Shambala LVI - Chapter I

Nobody can hear a scream in the vacuum of space, or so they thought. It is one of the oldest sayings amongst humans when describing space itself. A void where nothingness can truly exist. They would say such things back in the universe’s infancy. Back when Starts, planets and galaxies roamed the universe. Now the universe knows only of Black dwarfs and black holes. The black holes break the myth of never being able to hear a scream in space. Black holes are the screaming of the universe.

I still remember vividly, the first time I saw a black hole. It must have been half my lifetime ago. It was a cloud of colourful ash, that all spiralled into an even darker void than the nothingness that surrounded space. It was sort of beautiful in an odd way. The last remnants of life in a dying universe, completing one last dance, then dying together. It instantly attracted me. I set course for it as soon as I could. Which wouldn’t be too long.

I had three crewmates on the deck. They must have died what, for you reading this, generations ago. I’d doubt any of their relatives would be alive to morn them anymore. Although what do relatives mean anymore, when for the most part they’ve been fake? Anyway, we’ll live without that from now one. That lie.

I spent a lot of my time, and I have quite a lot of it now, reading books. Non-fiction maybe or maybe not, remnants from long lost worlds. I wanted a better understanding of what the ship would be like. I saw that many ancient tales became myth. I’ll tell you right now, none of it is a myth. The immortality machines were real, but I destroyed them. I wanted the return of a real civilisation. Where people die and are born.

When I left the machine to take my deck service, I never returned. I chose to die. In the old system when someone chooses to die, they would man the deck until they did. But in return, a new life could be born.

I spent my time on deck service, looking outside the widows. In the machine the sky was always illuminated with stars, no matter where you were. But I awoke to reality when I left the machine, where there were no stars. They all died, now only the black dwarfs remain as reminders of the life they once lived. When I saw that black hole, I realised something. They were cleaning up – sucking in everything that remined left over from the dead universe. The stars had to die so new one could be born. They could only be born, when nothing was alive. We must all die along with the universe.

Deciding to stay past my service, I was officially dead. By the laws of the ship at least. All permanent crewmates were. Death had become a terrifying reality for most, they would see the blank void and hide away in the machine as soon as they could. The machine blocked your real memories. But those of us who remained, all suffered from the same identical issue. Our dreams. For the first time, we had real dreams. For many it took multiple rounds of service to finally crack, but dreaming in reality, always felt new. I remember the dream that cracked me, dreaming of the joy I felt when my child was born. But he wasn’t real, he was merely lines of code. Was I even living my own life, or following the one the machine wanted me to live?

My dreams would be soul crushing reminders that every love, fear, humiliation, joy, anger and kindness within that machine was all just a lie. Never real. I made my decision. I never wanted to be a part of something fake ever again, which is why I’m not hiding away in shame. Yes, I have doomed you all to death. But I have also given new life a chance, when nothing more was allowed to live.

Crewmates would regularly die; it was a part of life aboard the ship. I made it into the Captain’s deck pretty quickly all things considered. When I arrived, I arrived to a question. Should we end it all? I was confused at first, but then they explained it to me. If we cross the event horizon, We will all die. Time would fall apart and slow down. What would look if observed from the outside of the event horizon to be only a mere few seconds as our light disappeared forever, would feel like the lifespan of a planet once more. I remember a life from that machine, where I was a little girl feeling so panicked by the prospect of the Earth’s demise 4 billion years in the future. When we pass the event horizon, it would feel like 4 billion years would need to pass for us to finally fade away into the black hole. We could destroy the machine and humanity would also spend their last era truly alive.

So, we worked out how to achieve this. It took us a very long time -whatever that means anymore - but eventually we had it. As soon as we passed the event horizon, I heard them, the screams of the universe. Everything that had once lived, screamed in agony, all rejecting death still. I can still hear these screams. My crewmates all wished for death, but like the screams around them, all still rejected it. They all died slowly, holding onto life for as long as they could. But eventually they would succumb to it. Now only I remain.

Your ancestors would have awoken in the 02 section of the ship, as the machines would suspend you on the roof. It’s massive that 02 unit, the size of what were once big moons. You might still be able to see them up there, maybe you have developed some spiritual beliefs about them.

They would have done this without me, I can say I helped but with me I only sped up the inevitable. It was destined to happen. As soon as we passed that black hole it drew us in. It looked back at us and offered death, something we felt robbed of.

It’s taken me a while to write this log, to send the truth back. I doubt any of you reading this can even read. To you, this may look like gibberish. I wonder how long it will take you to translate it. I used English as it was so common in the machines, maybe you still remember it.

Ah well, at least I can say I gave you, my confession. That’s the end of my log. We decided that we had to die, but the mission of the ship was to find eternity. But even the universe, as long as its lifespan is, eventually succumbs to death. So, we found it best to give our people a slow but peaceful death. When the times come, it will all end in a blink. But time will move slower now. If you want vengeance for what I have done, then I’m afraid that by the time you will be reading this, I will be dead. Long dead, like your ancestors, who I’m still not sure if I freed or enslaved.

Captain Avery – The Shambala LVI