Today’s night sky was clear and calming to watch. Even the perpetually busy city roads became quiet at midnight. But the most serene spot in the city will be the suspension bridge. With a full moon overhead, slow flowing river underneath, one can enjoy beauty of nature while standing on those steel beams.
A young woman with blonde hair stood at the edge of the road on the bridge. Her hand was holding a steel rod connected to bridge. She was facing towards the river occasionally looking at the locket in her other hand. The locket is in the shape of a heart with the words Sophy & David engraved on it. Tears flowed down her cheeks as she kissed the locket and hung it over her neck. “I’ll be joining you soon, my love,” Sophy murmured, as she walked towards the end of the bridge. She stopped right where bridge ended, just one more step to fall into river.
She stared hard at the river, which flowed without any concern that it was being watched. She liked watching rivers and this spot used to be her favorite. After meeting David, he used to accompany her here. Many of their memories were made here. Those were happy times, at least until her uncle died, making her the next heir to his company. If she had known that it would kill her lover and ruin her life, she would have rejected it right on the first day.
Click. Click.
Sophy heard sound of footsteps coming from one side of bridge. She glanced behind her and saw a young man wearing a white lab coat coming towards her. He was thin, with black hair and a normal looking face. The out-of-place, oversized brown boots he is wearing are the source of loud footsteps. He didn’t look like a decent person, especially with that suspicious attire. Then again, any decent person wouldn’t be wandering at midnight. Well, it’s not like she cared anyway. The young man looked like he want to say something to her as he came closer and closer to her.
“Hello there, I’m Ru-”
Sophy didn’t let him finish his sentence, cutting him off with a determined look as she let go of the wire.
‘Just one more step will end everything’, thought Sophy. She smiled a little, while still crying and then -
THWACK
A rock the size of a baseball hit her head. It hit her the moment she left the cable, making her lose her balance and fall on her back. Still feeling the pain at right side of her head, Sophy glared at man who stopped her from jumping. But he completely ignored her glare. He walked near Sophy and hit her squarely on her jaw with his fist. The blow made Sophy faint.
”I hate people who give up on life. And also those who don’t listen to others,” he grumbled while calling an ambulance through his phone.
* * *
*The next morning inside the cafeteria of a certain government’s secret research institute.*
“Hey Ruth, looks like you had a lot of fun last night,” a tall and sturdy looking man with a badge - representing security officer - called out to Ruth as he entered cafeteria.
”Oh, Hi Sam,” Ruth greeted back as he spotted his friend.
Sam patted the chair next to him and started interrogating his friend immediately.
“So, tell me why I got a call from police yesterday at midnight confirming your identity?” Sam asked, growing serious.
Ruth was going to explain anyway, so he settled down in his chair and started talking.
“It was a huge mess. Let me tell you from the start. It all began with the argument about the deadline with the project manager. After sometime, I realized that this argument was a waste of time and walked out of the office.” He should have known this with all of his previous experiences, but something about that manager just pissed him off. It was probably her over diligent personality, which is exact opposite to his character.
“That was to be expected. You’ve never won an argument against her in the two years you have been working here,” Sam poked fun at Ruth.
“And to cool down I went to bar and drank till midnight. Just outside of the bar, I bumped into a seriously drunk man who vomited on my shoes,” Ruth continued, ignoring Sam’s teasing. “Then I got those dirty boots from the bartender for temporary use and started heading home, thinking that I will get my shoes tomorrow as they are now wet.”
“Your bad luck is same as always, isn’t it Ruth?” commented Sam, taking pleasure in his friend’s misfortune.
Ruth continued to treat Sam’s remarks like air and went on with his story.
“Then I hurried along the bridge as sometimes city police patrols there at midnight and I don’t want any more trouble trying to proving my identity. But my luck was at its all-time lowest when I found a suicidal woman ready to jump off the bridge.”
“Then?” Sam leaned forward on the cafeteria table, clearly getting more interested.
“Well I already knew that people jumping down bridges won’t stop just because I say so. So, I slipped a rock into my pocket before running. When I was close enough to her, I just threw it and made her faint.”
Sam stared without saying anything.
“What?” Ruth asked, as he didn’t like that silence.
“Well, putting aside your method, why’d you even stop her? You generally don’t give a fuck about others, do you? Was that woman so beautiful that even our forever single Ruth got charmed?” Sam teased.
“I wasn’t charmed and I’m not forever single,” Ruth replied grumpily.
‘Why is my love life is so interesting to him?’ Ruth wondered, continuing his tale.
“Anyways, I called police and waited until they got there. They came after a bit, took her into custody, and then arrested me saying, I’m suspicious and need verification. So I had to make them call you to check my identity. Sorry about that,” Ruth apologized sincerely.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“Don’t worry about it. But won’t showing your ID card serve the purpose?” Sam raised a valid point.
“Well, about that, you know my project is going under initial testing today right? After that, I will become permanent scientist from assistant so they took my ID card for making changes. So I had to call yo-”
Ruth is interrupted by a female voice from the speakers, which are everywhere inside the institute.
“All research personnel related to project 53- A are requested to enter the testing site within 15 minutes.”
“Looks like I should get going. See you later,” said Ruth as he stood up.
“Yeah, Good luck.” Sam stood up beside him and patted Ruth’s back.
Project 53 is about “Complete control and miniaturization of nuclear fusion reaction.”
Though the idea was nothing new, it was never attempted due to the large amount of energy released in the process, and lack of material that can contain such high temperatures. But if succeeded, this could provide infinite energy and would completely changes the planet’s energy consumption pattern.
But that wasn’t the reason why the project never got an official name or always was referred to as Project 53 even inside the research institute. It was because, if the experiment got out of control, at least 10 % of the earth’s surface would be wiped out and the following radiation would make at least half of the earth uninhabitable. It was literally trying to controlling a small-scale sun. Any mistakes would result in extinction level disasters.
Various political problems would occur if anything that was done here was leaked. So, strict security measures were in place to prevent any and all sorts of information leaks. Metal doors made of titanium that can only be opened by a retinal scanning were installed outside the test site.
Today this test site was having its first usage, as Project 53 was going to have its first actual test here. If everything proceeded as predicted, the project would get a green signal immediately continuing to phase B, and many assistant level scientists would be promoted to a permanent research member. As everyone related to project gathered inside the test site, the female voice came from speakers and announced the start of experiment.
Locking test site and Initiating fusion sequence.
Activating nuclear reactors, testing temperature.
Waiting. . Waiting. . Required environment created.
Starting main energy core.
Everyone became tense as next few minutes would determine their two years work’s success.
A large screen started showing various values with a large bar in the middle representing the energy level of core.
Energy level -- 00%
Energy level -- 09%
Energy level -- 20%
Energy level -- 33%
Energy level -- 45%
Energy level -- 60%
‘If this gets to 100%, I am going to get promotion,’ Ruth thought to himself as he kept watching the screen.
Energy level -- 80%
Energy level -- 93%
Energy leakage detected, emergency containment protocol is activated.
Energy level -- 70%
System still unstable, evacuation suggested.
Red lights on ceiling started flashing, showing the direction towards emergecy exit.
‘Oh, it failed. It just needed 7% more.’ Ruth sighed in disappointment, while following others towards the entrance for evacuation.
Energy level -- 02%
System stable.
Ruth only took one-step when he heard the new alert. He turned back with a surprised look just like many of the other staff members.
Irregularity detected. System stability unable to calculate.
A large blinding light came from main core and covered Ruth. In the next instant, both Ruth and main core disappeared.
After an unknown amount of time, Ruth awoke. Awoke may not have been the correct word as he couldn’t feel his eyes, or for that matter anything in his body. He somehow sensed that he was being pulled by something inside a huge dark tunnel. Feeling without actually seeing through his eyes or hearing through his ears was a strange thing.
As Ruth got accustomed to his strange state, he heard something. It is more like a random idea suddenly popped into his consciousness. Though he doesn’t understand what is happening with him, Ruth understood its meaning.
Be strong, stronger than anyone else.
Then he saw a flash and he became unconscious again.
He awoke listening to some kind of beast roar. What kind of animal can make such roar? Ruth thought. At least lions he saw in TV sounded far less irritating to ears. "What am I doing again?" As Ruth thought that, he remembered how he was in test site where experiment failed due to some unexpected disturbance and he was in that strange place. Remembering until there, he checked his body. His body is fine except for the fact that any type of clothing is missing on his body. Now he is just happy that none of his body parts is missing. Confirming that, he looked at his surroundings.
He is sitting on top of a boulder that is larger than his car. Surrounding the boulder are many lush green bushes. A faint layer of mist is swirling near the ground giving a cool and pleasant sensation. At some distance there is a thick canopy formed by huge trees. Though Ruth never really explored a forest, he is sure that these trees are definitely taller than any other tree he has seen in life. They are actually so tall that along with all the fog their highest part is not even visible to Ruth. Different kinds of sounds can be heard ranging from light footsteps to that loud roar that woke him up.
He is in a forest with impossibly tall trees, strange mist and all kind of potential predators. He has no idea which way is his lab or where the hell he is. Ruth suddenly got a strong urge to faint. But he resisted it as he has a slight clue about what might be happening here.
Normally when a star die its entire energy gets consumed gradually until it cannot support itself. And if star is large enough it sometimes form a black hole, which can absorb even light making it black. Nobody knows what happens to things in black hole. Many argue that they connect to other universe. But the small experiment is nowhere near to energy required to form a black hole. This should be due to whatever abnormality that interfered the experiment.
What is the real identity of the abnormality? How did it completed a process of creating a star and then killing it to black hole that quickly? Why did it do that? What if it is a coincidence? If it is another universe, why can he breathe? Ruth head started hurting with all questions and no answers. He thought he is going mad and also thought that it is probably a good idea.
All of his thinking process stopped when he once again heard that roar which is nearer than previous times. He became abnormally calm probably because his survival instinct kicked in. Though there is still some part in him that urged him to run into forest shouting for help, he slowly crept down the boulder trusting his instincts, which are activated for probably the first time in his life. As it happens, that is not just a boulder but entrance to an underground cave. Though it looked safer than animal filled forest there is no guarantee that it is empty. Coupled with the fact that many animals can see much better than humans in darkness, Ruth simply decided to leave that cave.
Ruth always used to wonder how those characters in fiction stories keep their cool when something absurd happens around them. He used to think anyone will freak out, at least he thought he will. Probably those heroic actions separate normal people to someone great.
And today Ruth understood he was wrong. As it seems that when huge amounts of unreasonableness, which surpasses the thinking capacity of a person is forced upon somebody they will calm down on the contrary. This is a situation where he can choose to freak out at everything and get mad or accept everything as it is and start from beginning. Anyway, whatever roaring will not be waiting for his internal conflict to end.
“Dammit, experiment failed and I’m dropped in some forest. It just can’t get any worse. And what ‘be strong’ my ass, I’m running naked in a goddamn forest” He cursed and started trudging into the thicket of trees in the opposite direction of roar.