In complete silence, a dark expanse stretched out boundlessly. The only thing breaking the suffocating emptiness were the myriads of white lights which were carelessly scattered around.
A gray metallic spaceship soared across space soundlessly. It was plainly decorated, the only distinct feature being two words painted on its side which read "Chippa Enterprises".
A middle aged man with hair the color of dried blood sat in a seat at the control room of the spaceship with his legs resting on the dashboard. He was mindlessly observing the space outside while biting on a sandwich. Although it was a bit messy, he didn't care and was too bored of the prepackaged liquid meals. When he went to take in a bite, his eyes spotted something in the window showing the space outside.
His mouth couldn't close down from shock and his hand let go of the sandwich causing it to fly away. From an adjacent hall, his wife came out and the floating sandwich bumped against her causing the ingredients to scatter. As she was about to scold her husband for making a mess, she heard his urgent voice.
"Honey, look at this!" he pointed outside. Stopping mid sentence, the man's wife came close to him and looked outside the window. A boundless empty darkness spread out infinitely outside of the spaceship. Not seeing anything wrong, the wife looked over at her husband whose eyes did not shift from the window. Looking outside once again she realized what was wrong.
There were no stars ahead of them. Looking closer, she saw that despite the space normally being black, the view outside of the window was incomparably blacker.
Confusedly she leaned in and looked to the sides of the ship seeing a distinct line separating normal space and the starless, eerily dark mass.
"Impossible, a wall in space?" Words involuntarily made their way out of her mouth as she mumbled with a shocked expression.
"Yes, in all my 40 years of exploring space I have never seen anything like it" The man abruptly snapped to attention and shot his hands in his pockets fishing for something. Getting out a phone, his fingers shakily navigated to the camera in order to record the strange phenomenon.
"Donghai dear, move over and let me steer, we need to get closer to it to be able to record data" The man was named Lin Donghai and his wife was Su Xiulan, they were both scientists who had been exploring space together for many years. Recently, a specific order had come in for them to slowly make their way to this spot and collect information.
Lin Donghai got up and moved to another seat nearby and buckled a seatbelt around himself all while recording. Engaging the thrusters, the spaceship slowly flew closer to the dark wall. As they got closer and closer, Lin Donghai pressed some buttons with one hand while pointing the phone at the electronic screen displaying information.
"What? This must be an error, move a bit closer!" His face contorted in even deeper astonishment as he yelled out.
"For some reason the ship is being pulled in a little bit, I don't remember there being a planet nearby. Is this caused by the dark wall?" Su Xiulan was amazed as well but at the same time, she felt a tinge of fear.
"A bit closer should be fine, if I can record this data our contribution would be exponentially larger than just observing the wall!" Although the data recorded through the various tools was automatically backed up on the ship's storage, Lin Donghai couldn't resist the urge to keep recording. After all, the recording which contained their reactions and a picture of what was outside was at the moment an invaluable scientific record.
"The analysis is finished but the result is extremely strange. According to the charts, this wall is actually a black hole of a massive scale, bending space close to it. For some reason it is far weaker than a normal black hole, but the most surprising thing is that in its center space is not being sucked in but is somehow creating a wall!" Lin Donghai had a weird expression on his face. After all, this discovery directly defied his years of research.
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"Space forming a wall? That should be completely impossible! Are you sure the equipment is functioning properly? Nevermind, this wall is seriously scaring me, let's leave and call for some backup" Su Xiulan was even more confused as she started steering the ship around. Although they were very far away, almost a thousand kilometers, the tinge of fear in her heart grew exponentially by the passing second.
"No, the pull of the wall is fairly weak, let's get a little bit closer so I can measure it more accurately." He couldn't be blamed for disbelieving in the accuracy of the equipment. Once more, they got closer and closer but the data was more or less the same.
"Let's head back now!" His wife was already turning around before he even finished his sentence, wanting to get away from the wall as soon as possible.
Ting
The moment she tried to accelerate the ship, a small fracture appeared in a wire running above the two, due to the vibration of the ship and landed on the control panel before Su Xiulan. Despite her clearly moving the steering controller in front of her, the ship did not move at all.
"Oh my god we are f*cked!" Su Xiulan yelled at her husband. When Lin Donghai looked at the control panel in front of her, the screen was completely blank.
"What??" He yelled as well, a sense of panic suddenly taking hold of him. He hastily unbuckled his seatbelt and flew over to the control panel. How could it be that easy for the control panel to fail? There were so many failsafe systems in place in current spaceships that it was nearly impossible for a malfunction to completely disable the controls.
He banged on the screen, his last hope was such a barbaric method. The only effect produced was all of the light turning off inside the ship. They lost all power.
BOOM
Suddenly an explosion sounded at the back of the ship, causing it to spin while further accelerating towards the dark wall.
"The thruster blew up, hurry let's get the suits!" Su Xiulan yelled, quickly flying out of her seat. However, the rotation of the ship caused both of them to launch into a wall, causing the phone in Lin Donghai's hand to fly away. Luckily, the spacesuit rack was right next to the control room so it didn't take them too long to get there. The couple tried to put on their suits while being launched violently in different directions but they somehow managed to succeed.
"F*ck, let's get to the escape pods!" Lin Donghai and his wife tried to find something to cling on to and get out of the room but whenever they came close to a wall, the violent rotation pushed them off.
BOOM
The thruster explosion resulted in structural damage which set off a chain of explosions and split the whole ship. Right next to the two, a small tank filled with hydrogen directly blew up/
"NOOO" Lin Donghai tried to catch Su Xiulan but she was too close to the explosions and was catapulted outside of the ship which was now in shambles. Not caring about his safety, he pushed off and dove in her direction. He activated the thrusters on his spacesuit to quickly catch up but when Lin Donghai saw her, his face paled. A huge chunk of the suit his wife wore was ripped open, exposed to the harshness of space. Not only that, the spot where the suit was missing had a huge chunk of flesh missing.
"SU XIULAN!" He yelled and yelled through the microphone in his suit but got no response. Lin Donghai raised her arm to look at the small screen on the wrist of the suit, seeing a flat line. Without a shadow of a doubt, his wife had died.
Lin Donghai's trembling hands stilled and his face was devoid of any expression. He did not even resist or use the remaining fuel in his spacesuit to fly away, instead being slowly pulled into the dark wall. An unknown amount of time passed but all he felt was the pull strengthening as if he was being pulled by a weight into a bottomless ocean.
A few moments later Lin Donghai turned around, the sensors in his suit screaming and berating him with red flashes. Despite his emotionless appearance, when he saw the dark wall which was not too far away from him, he could not help but be mesmerized by its beauty. The pull was so strong now that he could not move his body which was moving at a speed faster than sound.
The pull only intensified further, and just as the spacesuit was starting to rip, a small crack just enough for him to fit through appeared in the space ahead of him.
As Lin Donghai entered the crack, he felt all of his senses completely warp and he felt himself lose all control of his body. Despite this, Lin Donghai's curious eyes were still observing the scenery around him. The space around him was almost completely dark, but he could still catch traces of light swirling around him. The space around the small bundles of light was extremely violent and jagged, twisting like a snake in one moment and warping completely in the next. Observing all of this, he felt something slowly unlocking in his mind but it was still a little bit off. It was like Lin Donghai was a prisoner with countless chains suppressing him which started to fall off one by one. However, that last small bit seemed like an indestructible chain which would not budge and wrapped around his whole body stopping him from moving.
Shua!
It seemed like Lin Donghai reached the end of the tunnel in space and he was violently thrown out.
An image imprinted itself into his mind before his eyes were pulverized into powder along with the rest of his body. The image was a world where arcs of black lighting danced about randomly shattering space like glass. The more shocking thing was the black wall right next to Lin Donghai, it seemed that he reached its other side.
Luckily he was facing towards it and he managed to see the space which formed it. It was layered on to each other and condensed to form an impenetrable wall. As he saw it up close, Lin Donghai's eyes widened and he felt the last chain slipping. That last push was just enough to sever the impenetrable chain, making him feel as if he was reborn. Ironically, the moment he felt that he was crushed into a pulp and died.