mathisd

N O V O

On a remote exploratory mission to a hostile planet, a young astronaut uncovers the entrance to a cavern buried deep within the rock — a place untouched by light, as if sealed away from time itself. Cut off from communication and driven by a mix of duty and obsession, he ventures inside against protocol. The deeper he goes, the more the cave seems to breathe around him. Sound bends. Shadows linger too long. The silence feels inhabited. Then he senses it — a presence. Not alien. Not unknown. Familiar. A silhouette emerges from the darkness. Same posture. Same movements. Same breath. What he first mistakes for a trick of the light slowly reveals itself as something impossible: a version of himself guarding the heart of the cavern. The encounter turns violent — desperate and visceral. Two identical figures locked in a struggle with no witnesses and no clear enemy. One determined to push forward. The other willing to destroy him to keep him out. As the fight escalates, a haunting question takes hold: is this a physical double, a fracture in reality… or the manifestation of something buried deep within him?