Mei Hatsume turned the last screw, and held her newest invention aloft, inspecting it under the harsh sterile light of the workshop. The culmination of weeks of work, zoom-enhanced goggles especially configured with her quirk in mind. With these, she would be able to see deeper into atomic structure than any other tool on the planet, and the limitations of technology would finally be conquered. The principles of particle physics and quantum mechanics were nothing but guidelines, an unnecessary stopgap in the pursuit of knowledge.
The goggles fit perfectly, zero outside light sources seeping through, and she saw pitch blackness before turning a small dial on the side – visors slipping open and granting her vision of the workshop again. Ready for the test, Mei used her quirk to zoom in on the metal surface of the workbench, her vision blurring and becoming uneven, as it always did when she used Zoom at maximum from a short distance. Turning another dial slowly, gradually her vision corrected, granting her crystal clarity of the familiar grain of the material.
This was already a success, an invention that allowed her to become her own personal microscope. But it was capable of more. She pressed an, until now, unused button, and zoomed further. Her vision sliding between the infinitesimal grooves in the workbench, barely nanometers thick. What would have once taken a powerful electron microscope looked like a canyon to Mei.
She pressed the button again.
The lattice structure of atoms at a molecular level greeted her, each one held in place by invisible forces which had always seemed abstract, but now appeared disturbingly real and solid. It was beautiful, in a way—a perfect arrangement of matter, intricately bound together. This was enough, this should have been enough.
She pressed the button again.
She watched electrons whizzing around their nuclei in erratic, chaotic orbits. But there was more to see. Mei increased magnification again, watching as the electrons became less solid and more like clouds of probability shifting with every moment. She pushed past the threshold, they dissolved into even smaller particles, quarks and gluons, dancing like flickers of beautiful light in a never ending storm.
She couldn't stop herself.
The atoms themselves began to vanish. Replaced by a distorted… stillness. A thickened layer of unseen. It felt narrow, but unfathomably deep. An unfamiliar familiarity, as though she has seen this all before and had never seen anything before.
She kept zooming.
Shapes. Shadows? Writhed beneath the particles. They pulsed in rhythmic waves, too orderly to be chaos but too alien to be understood. Her vision slipped through the quantum fog, past the particles holding reality together, into a kaleidoscope of shifting fractals and pulsing lights. Colour folded into itself. There was no in or out, no up or down, there was just a thread spinning out into nothingness.
For the briefest moment, there was nothing. Nothing but a face.
It was geometry, fractals folding in on itself in an infinite cascade of impossibility. It was everywhere, occupied no space and yet took up all of existence. Mei Hatsume looked upon it.
And it looked back.
Her breath hitched. It stared into her, through her. It saw everything she was, into her flesh, her bones, her thoughts, her entire existence laid bare under its gaze. Shapes coalesced and moved with purpose, pulsating shadows multiplying, focusing on her. There were no eyes to see her, but she felt seen. Her intrusion has been noted.
A low hum filled her ears, the darkness of the new layer rippled, tendrils of abyss in imperceptible shapes weaving through space and binding matters together.
Mei watched as the universe split open, and revealed vastness. A figure loomed forward, expanding, it's form stretching across the entirety of her vision. Her body screamed to pull the goggles off, but her mind was trapped. The universe as she knew it collapsed inward, replaced by a singular awareness that consumed everything.
A whisper echoed in the void, a thought, infinite and ancient.
"You are seen."
The edges of her sight blurred, reality crumbling away like fabric torn from the seams.
The workshop was silent, save for the soft whirring of machinery. Mei Hatsume sat still at her workbench, goggles still strapped to her face. Her eyes, wide and unblinking, stared at nothing.
And it stared back.