Princeps

Closeup: [link]

Information:
Made in Photoshop CS3
Size: 9600 by 6000 pixels 300 pixels/inch

Story:
Each of his four pairs of eyes pierced through space and time, every electromagnetic spectrum, and every dimension in existence and of possibility. His ship and attire were mere artifacts reminiscent of his maker's long since forgotten thoughts of comfort and familiarity. He was artificial in every sense of the word, once but a whim of the creatures that had dreamt too far and too readily. At the dawn of his existence his makers reveled in their accomplishment, only to be caught in his insolent gaze, forcing the light from them forever.

He paid no heed to star dust. The ball of gas that lay in his path was so insignificant that to even call it an inconvenience would be like saying a blade of grass was a hindrance to the determination of a glacier. The tunnel of fire from which his ship shot imploded behind him. A pin prick of a wound in the side of a giant. It would heal in the raging inferno of the star's nuclear fires almost instantly. The planet that now had the misfortune of interrupting his path, would not.

The only way to describe what he did to the planet would be to portray what it wasn't like. It wasn't, gradual. In fact to say that time had passed between the instant he approached the planet and the instant in which he was traveling away from the two clumps of rubble would be an exaggeration. The light from what was previously the planet’s molten core still radiated as he shot past the second star in this binary system. Not a second had passed.

-Darren Levine