Elias did not carry an axe, but a heavy, light-drinking lantern and a pair of shears forged from the core of a collapsed moon. In the celestial archives, he was known as the Exécuteur de comète . His job was simple: he was the one who decided when a comet’s journey was over.
One Tuesday—if time existed in the void—a ripple moved through the ether. A rogue comet, designated C/2026-X , was burning too bright. It was "weeping"—shedding miles of brilliant gas and jagged ice as it sped toward a cluster of inhabited moons. ExГ©cuteur de comГЁte
Elias stepped into the vacuum, his boots finding purchase on the invisible ley lines of gravity. He reached the comet in a heartbeat. It was a jagged mountain of cobalt ice, screaming in a frequency only he could hear. Elias did not carry an axe, but a