Number 2: Death and Space-time: Number 2, #1

By Fernando Fernandez

Stu wakes up! Am I dead? Is this hell? When he looked up, he noticed three suns. This must be a nightmare, but it is so vivid! Space?

He has gone through a lot of suffering in a short period of time. Hallucinations, torture, bone marrow extraction. Who brought me here?

Along the way, escaping this hellish place, they made friends, reached enlightenment and discovered the secrets that will make a new universe.

This opera prima brings sense to many unsolved issues, fiction answers what science hasn't, in a very peculiar way.

Life and death, spirituality, science and way beyond the frontiers of this world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fernando Fernandez
• Release date: Mar 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201157760

Book preview

I. Hellish

Ineed to run fast , faster, as fast as I can. I have to run  much faster if I want to get away from them. Stuart told himself, Focus!  What can be done to trick them? Escape is the only option. No, you cannot! They sense you. What? Who’s it?

(Laughter from above)

It all began when Stu had no recollection of what happened last night; he woke up in a different world. Am I still dreaming?  Am I alive? Is this place hell? It looks like a far-fetched place, a different planet? No, no. How come? It’s not possible!

It had been a hectic day for Stu. Nothing seemed right. He went to sleep, but he couldn't do so, for a long time. After tossing and turning on his bed, he finally snoozed. What happened later is still unknown to him. If only I could remember what was next, it would help me feel better. At least I wouldn’t be wondering what went wrong.

This place crushes and breaks everything thrown into it; an eternal fire down a bottomless hole that burns in extreme heat all around me, and shattered souls surround me. How dare you bring me here? Whomever you are, why did you drag me to this hellish place?  No answer. Just the silence of space. How naive I’ve been! I can’t remember what I did last night. Well, I went to bed. Did I drink something? I just drank water. Did I eat anything unusual? No, not at all.

He keeps on looking around. Flashes of a weird world hit his thoughts without leaving him alone. He listens to a fading voice. I cannot understand what is being said. Who sent this message? It’s unknown to me. This must be hell! Wake up! Run! Anxiety, and desperation; a roller coaster of emotions driven by the heat of the place, and the horrific view along the way. Blood, and tears. My heartbeats fade away in sweat. I’m escaping from who or what? No, it’s where. The place is draining my soul, not just taking my energy, but also my happiness. What was my mistake? Was my life so twisted? Am I dead? Who decided my fate? Who said I deserve this?  Nobody has to be in this place. Why would anybody want to come to this fire and brimstone? It blazes across my body, burns fiercely on the surface, and it is more than obvious that it continues beneath my feet. The glare of these suns is too much.

My head keeps spinning, and my whole body is numbed. Oh, that odor! I’m nauseated. It stinks like skin burning on a grill, feathers turning to ashes, and sulfur extract. Even with a mask filtering the gases, the mines stink of putrid, stale fish, rotten fruit, and decomposed corpses, and it’s unbearably hot, intoxicating, and unwelcome. A wretched environment I have to deal with. It is simply woeful. This inferno brings the worst to you. It  causes sorrow, misery, and hopelessness.

When I looked up, I didn’t see a blue sky, everything was dark, a few distant lights. The sky above, or what was supposed to be the ceiling of this horrendous spot in hell, paints itself gray and some brushes of black give a tone of tragic, no beauty upon us. Wait, just one glorious thing, the three stars’ brightness, which reminds you where you are, obscurity down below.

Visions of all the punishment you could face, and way beyond imagination. He fainted for the umpteenth time. When he opened his eyes, his body was exposed to the sticky surface of the planet, protected just by the thin layer of his suit; it wouldn’t last for very long.

The wackiest weather pattern he’s ever witnessed or read about. It’s hostile to life, as we know it. I heard a voice! This is the  zaniest climate we’ve come across. Nobody was around!

I was disoriented and had no way to go. There are different roads and all of them will lead you to the gates, where you’ll have to endure to continue your way. Trees grew on fire in the path of an avalanche of molten brass.  How come these hellish lava-rooted trees can grow these fruits? I’m losing my sanity; this is the only nourishment you will see along the road. Salty, extremely salty, that’s how it tastes. There was no water in plain sight, so you’d better not eat, or you’re going to suffer a desperate thirst. My tongue is burning at such a salty level that it elicits sourness, bitterness, and dryness.

Some shadows are around the corner. Who might they be? Others like me, or the keepers? A feeling that combines dread, wonder and terror. What’s this place? Dark clouds bring acid rain, along with high pressure, crustal drift, and volcanic eruptions. Craters carved by the constant bombardment of meteorites, and scars left by the seismic activity of this hellish world, are the only view.

Ick, what’s that? A dumpster. What do they have in there? Chemical components that stink!  A gaseous rain of sulfur and other chemicals carried by scorching winds. I need  to find some shelter.

Here, nothing is wasted. It seems they even use the rain as fuel. The surrounding people noticed my presence. Nobody came to me, they seemed too concentrated on their work. The beings were kind of permissive, they let me move around. I did so until I felt a terrible headache! Somebody’s reading my mind like an open book! I started singing out loud to distract them and gain some time while deciding where to go, or what to do. It didn’t work.

They effectively intuited my movements, thoughts, and feelings; What emphatic accuracy! This is really annoying, these strangers’ discernment of others’ emotions. That gave me an idea; I decided to let emotions flow, anger, happiness, and confusion. They did not know humans could swing moods so quickly. That was challenging for both parties.

Emotions soar with all the surrounding negativity. Helplessness, grieving, worrisome, there’s despondency in the sojourn. It is impossible to be sure whether this is an inferno or a far-fetched place.

Your fears affect your behavior negatively. I sense somebody’s watching me. When I heard the steps of somebody getting closer, I had to make a move to see who it was. I pretended I was running, then unexpectedly I stopped and turned to see who was chasing me. To my surprise, there were no monsters or demons. It was a boy who was afraid of talking to me, or perhaps he just feared what those beings would do to him if he talked to me. As I got closer to the little boy, he climbed a ladder to a platform, then he got down to the ground on the other side. I shouted, but I forgot that there was no air to produce a sound. He was too fast for me on this sticky floor. The last time I saw him, he opened a sewer  and went down the hole. When I got there, it had already been locked.

Who was this little kid? Who brought him here? I have too many questions and no answers, and the questions keep accumulating by the minute.

II. The Melting

I’m exhausted. All I know is that everything happened all of a sudden!  Was it a nightmare? Or something else?  Where am I? Stu wondered. I need a sense of place! This is negative and fearsome, a perception that’s growing by the minute. Unnerving sight, a frightful sense that things are going to get worse at any time. From blinding lights on the surface to pitch dark down the mines. Am I dead? I saw ailing people, literally flesh and blood. Are they still alive? Keep walking, walking, where to? Nowhere.

Up in the sky, clouds of dust, lightning, and fire; back on the ground, lava pushed back and forth, scalding air, gases go through your nostrils. This is surreal. A dark entrance or exit, I don’t know, there were piles of people or what once were human. Many eyes were on me. Steam rose, and a foul odor filled the air. There’s nothing soothing you. Is this where we get when we die?

Oh, home! My attachment and belonging. It’s special and unique. This has been a terrifying experience. I yearned to wake up. Nothing happened; I had to tough it out on my own. This is not suitable for humans. We tend to consider new places compared to a baseline back home. This is unknown territory to me. Just stepping on this soft ground is like walking on quicksand. Exposure to the natural environment is deadly and should be avoided all the time. What’s keeping me from sinking into this marshmallow? Am I a ghost? Where’s my physical body? Is it still with me?

Styrofoam seems to be the main component of this place; it turns into a well-functioning adhesive-like component. Since heat melts it rapidly, that makes landing on the surface a daring experience that may end up with you glued to the ground. The heat turns it into liquid, Styrene; it becomes gaseous, and you may think that it is difficult to turn it into solid due to the high temperatures, but not in this place, where winds are so fast that they could harden it over time. It is also toxic, and gives off noxious fumes that can be very hazardous.  I must keep a helmet, if only I had one; it’s really weird that I’m dry in this environment, and it is not affecting me. It feels hot, but not like it should be. It looks like an inferno in the surroundings. If metals and rocks are melting, what’s protecting me? A nightmare? Death? I’ll stop wondering, and I will look for a better spot, at least one more favorable to humans.

It’s important you know where you are, your surroundings. I need to know where I am and where I can move to be in a safer place. A map, a Global Positioning System, or at least some clues.

The unprecedented heat has ravaged the entire area, and anxiety sparked and took me to the edge of a mental health crisis. We, humans, are vulnerable, especially if we are on the surface at such hot temperatures. It doesn’t affect everybody equally, and every challenge is a crossroad that may bring some creative solutions.

The flashes of a telepathic message, blurred images of a distant planet with a far-flung elongated orbit around its three stars; it’s a vivid image!  How did I get here? I asked myself a thousand times. A wobbly ring of dust, not far from the three suns, that’s the only thing that remains of its origin. It’s really getting to worry me. Who’s talking to me? Nonsense, I won’t allow these thoughts to take control of me.

I look up and these three suns intertwine in a hyperactive interstellar dance that blinds you. This three-star system is placed at a distance that allows the setting of one exactly when the other is rising; coincidence? It is an interstellar ballet that creates a near-constant daytime for most of its orbit, which is estimated to last over 200 years. It seems obvious to me that this couldn’t be hell, all this light, no nighttime. What about the heat? It’s unbearably hot all the time. The things I’ve seen so far are really accurate to what I’ve read about what hell must be like.

There’s a naked man digging in a coal mine or other type of mining, covered in dirt, who shouted out loud: they can read your thoughts! Next to him, there’s another, and another. I cannot count how many people are there in the mines. This is very conspicuous. Why are they here? This is a vast world, and I ran into them after a while. Somebody is playing with my emotions. I’ll try to get closer to that man. When I approached him, I noticed that one of his eyes was gone. He was literally melting. I asked him how long he had been there. He said that enough to know he wouldn’t get out of there; what about you? I’ve just arrived, I guess. You know, you lose track of time. Yes, things in here blend all together. Life is blurry when you have challenges like this in your routine. Do you know what day it is today? We don’t have a calendar, so I stopped worrying about time and began paying more attention to survival. What about sleep? At first, my sleep schedule was out of wack, and insomnia was killing me, but I started giving a darn about things around me, diffusing stress, and sleeping a few hours, at least. Here, your circadian rhythm is altered.

Where are we? Some call it hell, while others refer to it as the dubbed planet Godo! Planet Godo? Yes. Where exactly is it? I don’t know. Are you sure this isn’t hell? Hey, it’s hell for all of us. It seems that it is a young place. No, not at all; it is 1.5 billion years older than the Earth. That would give any intelligent species more than a billion-year technological jump ahead of Earthlings. Wow! That’s really something. How do you know that? Eavesdropping, my friend.

Godos have an engineered climate to protect themselves from the extremely hot environment, and they also provided us with bubbles to work outside. Bubbles? Haven’t you noticed them? Noticed what? Try it, just extend your arms. Do you feel it? What? You’ll feel a plasma-like protective coat around your body. Oh, it’s a thin layer. Yes, and invisible to our eyes.

What kind of mining do they have in this area?  They mine rare minerals, and they also melt hard metals; I’ve seen some weird scenes while doing so.  What do you eat, old man? We never eat. What for? We usually receive some watery stuff called bliron! It’s super food! What is it made of?  Stuff. What does it contain? Dunno. You’ll have to find it out for yourself, young man!

Are we dead? Indeed! Basically dead, what’s left of humanity in us lies deep inside; I don’t know if this is life, but this is not home. Somebody brought me to this place and I could be lost and isolated at some random location without any people at sight, but rather than that, I woke up a few meters from the operation with lots of people in the surroundings. Coincidence?  Not at all!

After fleeing for twenty minutes from such an infernal scene, I came across some desperate people who looked dreary like lost souls threatened by some kind of being, demons or whatever they are. They were pushing heavy rocks the size of a house and moving in circles with no apparent purpose. Is it some kind of punishment? What for? It is a Sisyphean task.

Stu looked around and all he could see was fire, flames, and heat, a hellish view of what seemed to be endless suffering. Everything turned dark, heavy clouds of gases created a triple solar eclipse!  Later, some blazing fire, carried by the winds, came to him. He was conscious and things felt like déjà vu!  Nonsense, he told himself.

A beautiful woman shouted: Get away! Stu asked her: Who are you? I’m Eve.  Why should I go away? This is a dangerous place. Where can I go? Anywhere is better. Listen, I don’t even know where I am? What are you doing here, young lady? I’m a dream. What? I’m just like you, silly. Trapped in this underworld. You look different! Were you sending me messages? What messages? Telepathic ones. No, not really. Any idea who may have been doing so? The creatures! Who? The Godos.

You need to learn how to cope with this horrible reality? Is this real? I guess so. Once you overcome your fears, the sense of being tiny in this huge world will disappear, and you will find yourself at a doorway to this fast and awesome cosmos. Is that a premonition? Just trying to comfort you. Thanks for doing so. Right now, we need more than mere words. What do you suggest? Be quiet! What? Just be quiet! Why? A robotic guard caught them talking and started chasing them. She told him: don’t run, there’s no escape! They know where you’re going; there’s no hiding. How come?  Don’t ask any questions. Let’s walk quietly toward the crowd of miners. They did so and the robot returned to his original position. You really know how to handle them! Not the way I wanted to. What’s that? I wish I could manipulate them. I’m flabbergasted! You’re not just beautiful but also very intelligent.