First it
started out as light rain, just normal rain. This was the late 21st
Century. Nobody thought anything of it. However, the rain continued, heavier
and lighter, it depended on the day. But there was never a day where it didn’t
rain. Then on the 25th September 2187, the first major catastrophe
hit London. A meteor. Not too big. The diameter was about five meters, but it
catapulted right into the side of the Shard. An 87 storey skyscraper, which is
now nearly 200 years old, it was well built, and survived the Third World War.
It was once the tallest in Europe, but was overtaken by l'automne, in France
a couple of decades later. The French didn’t like being beaten by the English,
especially after the Prime Minister at the time, David Cameron, called them
garlic eaters at a UN conference. Anyway, a meteor struck the Shard on the top
floor, scraped it really. But five people died because of it. The remains of
the meteor were never found, it was all very strange. It was all over the news,
and the blame was on the astronomers of the time. How didn’t they see this?
They had no answers. It just came out of the blue, they said. So, for about
half a year or so, they were all on high alert, looking for whatever. But after
this time period the hype calmed down, and all was back to normal. A year
later, the second meteor hit, in a desert thankfully, a big one it was, 20
meters. It would have destroyed a big chunk of a city. Again, high alert, and
many questions to be asked. However, it all died down again, all very
comical it was.
There was a
new kid on the block at a newly built observatory in Scotland, his name was
Zero. He was brought up to try and fit in, and not to look at anyone funny. It
was weird, because by the mid 21st Century, you were always told to
stand out. You were told to dye your hair, be bright, be bold. That’s why when
‘designer babies’ became legal in 2040 all the celebrities made their children
ginger. They were all trying to give a homage to the recently deceased David
Bowie. It all kind of back fired, because there were so many ginger babies
about, and there was a big back lash to the ‘designer baby’ law, and it became
illegal again fifteen years later. So there was just a generation of ginger
people which have all died out now. So by Zero’s time everyone had gone back to
brown and blond hair, all the same. They all wore white turtle necks, and they
all wore red blazers. It was a very strange time. Anyway, Zero had a big
interest in the stars, every since he was a little lad. He looked up into the
stars one evening and realised something was wrong, something was missing.
There was a blackness were his favourite star would be. He called someone in to
clarify he wasn’t going mad. The news spread and in Zero’s mind he was
surprised nobody had realised before. It was kept a secret for many months, and
everyone involved was looking at it. To everyone’s dismay the blackness was
getting bigger.
NASA was
informed and their conclusion was that this blackness was in our Solar System
and heading towards earth. NASA started to build a rocket to investigate, a non
manned mission that is. It was launched on the 25th December 2193,
it headed for the blackness, and the images that were sent back were
staggering. It was a prism shape, massive it was, heading exactly for Earth. By
the images it seemed to be miles long. And to everyone’s dismay it seemed to
have a hatch at the front it. A manned mission was needed. It was risky, but
urgently needed. Astronauts by the names of David and Frank headed for the
unknown phenomena. I’m not going to go into too much detail, but they landed on
a ledge at the front of the cylinder and headed towards the door. It was plain
and black, but with what looked like a lock in the middle of it. And to their
absolute shock there was a mat in front of the door. Frank looked under it and
there was a key. It was all very surreal. They let themselves in. David said
that on his reader the air was fine to breathe, they took their helmets off,
and gave cautious breaths. After years of training of what clean air was
supposed to smell like they believed it was fine. They were greeted by a spiral
of stairs. There was some gravity, but not as much as on earth, so it was a
very strange feeling indeed. They couldn’t jog down the stairs, it was
physically impossible, so they had to descend into the darkness very slowly,
which gave them time to think about what was down there. The short answer was:
they had no idea. The descent took what felt like an hour, no words were said
between David and Frank in that time. Very eerie indeed. They came to the last
step, and by the little torches on their helmets they could see a button on a
stand. What else would they do apart from press it? Green and red lights
illuminated a path into more darkness. They followed it, and at the end there was
a table, with two seats, they were red surrounded by blackness. They sat down
to talk to one another. They discussed their predicament and asked what they
were going to do next. The answers were short and few.
‘Did you
bring any of the food capsules?’ David asked after a moment of silence.
‘No, that
was your job.’ Frank replied.
‘What do you
mean? I specifically asked you to bring them.’
‘That’s
not the
case.’
‘Chaps!’ An unknown voice echoed everywhere.
The two
nearly had a heart attack, and being astronauts, that’s quite a feat. A light
shone across the table and illuminated an odd looking face. It looked human,
but most defiantly wasn’t. There was something odd about it. Nothing moved when
it talked, apart from the mouth. Its teeth were Tipex white and its hair was
too black to be human. The hair crossed diagonally across his forehead, and he
had a little toothbrush mustache. It continued to talk.
‘Chaps, we
have plenty to eat, do you wish to eat with me. My family has gone out for the
day. To the planet Mars in fact. Do you know it?
‘Yeah, sure
we’ve heard of it.’ Frank quivered.
‘We’ve got cow,
I think that’s how you pronounce it. Pig, and toast. Any of those take your
fancy?’
The two
astronauts looked at each other in despair.
‘Well, it’s
rude to keep people waiting, that’s what they say on your planet isn’t it?’
‘Toast,
please.’ Frank and David said in unison.
‘Very well,
young chaps. How old are you, I forgot to ask.’
‘37.’ Frank
answered.
‘34’. Second
David.
‘Bloody hell you twats.’ The weird thing said
in a cockney accent, it had switched from upper class to cockney, strange
wasn’t even the word to describe the situation. ‘That’s a bit young ain’t it?
Me and the misses are 768, well she’s actually 39 kasd younger than me. That’s
months to you, I think. We were told to leave our planet because it’s strange
if you marry a woman younger than you… 34 and 37, bloody hell. I’ll be back
with your toast.’
Frank and
David were physically shaking; they were looking at each other not knowing what
to say. The weird thing, returned with black toast, smothered in a green gloop
of something. To draw the attention away from it, Frank tried to make
conversation.
‘So how long
have you been on the run?’
‘324 seihhi;
that’s years to you.’
‘Why are you
not speaking in a different language?’
‘I lived on
your planet for fifty six seihhi, went travelling, and then came back.’
‘Oh really?
What? Were you human?’
‘By golly
yes.’
‘Did you
like it there?’
‘Not
really?’
‘Why?’
‘I didn’t
really like anyone, and they all had different beliefs, and they didn’t really
look the same. I like you two chaps, you look similar. I tried to make a
change. I killed 20 million people.’
Frank and
David looked at each other once again.
‘Come on,
eat up, it took me ages to make that.’ The weird thing continued.
‘I’m not
really hungry anymore.’ David said.
‘What?! It
took me seihhi to make that. You know what? Forget it, you ungrateful bitch.
I’ll just put it in the bloody bin then. You twat!’
And with
that, the weird thing sprung from his chair and put the toast in the middle of
the table, and pushed a button under the table. The toast was sucked up into a
big hoover, and a screen of earth filled up half of the room. The astronauts
saw a tiny ball plummeting to the earth and after it was through the atmosphere
it ballooned out to the size of a football pitch and was heading right for New
York. It hit. It destroyed about 95% of the city, and would have killed
millions of people.
‘What have
you done?’ David bellowed.
‘Humans are
rubbish; I just did you a favour.’
‘My Nan
lived there!’ David screamed.
‘Oh, I’m
sorry.’
The weird
thing got up from his seat suddenly, put his small hands on the men’s heads.
After that the men disappeared, and all they saw was white. The next thing they
knew was that David was inside his Nan’s body and Frank was inside her
husband’s. They looked at each other, and screamed. They ran to the window and
saw a meteor heading directly towards them. They died.
Next was nothing.
D.R. Hayes
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