The Distant Echo

A Wasted Life

He didn't want to die. And now that he was faced with it, now that it was certain, Alexander Green knew that he was ruined.

Panic consumed him, overriding excruciating pain, and he reached out to the transmitter tower from which he had fallen. But fate would not be denied its prize. Another burst of energy pushed him farther into the open sky. Alex flailed, as if beating his arms and legs against the air would defy the laws of physics.

He started to fall, yet, he didn't. The energy current from the tower pulled him upward and held him in place. Suspended nearly two thousand feet above rocky ground and forest floor, bands of energized particles cut through him like red-hot razor wire, and he shrieked in agony.

Time stopped, or at least it no longer made sense. Drawing in a breath of searing air, in the time that it took to fill his lungs, his heart seized and organs died. Blood continued to rush through his veins like liquid fire, and in a single moment, he suffered for an eternity.

The current intensified, drawing Alex back to the transmitter tower. Gravity fought against the tether, pulling him toward the Earth below. Another surge ended the tug-of-war, and he thought he had been torn in two. Watching his lifeless body fall to the ground, Alex accepted his death. A terrible feeling consumed him, and he became afraid.

The fear wasn't a result of the unknown but rather dread from so many things left undone — the regret of a wasted life heavy upon him. Ego offered resistance, and Alex thought of the brilliant scientific advancements that had been realized through his research.

But the truth remained: nothing he had done would change the fate of the universe or the final destiny of even a single person. Everyone dies, life goes on, and soon the things of that life are forgotten. And in a last stroke of irony, it took death for Alex to understand that in the end, the things of this world mean nothing.

Crushed by sorrow, Alex wished to see his father one last time. For too long, he refused to repair their relationship; now, there would be no more chances to tell his father that he loved him. There would be no more chances to make up lost time with the people he cared about, that he should have loved better. And the anguish of his failure made him look forward to death.

After a moment or forever — he couldn't tell — still caught in the energized current, the air boiled and coalesced around him until it forcefully retreated. Alex was pulled into the tower, like being swept away in a powerful riptide. The flow of energy accumulated in the transmission matrix, and when the chamber filled to saturation, the matrix activated. The energy discharged, erupting into the sky, piercing the atmosphere at the speed of light, and streaming out into space.