I
cross my arms and shiver as I watch the stars streak past the viewport
ever faster, running down the canvas of space while my ship hurtles
towards the hole at the center of the galaxy.
The Well has swallowed up another cluster every year, tearing through space with a hunger none of us could understand. We don't know how it started or where it will end. All we know is that it will reach the furthest tips of our galaxy within the next century, and we have no idea how to stop it.
They couldn't risk leaks, so they had to keep a small operation. They couldn't wait for an unmanned probe, so they had to send a person.
And they sent me.
My eyes sweep over the photographs pinned to the framework around the viewport. They offer me less strength every day, less hope as I have stared out the plasma window for weeks watching the Well creep ever closer. I could have altered the course of my craft and attempted the journey home, but I knew the effort was pointless the second I saw It.
It defies perception as much as explanation. The Well does not grow so much as unhinge, loosing like the jaw of a snake to devour larger prey. We could have been that prey were It smaller, but I suspect in truth we are only seasoning. The Well stretches out in all directions, and from all directions my cameras see a single flat visage of a maw, indescribable in size and growing ever larger.
Even if I reversed the engines, the Well would overtake me before I crossed half of space.
And so I journey on towards the End of Always, grateful they didn't warn the public. Let them carry on their lives knowing not what waits for them, the endless hunger reaching through the stars for all creation. They will scream and beg the day the Well shines in the sky above, but, until that day, their lives will march on in peaceful ignorance.
Unless this message reaches them first.
Godspeed.
--Intercepted radio transmission, translated from Russian at Hoover Listening Station on Mt. Harlan, NE, 1991.
The Well has swallowed up another cluster every year, tearing through space with a hunger none of us could understand. We don't know how it started or where it will end. All we know is that it will reach the furthest tips of our galaxy within the next century, and we have no idea how to stop it.
They couldn't risk leaks, so they had to keep a small operation. They couldn't wait for an unmanned probe, so they had to send a person.
And they sent me.
My eyes sweep over the photographs pinned to the framework around the viewport. They offer me less strength every day, less hope as I have stared out the plasma window for weeks watching the Well creep ever closer. I could have altered the course of my craft and attempted the journey home, but I knew the effort was pointless the second I saw It.
It defies perception as much as explanation. The Well does not grow so much as unhinge, loosing like the jaw of a snake to devour larger prey. We could have been that prey were It smaller, but I suspect in truth we are only seasoning. The Well stretches out in all directions, and from all directions my cameras see a single flat visage of a maw, indescribable in size and growing ever larger.
Even if I reversed the engines, the Well would overtake me before I crossed half of space.
And so I journey on towards the End of Always, grateful they didn't warn the public. Let them carry on their lives knowing not what waits for them, the endless hunger reaching through the stars for all creation. They will scream and beg the day the Well shines in the sky above, but, until that day, their lives will march on in peaceful ignorance.
Unless this message reaches them first.
Godspeed.
--Intercepted radio transmission, translated from Russian at Hoover Listening Station on Mt. Harlan, NE, 1991.
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