Into The Unknown

CHAPTER 1

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they say. As I stare up at the stars above, I ponder that and many things. I wonder if one day, we will find existence other than our own out there. Curious whether or not there is a me in an alternate world that is looking back at myself… Whether or not any of what I have dreamed about will ever come true. I was 10 when I did that. I can’t believe that was almost 20 years ago, when I was that curious boy staring up at the skies. Now I wish I wasn’t so curious all the time. I remember watching countless movies involving creatures of distant planets and beings of other worlds. Now I wonder if anyone will be hearing about the story of me and my crew mate’s adventures. Will anyone be left to hear it; or anyone left to tell it? One thing I do know is I’m not going to scream. No matter what happens, I will not succumb to it. I refuse to be a statistic or a cliché. I find it very ironic. I was that boy, spending so much time at night staring up at the stars and the bright night sky. Wishing and hoping that one day I could ascend beyond the earth’s hold and be free.

As I stare at Earth in the distance, I’m praying that one day I get to sink my hands into her dirt or wiggle my toes between the lightly dewed blades of grass. I guess it’s true what they say, one should be careful what they wish for. I sit underneath a desk, while it’s barricading an air locked door behind it. I think about all the things that lead me to this exact moment. I was top of my class at NASA. I was incredibly lucky to get into the Ex-space program. …Or so I thought at the time. I even met my soon to be wife in the program; Joanne. I fell for her the moment I laid my eyes upon her, and those beautiful brown eyes. She was the smartest women I’ve ever known. She accepts me for me, even when I annoy her. We were inseparable from the moment we met. Like me, she’d always dreamed about leaving the earth to explore the galaxy. We did that together as well. It was her, me, Jacob our close friend (but everyone just called him JB), and Andrew. Our mission was to reach the furthest part of our known galaxy and cross into the neighboring galaxy. There was no name for it since no one knew what was beyond the Milky Way. We were told that we would be able to name it once we got back to Earth. We were sent to take as many pictures as we could, to collect any available samples from planets or anything else we could collect.

The spacecraft was the first of its kind, to be able to travel inter galaxy. The launch was televised live throughout the planet. Billions of people were watching, as we blasted out of the earth’s atmosphere. The launch went as smooth as freshly churned butter. Joanne & I were pilot and copilot. Joanne was the best pilot in the world. It was an honor to be by her side piloting the spacecraft. While we were piloting from the cockpit, JB and Andrew were in the central control command center; just in case anything happened during the launch. When we finally escaped the atmosphere, we heard a roar of clapping and celebrating coming from headquarters. I looked into Joanne’s eyes and saw the glow of the stars shining within her iris’. She was always my universe. In this moment I could see the universe within my universe. It was surreal. The oxygen levels were exactly where they should have been, yet my breath was taken away. Joanne did a little smirk and rolled her eyes, like she always did when I would stare at her adoringly. She hated when I did that. I think that’s what made me like to do it even more. I definitely annoyed her, more than not. We past all the planets of our known universe as we traversed into the next. Just as we did, everything became very dark tinted. We were leaving the view of the sun. It was just a tiny star in the distance to us now. We lost communication to headquarters. Even the space station near Saturn’s rings couldn’t reach us anymore. We expected as much. The Milky Way is a distant memory for us at this point.

The dark abyss of endless space consumes our vision. That’s when it happened. it was like a pulse of energy that come out of nowhere. Knocked a lot of our systems out. The spacecraft came to a crashing stop. Turbulence from the sudden halt knocked everything that wasn’t bolted down all over the spacecraft. A control panel from the cockpit, flies off and smacks Joanne in the head. Gashes her head and blood is dripping down her face. After the spacecraft comes to a complete halt, I unbuckle myself and rush to Joanne. She’s disoriented. I put my hands on her bloody face and asked her if she’s alright. She softly coughs and says, “Right as rain.”. I hug her for a second and unbuckle her. I grabbed the radio in the cockpit and call for JB and Andrew. They answer after a few tries. They tell me they’re all right, but ask us if we knew what happened. We told them what we saw, and what happened on our end. I told them we need to get to the sick bay, to take care of Joanne. They were going to check on the power system.

Joanne is a fighter, but her leg is pretty banged up. I put my arm around her to support her, while we start our mission to the sick bay. The spacecraft is a disaster and the red emergency lights keep flashing on and off. Navigating through the maze created when the craft came to an abrupt halt; trying to see in the dim red flashing light, made our travels even more difficult. Some of the doors along the way were either busted off or no longer intact enough to work. As we approached the sick bay, we see the control unit for the door was busted. I had to grab metal debris from the crash, to unjam the door.

Once we get in, I grab supplies and get her patched up as much as I can. Ironically; she is the one that always took care of me, because I was the clumsy one. As I’m finishing patching her up. JB calls us over the radio with a frantic voice. He asks us if we hear anything unusual. My curiosity is peaked. He says that he hears footsteps outside of the systems room. Radio silence goes on for the next four minutes. I’m calling out to them over, and over, with no response. Before Joanne and I can even leave the room, they radio us back again. He’s out of breath, stammering to get his words out. “Something’s here!” He shouts. He says that he and Andrew have barricaded themselves in the systems room. He suggests that we do the same, wherever we are. I start moving every desk, or anything else that is sturdy enough to block the exit. We jam them up to barricade as much as we could. We get underneath the desk that’s pushed up again the door, then sit there in total silence. Listening to the “THUD”, of what I could only imagine being footsteps of a creature of this galaxy, slowly walking past the room we are in. We can see the sweat and dirt beading off of their faces. Joanne & I face each other. We put our foreheads against each other’s, the same way we always do to show affection. We take slow breaths to make as little noise as possible. Her hand is in mine. We are shaking. Wondering if this is going to be the last few moments of our lives.