The Word of the Void

In the inky blackness of space, there are more things than you'd expect.  Don't get me wrong, there's a whole lotta nothing.  More nothing than the average human mind is capable of comprehending, for sure. But... inside that nothing... there's more than you'd think.

I'm not talking about neutrinos, or extrasolar radiation, or particles or whatever. Obviously they exist, and permeate the black. But still... you can travel a fair distance without seeing one of them.

No, the thing you have to watch out for is the nothing. Inside the nothing. Inside you. Being surrounded by that much darkness...mankind wasn't meant for that. We're creatures of the light, social things.

Dipping a mind into the black for so long, so deeply... there's a reaction. A chemical reaction. The mind corrodes, and the Word of the Void slips inside the cracks and lodges in the dangerous places in the brain. And once that happens... there is no going back.  No ammount of light, no ammount of love will knock it loose. The Darkness is inside you, and you are Darkness. You are the Nothing.  And you will heed its words.

There's a reason children are scared of the dark, and in the space between systems, you can see it.