A key has been clicked. A report has been sent.
The man sitting at the computer with bagel crumbs in his beard squares his shoulders and stares intently as a circle pops up right in the center of the screen, spinning, spinning, spinning. Loading, loading, loading.
For the past five years, his job has been his life. In less than a minute, his job would determine his life, along with 7.5 billion others. Including his daughter's.
Focus. Focus.
One slight mishap, one slip of his finger on the keyboard, and the sending process could be interrupted. The whole mission could go down along with the rest of the world.
And the man knows how dependent the world is on this mission. He knows the consequences of the project failing; what the beings from Beyond could do to humans and what humans could do to the beings from beyond this world. After all, the First and Second World War were the outcomes of human disputes. If humans were to clash with something other than themselves...
This mission is much more than a project; it's a step, a leap towards understanding, towards comprehension. This mission is more than just right here, right now.
It stands for everything Beyond, for everything After.
The room is silent and tense. He can almost taste the heavy air and smell his own anxiety with every quaky breath he takes. The room is an empty one that would be buzzing with dozens of thrilled people in only a few hours—the man's coworkers, all of them lucky enough to not have been chosen to lead Project AFTER01. Yes, they would be thrilled. If everything works out.
If everything doesn't work out— if the project fails, if humans are suddenly introduced to the beings from Beyond—the world could break. Humans aren't ready yet for what will surely happen in millions of years. The reason is simple: there is a fine line between now and After, just like there is a line between the earth and Beyond, and if the line gets crossed too soon, the world would erupt into chaos. That's what this mission was: a temporary prevention, an attempt at postponing the day when now would merge with After, a chance to better understand what the beings from Beyond wanted.
And then... and then... the spinning circle disappears.
The screen lights up with the words that would change the man's life and this universe he has come to understand forever:
Report Sent. Project AFTER01 SUCCESSFUL.
YOU ARE READING
Beyond My World
Science Fiction*SciFi Holiday Contest Entry* There has always been something off about the world. Wait. No. I should rephrase that. There has always been something off about my world. When I say that, I don't mean that everything revolves around me. It doesn't...
