A Mirrored World

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. Space is vast, and space has only been a certain percentage explored. Its a scary place, or on a different viewpoint, one that is rife with endless ends of possibilities and discoveries. Its something that humans have been intrigued and fascinated by for centuries. In another endless bid to explore the realms of space, the crew of the Space Shuttle Frontier was heading towards a signal that was being produced from a nearby galaxy. The year is 2096, and at this point in the history of civilization, human beings are able to explore and travel at speeds and lengths that were previously thought to be impossible. Now, Space Shuttle flights were able to go near light speed, and now scientists had found ways for the passengers of the shuttles to be able to withstand the extreme speeds that the shuttles could go at, and also the amount of time the passengers would have to be on the shuttles.

Captain Stephen Icarus was headlining a crew of 4. Their mission was to to investigate the signal that was being sent towards earth. It could have been a routine signal that the space program had received on a rare occasion. But there was something strange about the signal, almost like it was being sent in code. The program was trying to decipher the frequency and intention of the signal, trying to decipher it using morse code and any other forms of communication that they can think of, but to no avail. It was the job of Stephen and the three other crew members on board: linguistics expert Alphonso Agamemnon, ship mechanic David Creon, and scientist Ileana Medea, to find out where the signal was originating from and what the signal entailed. Stephen and the crew knew that this could be a suicide mission, considering none of them knew what was going to happen once they were near the signal's origin.

As the shuttle approached within the area of the signal, the signal's frequency was beginning to become even stronger, to the point that it awoke the other crew members from their slumber. "Are we close?" asked David to Stephen. Stephen nodded, pointing towards the direction the signal was emanating from. "Right there. That's where the signals coming from. Though, the data that I'm analyzing doesn't seem to give me a clear indication as to what this is," said Stephen. He continued to read the data that the shuttle's computer had printed out, as Ileana joined him to look at the data. "That's strange, there's no clear origin point," she said. Stephen turned to her with a confused look, "how is that possible? It's coming from somewhere, and we are hearing it. And, its being received from earth, so this signal needs to have an origin from somewhere," Stephen replied. Ileana shook her head and pointed at a section of the data spread, "see, here is where the origin point should be shown. But its showing multiple points. That makes no sense because how could one signal have multiple starting points?" she was asking out loud.

As Stephen and Ileana discussed the findings, the shuttle was now minutes away from arriving to the signal's location. "Holy," said Alphonso as the whole crew looked towards where he was looking. Everyone fell silent, with their jaws dropped at the sight of what they were seeing. In front of them, through the window of the shuttle, they saw what looked like an exact replica of earth. Even with that replica was a moon like figure that was in the far distance. "This can't be! Did we get rerouted to earth?" asked David as he looked at the coordinates of where the shuttle was located. He looked out and looked back at the coordinates, scratching his head and trying to understand what was going on. "Nope," he answered himself as he looked at the rest of the crew. "According to these coordinates, we are at least 3 light years away from earth. So, what in the world is that in front of us?"

The crew stared at the planet in front of them when all of a sudden the shuttle's power went off. "What the-," Stephen was saying before the shuttle shot forward, headed towards the planet. "Hold on to something!" yelled Ileana as the crew grabbed for dear life as the shuttle was being thrown towards the planet. With no power or any fuel being used, Stephen was wondering as to how the shuttle was being flown forward. Either way, there was no time to think, as the shuttle was careening towards the planet at speeds that were making the crew nervous. The shuttle entered the planet's atmosphere, with the fire and heat of the shuttle breaking into the planet enveloping their view of the outside. As the shuttle entered through the atmosphere, the shuttle's power turned back on, as the shuttle was now enveloped by what seemed to be clouds. The crew slowly got back up, looking outside to the view that was now visible to them.

Down below was the surface of the planet, and it gave a shocking view to the crew members. There were multiple statues and figures erected on the land, and all of them looked super familiar to the crew members. "Wow," was the only word each of the crew members could utter. On the surface below they could see pyramids, massive statues of beings, and also architecture that used to be on earth. The shuttle was slowly getting closer to the surface as the crew looked out to see lush forests ahead of them, with rivers and aqueducts running through those forests. As Stephen guided the shuttle to land on the surface, he looked at the other crew members to try and gage as to what to do next. He pressed the intercom button to send a message to earth. From the distance of where they were in space, it would take 3 days for his message to be received on earth. "This is Space Shuttle Frontier. We have entered and located where the signal is coming from. Our crew will be going out to investigate and examine the signal and what it entails. We will send a debrief of our findings in a later message. Over and out," Stephen said as he told the crew to get into their gear. As they were getting ready, Ileana looked at the report the shuttle had produced in terms of the quick analyzing it did of the outside surroundings. "Well guys, according to this, the atmosphere, air quality, water, and surroundings are a 100% the same as earth," she said. "Run the program for another report, just to be safe,"said Alphonso. She allowed the shuttle to make another report, and within minutes, the exact same results came back.

"Okay. Now everyone, we are venturing into another world. Please remember that if one of you is not able to communicate back to us, or is not able to return to the ship on time, we will have to leave you behind. This is an important assignment, and we all need to be on the same page. Understood?" asked Stephen. Everyone nodded as Stephen went to the weaponry area of the shuttle and opened the locker. He handed each crew member a weapon to have on them, just incase. They all approached the bay door at the back of the shuttle, with David about to press the open button. "Well, here goes nothing," he said as he pressed the bay door to open. As he pressed the button, a hissing noise came as the door began to open up. The crew began to walk forward as the door opened up to the surface, allowing the crew a ramp to walk down to the surface. As they stepped foot on the ground, they looked around to get their bearings. "It's like earth. Literally the exact same thing," Ileana said. The crew continued forward as they looked around. The big difference though was that the trees seemed to be more massive, and the ground seemed to be more greener and lush with life. Stephen took off his helmet to see if the report from the ship was accurate.

As he took his helmet off, he took a deep breath in to feel the air fill his body. "Oh my god. The air is so clean," he said out loud as the rest of the crew members followed suit. The air felt like earth's too. As the crew began to venture into the forest and follow the path of where the signal seemingly was coming from, David threw a mini drone towards the sky to monitor the surroundings and give them a bird's eye view. As the crew ventured through the forest, it had a deafening silence to it. There were no birds or wildlife. There was no cracking sounds of branches or the crunching sounds of dead leaves. Just utter silence. As they got closer to the signal's origin, David told the crew to stop and look at his screen on his arm showing the drone's footage. As they looked at the screen, they saw that the footage showed what looked like a radio tower with at least 20 beings surrounding it. The beings seemed to be equipped with weaponry as well, which was causing some worry for David. "We move forward," Stephen said. The rest of the crew looked at each other with some worry but decided to follow suit. They couldn't just abandon the plan now, it was too late for that.

As they got to a clearing, the tower was in sight, with the beings having detected their presence from afar. "Have your weapons ready," said Stephen. Each of the crew members loaded their weapons and had them ready to withdraw. As they all slowly moved forward, one of the beings began to walk towards them, with what appeared to be a bow and arrow in their hands. The crew stopped proceeding forward as the being was getting closer. "Stop right there! We come in peace!" shouted Stephen at the being. He knew the irony of that statement, what with him having a weapon ready to go just in case. The being kept coming forward, and then abruptly stopped. The being loaded their bow with an arrow, and pointed it directly to the sky. "NOW!" shouted the being as all of the other beings followed suit and shot their arrows to the sky. The crew members looked as the arrows flew together, almost like a flock of birds. The arrows were on course to hit the drone in the sky, and within seconds, each and every single arrow hit the drone. The drone crashed to the ground in a fiery heap of metal, as the being that was close to the crew stretched out their arms in almost a crucifix like pose.

"Welcome to our world! You have received our call, and now, we shall answer your queries," said the being. The crew was astonished and just dumbfounded at this point. The being was close enough to be seen properly, and they looked exactly like a human. They spoke english, had a build like a human, and were using human weaponry. Where the hell were they, they all thought among themselves. Stephen however, took this as a threat. He raised his weapon towards the being and shouted for the being to stand down. "We want to examine the tower and the procedure as to how you called us!" he shouted. The other crew members were trying to convince Stephen to stop his aggressive approach, but to no avail. "Stephen, stop!" Alphonso pleaded. The being began to move forward, still with their arms stretched out. "We mean no harm," it said. Stephen moved forward, still with his weapon towards the being. "I SAID STAND DOWN!" Stephen yelled in anger. The being continued to move forward, but now moved his arms around. Stephen tried to move forward, but was unable to. It felt like there was a force field he had to deal with. He felt like he was stuck in cement, unable to move any part of his body. The being was now close enough to touch Stephen, as the being moved his hands in a casting spell type way. Stephen watched as his hand turned the weapon towards his way.

He was trying to utter words, but nothing could come out of his mouth. The being smiled as he moved Stephen's hand to have his own weapon literally positioned right in front of his face. "Like I said, we mean no harm. Now, if you can cooperate, we will give you the answers that you need," the being said as they clapped their hands to release Stephen from his paralysis like hold. Stephen was flabbergasted as he stared at the being. "What are you?" he asked. "That is not important. What is important is that we need your help, right now," said the being. "Help with what?" Ileana asked from the side. The being stopped smiling and now had a solemn emotion on their face. "We need your help to survive. We are about to be attacked in a few days. And we need your help," said the being. The crew members looked at each other as the being put its hand on Stephen's shoulder. "Please help us. And we will give you whatever you need," said the being. Stephen turned to his crew and then back at the being and nodded. The being motioned for the crew to come forward as they walked towards the tower. The crew had no idea what had just happened and what was going on. But they all knew that maybe, in some odd sort of way, this world might hold answers to the secrets and mysteries of earth. Either way, they ventured forward to the tower, unknowing of what will come next.