Disclaimer: winner of the Waukegan Public Library Ray Bradbury Creative Contest, found here.

“Today is March 16, 2098. I’m about to complete the final stretch of Raum Odyssee.” Looking pitifully into the webcam, I buckled the silver clasp of the cockpit harness. “The edge of space is near. I have been aboard my beloved shuttle AU8i for over a decade now, reaching over 250 times the speed of a mere light photo, and I, Astrophysicist Eileen Lipnitskaya, am honored as the first human to reach the end. I trailed off and took a deep breath, twisting a languid strand of dyed rusty hair between my forefingers. Despite of the dangers I have been warned of, my mind lingered on one disturbing question; what is on the other side? Emptiness? If not, what? Surely one must have created such void from the start. Could infinity be possible?

I leaned back and listen to the constant, gentle buzzing of the shuttle and the light whirring of my robot companion, Italumi, which had served as a gift from my dear father as a translator and companion, capable of deciphering even the most complex of codes, nonetheless I was lonely, meandering in perpetual darkness punctuated by occasional jolts and clangs from passing rocks, trapped within my own bubble, forever isolated. The memories of Earth hit me like a graffiti-sprayed freight train, and I let out a small sob, fading into a sensory world of rustling horsetails in salty sea air and chirps of early morning Blue Jays. I longed to feel the soft fur of my beloved Corgi, Cookie and the warm blanket of April showers. As I sat upon a rocky outcrop of the Grand Canyons, the lone nebulae morphed into cotton-candy clouds. I missed home. With a mourning heart, I fell into an uncomfortable sleep.

“Clang! Bang!” I jolted awake to a blurry world of blinking red and raging alarms. “Oh, holy mo..” Groggily struggling against the silver restraint around my waist, I seethed in frustration while I flailed wildly, trapped within my own seat. Something had gone terribly wrong. The cockpit whirled, and Italumi emitted a strange cryptic noise. The steel plates of my shuttle groaned under an unknown pressure. Then, silence. “Click!” I raised the radiation-proof blinds, and squinted out the pilot windows, but did not see anything but a few distant galaxies and gas clouds. What hit me? Sweat slickened my back, drenching the nape of my neck like the eastern morning fog. “A UFO, perhaps?” I chucked nervously. “No, no. Don’t be ridiculous,” Italumi retorted. The purple and blue horizons of stars looked as peaceful as a panorama of my grandma’s lakehouse, yet, a peculiar feel prickled my skin. Then, a flicker in the distance, like a glitch across a computer screen, appeared twice in rapid succession. My eyes darted in pursuit of an explanation while my brain tumbled with worst-case scenarios. “What?!”

A mammoth black hole as wide as the sun itself loomed ahead, diffracting the light of a thousand suns. Occasional explosions lit up the endless darkness. Time slowed and blood rushed through my ears as I grasped my tingling scalp. Suddenly, Italumi exploded into a fury of sirens and automated messages. Jerking the control stick back and forth in vain, I kicked at the dashboard, heart thundering in fear, only to slash open my shoe, revealing several bruised toes. Then, death whispered in my ear. I was harshly thrown to the right along with the entire shuttle, blood crimson diffusing across my vision as I grappled for every pole rail, and handle, but they slipped away on contact, slimy as eels. Nothing could stop my heart from beating faster as I nose-dived into the black hole so fast that my teeth felt like they were being ripped straight from my gums. Black fused around the shuttle like water in a well, closing behind me like an opaque curtain, and I was swept into an abysmal gloom. Silence ensued. I held my breath and sat, frozen. Seconds ticked as cryptic letters appeared in the darkness. ‘This must be a joke.” I buried my head in my hands, and jumped as Italumi blurted, “The dark side looks back.” When I looked to the window again, the words were gone....