crowd was an ocean of faces, pale moons orbiting the sickly glow that bathed them. Eyes wide, pupils dilated like black holes, they stared into the screen—an altar to the void. A voice, disembodied yet alive with sinister intent, slithered through the air like smoke curling from a dying star.

“Come closer, my children,” it purred, the words sticking to the air like damp velvet. “I offer you a vision. Not just a painting, but the very soul of the cosmos trapped in a portrait. Gaze upon it, and let it seep into your marrow.”

With a flicker, the image crackled to life—a canvas of black so absolute it seemed to hum, a nothingness pregnant with sinister possibility. It vibrated with a frequency too low for the human ear to detect but one the heart could feel—throbbing, pulling, luring. The abyss had teeth, and it was hungry.

“Look deeper,” the voice urged, its tones a hypnotic waltz played on strings of shadow. “Stare into the abyss, and feel it stare back.”

The air thickened, became viscous with silence. Time fractured. Then a voice—small, hesitant—rose from the sea of the mesmerized.

“I…I see something,” it quivered, the words barely more than a breath, but they were enough to break the spell. The abyss blinked.

“Do you?” The disembodied voice coiled tighter, wrapping itself around the woman’s faltering mind like ivy choking a fragile tree. “Tell me…what do you see?”

A figure stumbled forward, her movements marionetted by the invisible strings of fear. “A man,” she whispered, eyes wild, mouth trembling. “No…no, not a man. More. Something… more.”

The voice oozed satisfaction. “Describe him.”

Her fingers twitched as if tracing the contours of an invisible face, a face etched not in flesh but in nightmare. “Thin…so thin…like bones wrapped in ancient parchment. His skin…it crackles like dead leaves in the wind.”

Her voice wavered, faltered. “And his smile…” she choked, horror seeping into her words. “It stretches too far…too wide…as though his face was never meant to hold such a terrible joy.”

A tremor rippled through the crowd. Another voice, brittle with dread, broke the silence. “His eyes,” it croaked. “They…they pierce through me. They see everything. They burn—they burn!”

The voice of the unseen puppeteer swelled, a dark maestro conducting his symphony of madness. “Do you see now? You have glimpsed the true face of The Universe. The vast, unknowable reality…and it gazes upon you.”

The crowd gasped, a collective inhalation of poisoned air. But one man, his skin ashen and eyes fevered, fought against the tide. He surged forward, his voice a broken cry. “No! This is trickery! Illusion! Lies!”

The voice laughed, sharp as shattered glass, its melody cutting through the man’s feeble protestations. “Illusion, you say? Or perhaps they are the chosen few—blessed with the sight denied to the rest of you. Perhaps it is you who are blind to the truth.”

Doubt, thick and viscous, oozed into the man’s expression, his confidence dissolving like sugar in acid. “But…why them? Why not…us?”

The voice shifted, venom lacing its velvet tones. “Perhaps you are unworthy. Perhaps your faith is weak. The Universe reveals itself only to those who are ready to embrace its darkness.”

The crowd murmured, a chorus of unease that vibrated through the room. The screen pulsed, the blackness seeming to grow, to stretch, as though the abyss itself was reaching out, fingers of shadow caressing eager minds.

“Look closer,” the voice whispered, seductive now, dripping with sweet malice. “Let the darkness cradle you, hold you, consume you. Become one with it, and you will understand…”

One by one, they obeyed, faces bathed in the darkness’ thrall. They pressed closer, yearning to be devoured, to merge with the void, their eyes wide and unblinking as though seeking to be swallowed whole by eternity itself.

The voice soared, a hymn of dark exultation, swelling with their surrender. “Behold the face of The Universe! Let it sear itself into your minds, your hearts, your very souls! Let it gaze into the deepest crevices of your being and make you one with it!”

They gazed, and the abyss did not disappoint. It stared back with the ferocity of a god unchained. Mouths opened in silent screams of revelation and agony. Bodies convulsed in ecstasy and terror, their minds unraveling, and yet—there was bliss in the ruin.

The voice watched from the shadows, victorious. It whispered like a lover into their broken minds, a soft hiss of eternal dominion. “You are mine now, bound to the face of The Universe…forever.”

And so they lay, bodies twisted in a tableau of final surrender, eyes forever open, staring into the blackness that now ruled them. Their faces were frozen in grotesque reverence, the ecstasy of having been consumed.

And on the screen, the blackness rippled once more…shifted…and slowly, inexorably, it smiled.