Metropolis down the void.., p.1
Metropolis Down (The Void Book 1), page 1
Copyright © 2026 Vesper Doom
ARC cover by Ronnie Jensen
Hardback cover by JawbonesArt, Typography by Cal Black
Paperback cover by Kjetll
Character portraits by Kjetll
Editing by Kelsey Allagood
Sensitivity Read by Grace Park
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book, in part or in whole, may not be used for the purposes of training AI or any other use relating to Artificial Intelligence.
When ships to sail the Void between the stars have been built, there will step forth men to sail these ships.
JOHANNES KEPLER
For everyone who needed a second chance to make things right
CONTENT WARNINGS
MENTIONED BUT NOT DETAILED
Parental Neglect, Sexual Assault, Domestic Assault, Suicide, Vomiting
DETAILED
Physical: Sci-fi Gun and Knife Violence, Semi-Graphic to Very Graphic Depictions of Torture, Blood, Gore, Dead Bodies, On Page Side Character Death (minor and major), Explicit Sex, Self-Harm
Mental: Depression, Manipulation, Angst, Breakdowns, Panic Attacks, Obsession, Breakup Dynamics, PTSD Nightmares, Family Trauma, Suicidal Ideation
Horrors: Cosmic Horrors, Body Horrors, Psychological Horrors, Sensory Horrors
CONTENTS
Prologue
I. Seethe
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Interlude
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Interlude
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
II. Sorrow
Chapter 22
Interlude
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Interlude
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Interlude
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
III. Scream
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Epilogue
Character Index
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Vesper Doom
PROLOGUE
JONES
“The Void”
Jones’s voice cracked in the darkness, distorted by blood clotted in his throat. At his feet, the latest sacrifice quivered in a Dust-induced haze. Spit dripped down the Cetian’s lips as they alternated between whispering and screaming; blood seeped from a gaping hole in their chest, from their punctured guts beneath Jones’s feet, from a dozen lacerations across their legs.
“Want…home…” They choked, blank eyes staring beyond glass walls, toward distant, dead stars to where a space station orbited one like Sol. But they would never see Tau Ceti again. Their pale flesh would feed the Larva, their soul would fortify it, and soon they, in their entirety, would join the Void.
Jones knew that they were close to death now. He felt them ebbing away, a tiny glow fading under the tyranny of his corrupted soul. He wrapped strips of pale blue flesh around the bloody splinters that remained of his fingers. His own flesh had been the first sacrifice to his great and terrible God, made after he’d chanted ancient, forbidden words within this hollow of the ship.
“The Void is an endless darkness, opaque and profane.”
Low, garbled words escaped his throat as he chanted, swaying forward to back and side to side, hands held high in reverence. Gore coated the crevices between his bare toes, splattering his ankles as swaying turned to stamping, and he pulverized the Cetian’s guts until all that remained was a sickening smear upon marble tile.
“Dotted with the fading light of dead and decaying stars.”
Ozone crackled, fizzled, burned, and popped in the ruin of his nose, igniting the ends of his nerves, sending jolts through his body as he danced and worshiped. A cloak of darkness swirled around him, coalesced into an almost-visible figure floating over the well of pure, aching Void that dominated the room. Blood runes glowed beneath that nothingness, but the finger bones of Jones’s left hand were long consumed, just like the ribs and femurs of the first of his victims.
“The Void is everything. The Void is nothing.”
His voice cracked, distorted, took on higher octaves, echoed in dissonance with the static in his ears.
“You do our God proud,” the cloaked figure at his side purred , its touch no heavier than stardust. “You are its Hands and will do Great Art in the name of the Larva.”
Jones flushed with the Caretaker’s praise. It was bound to their God in ways he couldn’t comprehend.
“It existed before the beginning.”
Jones hoped that one day, when his Great Work was complete and a Void God birthed from the Larva, he would understand. Understand the Void as none before him had, understand the litanies as he understood his own soul. Before he was crushed by the nothingness, the sheer weight of the power he helped unleash, the ancient evil he’d fed. He’d given so much already: his life, limbs, and petty morality—but he would give more still.
“It will endure beyond the end.”
The Cetian took their final, gasping breath. They whined as they died. Jones knelt, his knees squelching in shit, blood, and gore, and tore into the chest cavity with one flesh-wrapped hand. Bone scraped over bone as he dug further, seeking the source of life that quivered within its confines. It pulsed between skinned fingers.
Once.
Twice.
And stilled.
Jones ripped it out in one motion, breaking ribs and tearing skin from his wrists as he did. He rose and turned toward the spot where the darkness was so deep, so opaque, that were a star to form within it, the light would never reach him. It was a maelstrom of malice, a fragment of pure Void summoned from beyond the veil by ritual and sacrifice.
Every piece of himself offered made limping across the room harder, but Jones didn’t complain. As he sunk to his knees, close enough to see curling tendrils of undulating darkness snaking out of the Larval God, he presented the heart in his open, upright hands. The Caretaker followed at a distance, an unblinking eye always on him.
Silence fell, deeper than space.
Black tendrils crept toward Jones, toward the heart in his hands.
Jones braced himself for the pain.
Darkness burned and froze him. Deeper than skin, sinew, and bone, the essence of Jones writhed. The Larval God would claim it all one day, and Jones would be a willing shell of himself. The heart disappeared, as did the strips of skin protecting Jones’s fingers and wrists. He endured the burning cold, felt flesh stretching and tearing.
Jones did not whimper. Darkness wrapped around his hands like gloves, and he knew that he was being remade to suit his holy purpose.
RISE, MY HANDS
The darkness had no true voice, but Jones understood all the same. It spoke the sound of silence, the crush of steel on steel, the infinite expanse, and the nothingness of the space between stars.
Jones did as he was told, pushing to his feet while bones fell from his cloaked and Void-touched hands. And he began the litany anew:
“The Void is an endless darkness, opaque and profane, dotted with the fading light of dead and decaying stars.
It stretches into oblivion, bridges the gap between planets, stars, and the hidden things between.
The Void is everything, yet nothing.
It existed before the beginning. It will endure beyond the end.”
Jones paused to breathe, for he still needed some of the trappings of life.
FINISH THE VERSE
The Larval God spoke in thunder, in data, in screams, in prayers. It was the Cacophony of the Beginning, the Dirge of the End. The Void existed outside the bounds of time, space, and knowledge. It was in everything. Hidden from everyone.
“The Void is eternal.”
PART ONE
SEETHE
ONE
JETT
TWELVE WEEKS TO CHARON
Quasar Metropolis-Class ship Neo-Tokyo sat in its home berth of Ganymede, waiting to be disgorged into the Void once more. Jupiter’s distant, swirling storms were a colorful background for Ganymede’s green, domed villages and massive shipyards. Lights marked shipping lanes and shuttle lines, providing temporary relief to space or planet-weary travelers.
Ji-tae Valla, or Jett as he was commonly known, looked down on the streets and people of the Neo-Tokyo, with a heavy weight in his chest. He’d spent the last seven years onboard, walking the streets of the city, dazzled by the lights and sounds and smells, surrounded by happy, thriving people. And he’d been happy here. Happier than he’d ever been before. Happier than he probably deserved.
But he was no longer happy, and the sparkling city of the stars only served as a bitter reminder of all he’d lost. A reminder of the life he’d built, the friends he’d made, and the intoxicating, soul-rending love that he’d experienced for the first—and only—time in his life.
Thoughts of if and how and when things could end had been his constant companions over the preceding months.
Neon lights glittered off star-scrapers in the streets of the city of Neo-Tokyo. Each District glowed with life, with love, with commerce and art, where people were born, lived, and died in perfect harmony with the stars beyond the hull. Neo-Tokyo was a living, breathing thing wearing the metal skin of a space leviathan. Though no longer the newest or largest of the Metropolis-class ships, silver-hulled Neo-Tokyo held a quiet, enduring grace. At ten kilometers long and three in diameter, the ship was impressive for its age. Steel-glass windows rose from just above the city streets to just below the Bridge level, letting in light and giving the residents a feeling of space.
Around Jett the hustle and bustle of the vast Bridge crew drowned out the dark thoughts that’d been his constant companion over the preceding months. Thoughts of if and how and when things would end. But he’d fought the temptation to end it all tooth and nail, and won the battle. Only echoes of that ideation snuck around barriers built by medication and a rigid schedule. But today was different. Today was a beginning and an ending, and he didn’t know how it would go.
A shadow crossed him, drawing Jett from his thoughts.
Maria Trench, Head of HR, loomed over him even when seated. They were 30cm taller than Jett, with broad shoulders and a barrel chest, and looked down at him with pale, almost-colorless eyes. They blinked away tears. The last eight weeks had been a trial for them as much as Jett.
“I’m gonna miss you, kid,” they said in lieu of a greeting.
“You’ve got plenty of other kids to look after, mom.” When they’d met, Jett had been a lonely teenager, looking for someone to love him. Maria had filled the role of surrogate family after his had abandoned him right after birth with a name and no forwarding address. The need for calling them “mom” had long run its course, and Maria hadn’t insisted Jett use it as he grew and matured.
“Are you sure this is the right thing to do? You’re gonna leave everything behind?” They waved a hand at the city below them, the Bridge around them.
But Jett wasn’t looking at the neon-glow, the bustling crew, or Maria themself. His mind was elsewhere: the crew bar, the clubs, Athletics—hell, everywhere held shades of the man who broke his heart. And Jett couldn’t stay when every inch of the ship clung to Eddie with broken, bloody nails.
Jett would give anything to have Eddie Stone back in his life. The same man who’d left him without an explanation two months prior, and set Jett adrift. Jett felt like he’d gone EVA without a tether and would eventually die when his oxygen ran out.
“I’m not changing my mind. I can’t go anywhere on this damned ship without seeing him.” Grief seeped into his words, and he let it. He didn’t feel the need to hide his emotions. But he needed to be on soon. He needed people to see Lieutenant Jett Valla, the former Head of Security; not the heartbroken man who couldn’t go a day without falling apart.
Maria pursed their lips and crossed their arms across their chest. “I know better than to argue with you. But I wish you would try talking to Eddie one last time. I know you. You’ll regret it if you don’t.”
Jett shook his head. “The time for talking is long gone. I tried—begged—Eddie to talk to me. But he wouldn’t. He told me that everything had already been said.”
Maria stared at their feet as Jett turned toward the fore, where the heart of the Bridge lay. “I did everything I could think of. And all that did was ruin the last dregs of hope left in me.” He couldn’t even say the man’s name within the solitude of his own mind and closed his eyes against a fresh round of tears.
“Just, once more? For me, if not for you?” Maria pleaded.
Jett sighed. He was so tired. Tired of hurting, tired of crying. He was tired of living life on the edge of overstimulation. Nothing soothed him like Eddie, and Eddie wasn’t part of his life anymore.
Beneath his feet, the ship’s ever-present, nigh-imperceptible vibrations stopped and started a second later. The Neo-Tokyo had left its berth.
“Fine,” he relented. “I’ll try once more.”
Maria smiled down at him and nodded. “Thank you, Jett.”
“Let’s go,” he muttered as he turned toward the Command Room.
Everything was hell for him. He just hoped that, after today, it wouldn’t get worse.
Jett stood near the back of the Control Room, letting the ship’s senior officers gather between him and the Captain’s platform. He should be amongst them—to mingle, to stay out of sight—but a quick exit was more important today. Anyone who wanted to catch up with him later would.
The Neo-Tokyo’s Control Room dominated the fore quarter of the Bridge level. Separated from the noise and bustle outside by a sound-proof wall covered in lit tab panels and guarded by armed Security officers, it was the most important room on the ship. Every system ran back here, monitored by the most experienced officers onboard. Three large semi-circles of workstations swung out from the central Captain’s platform, facing front panels that showed the Void outside the ship, that vast expanse of darkness sprinkled with the light of dead stars.
Around him, displays of technical data, navigational charts, and comms scrolled faster than Jett could read. He wouldn’t understand half of it, but that didn’t prevent him from attempting to pick something out of the endless stream while he waited with anxiety churning like a storm in his guts.
A tall, dark-skinned man with box braids separated from the crowds and approached Jett. “I didn’t expect to find you sulking at the back, boss.”
Ollie Wort smiled at Jett as he spoke, his braids moving with the sway of his body as it settled. Ollie was Jett’s former second-in-command in Security and was one of the rare Officers who hadn’t come from the Charon Defense Force or on a mercenary squad. He’d done time as private security on Mars’s Enyo station before being picked up by Quasar.
After this meeting, Ollie would become Head of Security. Then Jett would be free. Or as free as he could be after re-joining Quasar’s Corporate Security division.
“Not your boss anymore, Ollie.”
“I’ve got five more minutes before you can stop me from calling you boss, boss.” Ollie’s smile lit up his face. “C’mon, Cosma is waiting for you too.”
Jett shook his head. “I don’t wanna be close enough to see the expression on his face.”
“If you’re sure, but you stick out like a sore thumb back here in all black,” Ollie relented. “Cosma and Ell are getting drinks down in City after this. You coming?” Ollie’s bright brown eyes had settled on Jett with a determination. If he didn’t go down to City with them, they would all come up to his temporary quarters. To make sure you’re all right, they’d say. Then the night would be half gone before he knew it and they’d still drag him down to one of their unofficial haunts.
“Yeah, I’ll be there. Tech Noir or Fanatica?”
