Eternity's Fragments

CHAPTER ONE

“Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. But as we learned, truth is often stranger than fiction, and in fact… a scream can be heard even in the vacuum of space. I know because I saw the scream.

How can you see a noise?

Let’s talk about a medium that’s slower, but similar to air: water. If you throw a stone into a body of water, ripples spread out as they get farther and farther from the point of impact. Let’s take that rock and throw it at a wall; the ripples spreading away from the rock’s point of impact are still there. They travel through the air, a much faster medium. We can’t see the waves, but they exist, we hear those waves instead as they vibrate through the air particles.

But space doesn’t have any air.

I understand your concern, we go back to the original question: how can you see a noise? In space, there are no air particles to pass those ripples of sound through. But… there are other types of particles. Dust, gas, ice, rocks, these are our particles. They are few and far between, but they exist. They can provide the particles we need for sound to travel. And through my telescope, while examining the rings of Saturn… I saw that sound. It started as a ripple near little Janus; at least, that’s where I noticed it begin. At the time it was easy to see; Janus has a shared orbit with another of Saturn’s satellites: Epimetheus. Comparing the location of Epimetheus to Janus, I found Janus no longer on the shared orbit. It was, oddly, closer to Saturn’s rings, like something had pushed it. Following that path, I saw it: a ripple, passing through the dust cloud of Saturn’s F ring. It continued through the A ring, then the B. Like an arrow fired through the cosmos, the path of this ripple moved as deep as the C ring, before exiting back out through Saturn’s B, A, and F rings. By the time it reached the G ring, Saturn’s second furthest ring, the wave’s trajectory was impossible to track. All that remained of the occurrence was fading ripples moving through the remainder of Saturn’s rings.

The sound, it was directional: it traveled through the cosmos, not just emanating out from a point source, like the ripples that travel away from a rock thrown into the water. It was a scream, a low-octave shout. And the biggest conclusion we can take away is: we are not alone in the universe. There’s someone out there, and they are shouting for us to find them.”

Silence. He stared into the auditorium expectantly; his peers stared back. Within Anony’s own mind, he pictured them baffled by this discovery, stunned into silence.

As it turned out… they were not.

“In order for it to be a scream.” He said from the front row. “It would have to be incredibly low frequency, lower than we could hear, lower even than any creature could emit. The only other recorded ‘sound’ in the cosmos was recorded at 57 octaves below middle c.”

Anony tried to keep control; I know what I saw. “And a blue whale speaks at 15 hertz, well below the threshold of hearing. Even if we cannot produce or hear a sound that is…?”

And she, sitting a few rows back, interrupted him with a condescendingly loud laugh. “That’s like comparing a mountain to a molecule. Since you clearly don’t understand how frequency works, let me explain. Middle c exists at a frequency of 262 hertz. Now, if you go one octave below middle c, you take that frequency and you cut it in half. Go one more octave below middle c, and you half the amount again. That puts 57 octaves below middle c… at approximately 9.021 E to the negative sixteen. You are comparing 15 hertz, to 0.0000000000…”

“You’ve made your point.” Anony waved his hand; his heart thundered furiously.

“…0000009021 hertz.”

Several of Anony’s peers stood, they collected their belongings and walked out.

“Just because it’s at a lower frequency than what we imagine life can ‘speak’ at doesn’t mean it isn’t possible. And this scream I recorded, it isn’t nearly that low, here look!” He lifted the projection and revealed the whiteboard behind where a series of calculations awaited their moment to shine. “It’s about 9,000 kilometers from Janus to the F ring of Saturn, it took 762 seconds for the wave to travel from Janus to the F ring, which gives us a velocity of 11.8 kilometers travelled every second. That’s, uh… actually very fast for the speed of sound, but... it’s moving through dust particles, NOT air! So…”

Some more chairs scooted back; more colleagues leaving.

“And you see, that puts the frequency at about…”

“Anony…” A voice called behind. He turned; only she still stood within the auditorium, staring with her arms folded. She sighed. “I told you to check your work before making this presentation.”

And realization settled in. “They don’t believe me, do they?”

“A scream? In space?” She asked. “All of this is entirely hypothetical, space is a vacuum so the speed of sound should be zero. Ze-ro.”

The muscles still sustaining Anony’s arm failed; it rested limply at his side.

“And there is no ‘creature’ that would exude a frequency that low.” She pointed to the board. “At this point, you should just keep your head down and do your best to graduate with your dignity still intact.”

She left, Anony’s mentor. His one supporter since entering astrophysics four years ago.

She left.

He watched her back until the door closed behind her, until he was alone. With reverence, he touched the calculations he made on the board earlier that day.

I know my numbers are correct. Anony thought. How can I make them see truth?

******

It was a day like any other. Sunny, like each day before, such is the way of late spring. He felt tired, and not the good kind. This was the version of tired that arises from staying up all night, watching videos and playing games…

Alone.

His body unkindly refused to rise, fueled on fizzy drinks and greased food. He reached for his phone and flipped through some funny pictures; such is the way of mornings. It was over twenty minutes later that he finally decided to set the phone aside and rise.

He rarely rose with the sun; he has no choice, truly, given that his classes begin at 6 in the morning, and the sun rises a half hour after this.

Wearily, his dull brown eyes drifted over to the clock. He could have checked his phone before setting it aside, but that would be abnormal for his schedule.

Only fifteen minutes until time to leave… that’s not nearly enough time to get through everything he needed to.

He paced into the bathroom, and he looked at his reflection in the mirror. Dull brown eyes stared back at him.

Nothing special.

Ragged fair hair stuck in every direction.

Nothing unique.

He rubbed at the bit of scruff on his chin. Thoughtfully, he reached for a razor. He turned the water on, tapped his razor against the side of the sink…

And stared at his reflection.

And he thought to himself: Anony…. What are you doing with your life?

But that was an easily answered question; of course, he was working towards his goals. He just needed to graduate with his PhD, make a ton of money with an incredible discovery, retire at the early age of forty and own a large plot of land near the ocean with a lovely lady by his side.

He would wake up to the sounds of his lovely wife humming; he would walk out in a bath robe, maybe underwear if his girl would allow it, and plant a big kiss on her cheek.

He would make coffee for them both… maybe grab two bottles of beer if it was a good morning, and sit out on the porch swing, watching the wind tickle the grass on the silent hills. His lovely lady would join him with a plate of food, and they would enjoy the day together.

Anony Parsons is a real go-getter; he plans to learn and earn new experiences for as long as he lives. He’s not the type to question himself… not even after an entire auditorium of his peers tossed his incredible retirement-worthy discovery in the metaphorical garbage with Alfred Wegner’s concept of continental drift back in 1912 and Doctor Oz’s “life-changing” revelation of scientifically unsupported psychics.

Anony slowly shaved the light hairs off his chin. He walked out of the bathroom and grabbed a beer, because after yesterday’s presentation, he could only hope this morning would be a good one.

Anony Parsons is a real go-getter, living his life to the fullest.

Which is exactly why Anony Parsons walked upstairs with his beer and crushed a few goblin camps. After all, his first class of the day is the least important of all, a degree-required class that had little to do with astrophysics; he could afford to skip it. The next hour was filled with the sounds of clicking keys and the scratch of a mouse across the mouse pad.

From his computer, he cannot see the sun, but he knew when it rose; his biological clock told him it’s time for breakfast.

Time to get ready for his second class of the day.

Anony shut down his game…

And he saw his reflection in the computer monitor.

Ordinary. If he was in a crowd of people, no one would ever notice him.

What am I doing with my life? I don’t want to waste a minute of my life, that’s how I feel but… Here I am, playing pointless games to pass the time while I wait for my life to take off.

But Anony Parsons is a real go-getter. After all, his small studio apartment was a mess, which must mean he’s doing something with his life that’s far better than basic maintenance.

Anony slowly lowered his head, unable to look at his reflection any longer. May 18th, 2025. It was a day like any other for Anony Parsons, and that was exactly the problem.

He ran a hand through his still ungroomed hair; it felt wiry and greasy. He closed his eyes and listened to the clock ticking away second by second the time remaining on his life. Another few minutes and it would be time for Anony to leave again.

It’s a difficult life he leads, studying for so long he has no time for fun, staying up into the early morning desperately trying to reclaim his hobbies before his schooling took them all away, then getting only a few hours of sleep, and repeating the day again.

But eventually…

Eventually…

Anony would discover something truly groundbreaking. He would find himself that lovely girl; they would retire and experience the world together. They would grow old together and own that quiet little house by the ocean.

He leaned back against the little table in his apartment, which was smothered in newspapers and old unopened letters. He breathed in the dirty air of his messy studio apartment.

He felt sick.

Without thinking, Anony Parsons sat on his ripped-up couch, and turned his ancient television to the news; the pictures flicker to life. Cherry lips and pale faces talk about riots, they talk about progression of wars and the entitlement of the younger generation. Gel-coated hair and business suits, they talk about the weather, about climate.

Tic… Tic… Tic… It was almost time for Anony’s third class of the day to start, thirty minutes until he must leave.

“And it seems,” she said from his screen. “An unexpected meteor has landed in the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast of Long Island. Leland, we’ll send it over to you for further details.”

“Thanks Kristi!” He said. “The comet seen by several on the East Coast of the United States two nights ago, May 16th, crash landed thirty kilometers to the South of New York’s Westhampton Beach. It came unexpectedly from the Capricornus constellation and circled half the planet before making its crash landing here…”

Capricornus…

Anony blinked at the weak screen; he saw the man’s motions but didn’t hear his words.

Isn’t… the Capricornus constellation in the same direction as Saturn?

He rose from his mildew-smelling sofa and mechanically walked to his computer; his reflection stared back at him from the dark screen, but he no longer saw it. Morning passed to afternoon, he went through page after page of calculations, he filled his wastepaper bin beside him.

The trajectory of the scream he recorded, its pathing matched up perfectly with the “comet” that landed. He checked again, and again, and again.

And he recalled his revelation from yesterday. 11.8 kilometers per second… that’s awfully fast for the speed of sound.

It was afternoon; his classes were done for the day. Anony grabbed his coat and walked out the door.

For the first time since adulthood, he left his messy home for a non-school related reason. He caught a bus to Long Island, he continued to quadruple, and quintuple check his calculations. The bouncing of the bus’s wheels over the pavement caused him endless frustration and messy calculations, his most hated thing in the world.

His destination arrived. He stepped off the bus, but the city lights made him feel sick. Some girls behind him made some pointed comments.

They’re definitely talking about me. He looked up briefly but felt worse seeing them plug their noses and sneer at him.

There was a moment of panic within his chest. What am I doing? I should be studying… That program is really all I have… That program is my future, that’s how I’m going to reach my goal.

Anony’s jaw quivered. He remembered his peers; they refused to even spare twenty minutes of their time to see his presentation through, not one even asked to look at his mathematical analysis, Anony's proof, his truth.

And he buried his nerves deep within the coffin of his resolve.

It hit there, the "meteor."

He pushed his way to the water amid the complaints of parents with their children, partying teenagers and drunken fraternity boys. The sand had been shoved around immensely since the meteor struck, it was unlikely anything remained. Anony still kicked through the sand on his way down; all the minerals he sifted through were familiar: quartz, feldspar, beach glass and...

What's this massive rock?

At first, Anony identified it as basalt. An odd find, given that he stood on a passive margin. He picked the piece up. Cautiously, he pulled from his pocket a small fragment of diamond used to test minerals. Anony dragged the mineral across the diamond shard.

It scratched the diamond.

Impossible... Anony shook his head. A diamond can only be scratched by another diamond.

He thought it a mistake. This time, Anony dragged the diamond across the rock.

Shards of diamond fell away from the stone, glittering like stardust in the sunlight.

A diamond is the only mineral on Earth that can scratch another diamond. That means...

Anony kicked through the sand aggressively, searching for more. And more he found, in a trail leading to the city.

Quickly, quickly now! Anony rushed through the streets, and his ears caught a scream. He ran toward it. Through an alleyway, Anony found a man trembling on the ground.

"Hey!" Anony shouted. "Are you okay? What happened?!"

"M... Monster..." The man trembled. "It was a monster! Killed that little girl!"

Blood, on the ground. Anony followed it around the corner. Through the ferns of a nearby park, Anony ran.

He found nothing. Anony stood breathless, he looked left, then right.

Anony was alone in the park.

He walked the perimeter, slowly, the piece of space material clutched in his hands. Ferns suddenly crunched beside him.

Anony's heart pounded, louder, louder still! He pushed the ferns apart, and sitting in the dirt he found a strange boy not much younger than himself.

The boy stared up at him with piercing green eyes. His hair: neon blonde, cropped short at the sides and left long on top. Jagged blonde bangs covered the top of his face and the tip of one ear. High cheekbones and a petite mouth adorned his oval face. His left ear and the left corner of his mouth were pierced; a gray-blue ribbon connected the two piercings and a black leather choker wrapped taunt around his throat.

Two things became very clear to Anony: the boy was injured… and he wasn’t human. Anony realized in horror: the boy's left arm was nothing but a shadow, as impenetrably dark as a black hole.

The boy rose to his feet; he towered over Anony...

And he shoved the shadowed arm down Anony’s throat.

Darkness like ice raced through his body, a tingle that spread up to his head and down to his toes. First came the numbing of his whole body; then followed an absolute nothing.

It was over in a blink.

His occupation... his location... his name... his species...

He couldn't remember any of it.

Memories, he had no memories. All this strange existence offered was darkness, and a gentle voice that drifted through the void-like haze in a strange language.

May 18th, 2025.

It was a day like any other…

Until it wasn't.