Beyond The Expected Universe

“Beyond The Expected Universe” is one of the outstanding stories of the first biannual International Short Story Contest 2018 written by Nayonika Sarkar, Carmel convent Sr. sec. School, Raigarh, India.

Beyond The Expected Universe

Year 3001 Somewhere in the ‘Andromeda galaxy’

“All right guys...we are about to depart from the ‘Challenger II’ probe. The space is clear, black hole Quasar is in sight, supporting probe ‘Cassini’ is nearby, we are about to start the mission Over” I said.

“Okay, Kalpana….” said Sunita.. “Must be feeling great to become a legend.”

“Yeah” I replied, “you should be feeling great too?”

“Yes of course. What about you Neil?”

“Yep, feeling too great. Just imagine once we are back to Earth there will be banners and posters and we will become legends.”

“Yes, and we will be famous on Mars and Jupiter as well.” Buzz said.

“Okay, Okay. I get your excitement. Look we are almost there.”

“Roger and Sunita. Everybody buckle up. Travelling through that Black hole’s accretion disc might be a bit rough.”

They were a team of astronauts – Kalpana, Sunita, Neil and Buzz. They were supposed to be the first humans to cross the accretion disc and reach the infinite singularity of a blackhole named ‘Quasar’. But little did they know that something bad was about to happen.

“Whoa, there is so much debris in here. Too glad we are inside this probe.”

“Not for much long Sunita.” Buzz replied, “We will have to depart at the singularity.”

“Wait a sec…” I said, “Something’s wrong.”

“But what?” Neil asked, a bit nervous.

“Yes, something is.” replied Sunita, “We were supposed to get across the disc till now and we aren’t even halfway yet.”

“Yes.” Buzz said. “It’s taking a bit too long, the amount of debris is too high and I don’t think this probe will support us for much longer.”

“You are right.” I said, “Let’s contact the supporting probe.”

The supporting probe Cassini immediately came to the rescue. But the probe couldn’t be totally unmanned. Somebody had to stay to activate self-destruction mode of the probe because if the probe was left there, it could cause some serious problems in the disc and the signals. So, it was decided that Kalpana, as being the leader of the team, will stay in the probe for 2 min 30 sec and then Cassini will pick her up.

“This is the Cassini. We are here to rescue Kalpana”

“This is Kalpana. I cannot control the probe anymore. Self-destruct is unable to activate. I think I will h a v e t o l e t t h e p r o b e g o. O v e r”

“I am sorry. The Cassini is getting distorted signals. Over.”

“T h i s i s K a l p a n a . C a s s i n i d o y o u c o p y ?’

The signal was now totally lost as Kalpana had actually entered the singularity and had gone through the blackhole, something that humanity had never imagined of before. She is currently unconscious and somebody had rescued her in a universe which she had never heard of before. She had been carried away to a universe known as the ‘Augmenta’ and there she had been taken to a planet called ‘Sahi’. The Augmenta universe consisted of 4 types of life forms – Torrens, Mides, Vossks and Nivels. Sahi was way too ahead in almost everything than earth.

“Oh, where am I? Which is this place? Cassini do you copy… arghhhhhhhh w-what are you?”

“Don’t worry human. You are totally safe here in Sahi. I am Phoenix”

“Phoenix? Sahi? Whatever this is get me back to Earth”

“Earth? That is in the standard universe. It’s a long way back there. You should be glad I picked you up before somebody else did.”

“ Hey Phoenix! Is that human conscious?” a strange voice yelled his name from behind the room.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“Our king The RA’s guards.”

“Isn’t it an Egyptian God?”

“No. We existed a long time before your Egyptian civilization. RA means the king in our world. C’mon get up. He wants to see you.”

“Am I a prisoner here?” I asked.

“No, you are our guest.”

So, she got down and saw a flying board sort of thing as people didn’t walk here. It took a bit of time for her to balance but she made it and was taken to RA, who looked a bit like human.

“Welcome to our world human. I can understand how scared you must be now but you needn’t worry, Phoenix will take you to a trip around our system.”

Kalpana wanted to get back to Earth ASAP but this world was a very good chance for discovering more about the unknown world. So she agreed to take a short trip. She was taken to a space shuttle. The shuttle departed and she saw something extraordinary. The sky was tinted blue, black, pink and almost every colour was present in the sky with a unique hint of dimensions. The stars twinkled and she could see a lot of shuttles out there.

“So this is planet Hio and that glowing star is our Sun.” said Phoenix.

“So you guys have a Sun too?”

“Yes, we get all our energy from our Suns.”

“Suns… means there are more.”

“Yeah, we have thousands of them. You must be hungry right? ”

“Yes, very hungry. What’s there to eat?”

“Well, we have some ziper fish and some blue chicken, 8 dimensional vegetables and...”

“That’s food? I think I can try it but get me back to Earth quickly.”

“We will depart you from the Hio station.”

After having a very weird meal at the station, Kalpana was all ready to go. The RA was present there too.

“We hope you had a nice time here. We have set a hyper drive course in your ship to earth. Here's a parting gift- a Vossk crystal. If you stare at it carefully, you can see the whole multiverse in it.”

“It’s too nice of you. I also present you this ring made of diamond, a very expensive stone in our world.”

And so she departed with a proof of her adventures and said goodbye to her friends. As soon as she landed on earth she immediately went to the NASA headquarters but something weird happened. The headquarter looked very different and she saw posters of Sunita, Neil and Buzz which meant they had died and something even more weird-the calendar said Year 3401.There was no time in Augmenta.

Surprisingly surprised, she went to the head office. The head officer also was too surprised as Kalpana had died long ago. However, after all the mishaps were cleared, Kalpana presented to them the Vossk crystal. And due to the efforts of Kalpana and her friends at Augmenta, Earth became aware of the huge multiverse it was living in and Earth become a nice tourist spot for intergalactic travelers.