On the brink of Midnight #Blogbattle #Scifi

It’s time for another blog battle. A short story clash of the bloggers run by Rachael Ritchey. Go look at her blog, read about it and join in if you like.

Rules:

1. 1000 words max
2. fictional tale (or true if you really want)
3. PG (no more than PG-13) Content – let’s keep this family friendly!
4. Your story must contain the word(s) from the theme and/or be centered around the theme in a way that shows it is clearly related
5. Go for the entertainment value!
6. State the Genre of your story at the top of your post.
7. Post your story on Tuesday, by 11:59 PM PST
8. Use the hashtag #BlogBattle when tweeting your story, put a link back to your #BlogBattle Short Story in the comments section of this page, and/or include a link to this page in your own blog post (it creates a “ping-back” which will alert me and our friends to your #BlogBattle post)
9. Have fun!

Word for this week: Midnight

 

Darkness had been falling for what seemed like forever over the city of Kronamus. Midnight was forever on the brink of falling but never coming. Sela was standing on the balcony of his rooms, high up in the central tower. Tira slipped through the curtains and stood behind Sela’s masculine form, back lit against the forever dimming suns that planet Mira encircled. Sela felt the warmth of his lover’s body close to him. He didn’t turn, looking up into the star filled sky. “What are you thinking?” He asked.

“What everyone is thinking, my love” Tira purred, moving her svelte form closer to he man she clung to him, resting he head on his chest. “When will night fall and daylight return?”

“I don’t know” replied Sela, with little hope in his voice. “But even if it come tomorrow it would not help the millions on the daylight side of the planet as they have burned. Nor those on the dark side, frozen with the seas.”

“We are lucky then” Tira replied.

“Lucky… or cursed. It’s hard to tell” Sela answered. Tira turned to her man, hugged him and kissed him before again huggin him and resting her head on his chest. “Why do you do this to yourself?” Tira asked with tears running down her face. “You punish yourself for something that you could not have foreseen or prevented. Why not just accept our fortune. We are alive.”

“For now we are, but something is very wrong. I’ve been watching these skies since I was a boy and I have never seen what is happening now.”

“What is happening?” Tira asked

“Nothing. Even beyond our world the universe seems still. Planets do not move, moons do not wax and wane and asteroids do not fall. It is as if we alone are unaffected by this strange phenomenon.” Sela moved away from Tira, she stood and watched her troubled man as he gripped the balcony rails and looked up again, searching. “Something is very wrong. The question is, is it us that are wrong, or the universe?”

At that point a beep came from inside, Sela turned immediately and walked into the room. He stood in front of his computer three screens with infographics of a number of objects at different distances from the planet. He looked at the first – an orbiting space station, then the moons of Mira, then further out to asteroids, comets, other planets.

“I can’t believe it!” He exclaimed.

“What is it?” Asked Tira

“Things are happening, but very, very slowly. At least from our point of view”

“How?” Tira was asking, ever more intently. She was always amazed at how Sela could find and solve problems. She was always able to keep up with him… to a point and then his mind would dive to depths she couldn’t fathom. Not many could.

“What is going on?” Sela was gripping his head, massaging it as if trying to work his brain into action “Cmon… cmon…it’s us, it’s us either that or the whole universe has gone mad. What is this like – it’s like the universe has slowed but we haven’t… it’s like a black hole. Time seems fine here, but up there it’s not. From up there, everything is fine”

He returned to his computer and and typed in a search query. Immediately Mira appeared with the tracks of all the objects that fallen in the last few weeks. With some more furious typing he narrowed his search, less and less tracks were visible. He murmured to himself as Tira watched, unsure if she was to stand there or go.

“Yes, this could be it. Don’t go Tira, stay there!”

“What is it?” She asked nervously

“OK” he said finally “Imagine you’re a planet in space circling your sun happily, nothing much going on and then suddenly from some part of the universe a fragment of a black hole falls onto the planet. What happens?”

Tira looked and shrugged “Surely there would be a huge hole in the planet?”

“Yes, there would” he said, almost excitedly “But, it’s possible that the time dilation effects of the fragment would affect the planet. At this time our time is moving a thousand times faster than outside the planet”

“So the universe from our point of view is moving a thousand time slower”

“Yes – Exactly! And this fragment is the one I believe is to blame” Picking up the computer he showed Tira the one object track left

“It’s right in the middle of the ocean. How do we find it?”

“Ooh… we can find the general location no problem, as you said before that crater will be big. The big problem is how do we get something that probably weighs as more than Mira away from us. The other issue is that anyone getting closer to it will find when they come out that time has moved much faster on the rest of the planet. I’m not sure that knowing what the problem could be has actually got us closer to solving it”

“What do we do? What do I do? How can I help?” Tira asked urgently.

Sela smiled, he always loved how Tira would follow his causes wherever they lead “Patience my love. There’s not much we can do now, but you must get me in touch Chancellor Galvor. He needs to know about this immediately”

Tira turned, it was then that the sirens rang out. Tira looked at Sela, he prompted her to carry on. Sela looked out onto the balcony, there was a huge wall of water, or steam he wasn’t sure. But it was coming.

Copyright 2016 Simon Farnell

No Ownership claimed to images.