A3-04B Silent Departure

You turn and walk into the interior corridor behind the command center.

No one stops you — perhaps they don't dare, or perhaps they don't know what to say either.

You walk for a long time. Through security doors, through empty corridors, until you reach an unoccupied rest room. You close the door and sit on the floor.

Your hands are still shaking.

You look at your right index finger — ten minutes ago, this finger pressed that button. This finger decided the fate of two civilizations.

You begin to cry.

Not weeping — but a silent, full-body collapse. You wrap your arms around your knees, bury your face in the crook of your arm, your body shaking like a leaf.

You cry for a long time.

Then you stop. Not because you feel better, but because you have no more strength to cry.

Three days later, the UN security forces find you — you've been hiding in that rest room, not eating, not drinking, like someone who has given up on herself.

They take you to a hospital. The doctors say it is "acute stress disorder."

You lie in a hospital bed, staring at the white ceiling, listening to the world outside the ward spinning madly — humanity panicking, arguing, searching for a way out. While you, the one who pressed the button, lie here, unable to do anything.

A month later, you are discharged. You decline all interviews, all hearings, all invitations to public events.

You become invisible.

But the consequences of your pressing the button cannot be hidden. The gravitational wave broadcast has been propagating through the universe for a month — already beyond 800 astronomical units. No force can recall it.

Humanity begins a frantic effort to save itself.

And you, in silence, await the universe's judgment.

Time passes. Humanity develops technology in fear. Until one day — a signal arrives from the Trisolaran world.

⟲ Return to the button decision point