There was nothing to recognize anywhere and he watched some of the astronauts attempt to pick up any communications with their spacesuit equipment, and eventually give up.
They all started getting too exhausted, wading and wading, through deep snow areas, and not recognizing anything, and he realized it was time they looked for shelter, and perhaps somewhere with some significant to rest and spend the night, and while he searched everywhere, and had the others searched too, and he started to notice a distant and peculiar hum, similar to a distant engine whirling, out at an unknown place, which was shadowing them, and he started trying to grasp the source.
The altered route they took, going to the hum and where there were hills and rock faces, and he was disappointed to find their legs almost becoming stuck in deep bogs of stinking vegetation, buried below the snow there, which started to resemble a form of quicksand, as it grew in depth, and he started to wonder if they could even find somewhere there where they could actually be allowed to shelter, as they were sure as hell not going to stay under the trees or vegetation anywhere, even though they had tested it out there, as there could be some of the life forms hidden away there. There was a definite look of a swamp emerging around them, but the hill became closer and closer, and the only refuge from the cold winter environment, and the depth became deeper and deeper, just as they were about to make it to safety!
A cold haze edged its way around them and the undergrowth there as well, as though something saw them being trapped there, and they started slowing and calming themselves, preparing for the worst, and allowing themselves to rest and gain energy.
The place and situation was nothing like anything any of them had seen before elsewhere!
He could not get if it was a strange environment about him, something strange existing there, or a combination of things that created reactions.
He watched strange vapor clouds shift within the mist, as if hiding within the mist, and perhaps a form of intelligent mist, always shadowing them – as if probing them, and analyzing them for some purpose.
Nobody said anything and they looked like they were wondering if it had real intelligence, and he noticed some of it around them, and them vaguely watching it linger over deep pools of slime in the mind-bending swamp.
Could it do anything other than probe them? How could it detect them? What did it use to exist? What was it doing there? Did it have some form of animal food source or was it after something else?
As a scientist, as well as many other things, he wished he could get some samples from it, but decided to wait until they had properly checked if it was dangerous.
Gusts of freezing wind blew and withdrew in opposite directions, blowing and sucking, shifting the cloud about, giving him the feeling that something else, invisible and nearby, was breathing over them or something! Something of supernatural or advanced alien origins, but with an animal nature, or something was there and the environment was reacting to its presence or its paranormal powers!
Chapter 17
The Mist Formation
His legs became stuck in deep bogs of freezing icy water, even through his spacesuit, and he wondered if it could damage it, and he knew that they would have to do something soon, and he waited and watched and noticed that the others were mainly waiting for something.
It was then he gasped and realized what he had missed and that the fog formed a perfect square shape right about them, with them directly at the center, and it intensified, and he realized that they were trapped.
“Where are we going ...?” Anders spluttered, fighting for air, furious that he had been put in such situation.
He stopped and showed how annoyed he was at the way things were going, and started kicking the muck under his feet up and grabbed a clump of it and threw it hard into the square mist cloud and they all watched on with horror and curiosity, and Cronenberg was amazed that it bounced of it, as though repelled by some force within it, and he wondered if it could crush them if it contracted.
“Perhaps it’s a life form trying to protect something over at the hill ...” Rosenberg moaned, giving glances about at them and their reactions, and Cronenberg realized that he could be right and that he had not thought of it as a normal life form.
“Where can we go?” Anders continued, wondering what they’d do next. Barely able to realize what the outcome of such a situation would be.
They all stood and examined other areas of the hill they could go to, and they went in a direction that was entirely different and away from where they had been going, and the mist there!
“What’s there?” Anders asked, vaguely confused, not seeing anything but the surrounding square mist cloud getting in the way.
Everyone watched on in horror and confusion when the square mist cloud started altering and rearranging itself, getting ready to do something, and the mist formation also altered at the hill, and it started to move to a new location!
Chapter 18
The Entrance
Once they set foot on the hill, out of nowhere, a light emerged in the distant mist formation, and Cronenberg stood considering if it was going to contact them or attack them, as a first contact situation or something else, but he never fully knew what to do, and if it was something entirely new.
Its radiance pulsated like a motorized life form, magically illuminating areas of the hill, stretching shadows from formations everywhere about their front as it intensified.
While he silently observed loud thuds of something he thought it was the earthquakes reoccurring but after listening to it intensely it became clear it was like something of immense weight shifting around, and he considered if it was still reacting to them or it carrying out what it normally did, and he realized that he could not tell as he had never heard anything like it.
Out of nowhere, other lights emerged through the undergrowth nearer, with their radiance pulsating like living things, magically illuminating everything far more brightly, blinding their eyes with intense beams, lighting everything about them everywhere and fully showing them their surroundings and all its detail, and they decided to scurry away to the most distant location.
While they moved away faster he silently observed deep pounds and creature sounds with immense weight coming at them, out of view, causing them to scurry away faster and faster.
They furiously moved their legs in and out of bogs and snow until the finally reached rocky regions, and they all became confused and unable fully discover what they were up against!
Had they failed, and were they to get it for visiting the hill?
They ran almost blindly over rocks and rough ground, rushing through thick tree objects and heavy snow, while heavy beast sounds furiously exploded out, and they occasionally heard smashing objects and heavy boulders tumbling away in their way, like something out of a dark nightmare.
Suddenly Anders shouted, “Look out there!”
“There’s something!” Rosenberg confirmed. “Quick! Move over there! There’s something ...”
Over to their side there was a cliff front facing them, almost the only place there without any snow.
For some reason Cronenberg just knew it had to be a place of sanctuary for them, but he started wondering why as he could not see anything!
What was there? Was it just a hill and cliff? Could these things not climb or something?
A deep thud like an explosion appeared just behind them and he studied the area they were going to for anything and suddenly spotted a black region, like a black curtain in the dimness there, and he studied it, seeing them going straight to it, and he felt the ground around him shudder like an earthquake, and he watched Anders and Rosenberg jump into the black curtain and he followed them and realized it was the entrance point of a gateway, and he shot through stars, and he saw the entrance close behind them, as the last person jumped through.
Chapter 19
The Center of Space
Blasts of radiance exploded everywhere stunning Cronenberg, leaving him stagg
ered, and a colossal whirlpool of shifting outlines of globes magically shifted by, and he studied them with the others for a long time and could not grasp what they were, or where he was, as the gateway had entirely altered.
It was like something was trying to find them and something was hiding them in the new gateway, and he could not realize why, and he felt like he was being played around with, by two mad eccentric life forms, playing a deadly game with their prey.
He saw that now they had no body, or proper presence, and were some form of force formation, and were swirling out into a vortex of reshaping energy patterns that replaced reality, with surreal transformations, and were gradually altering to something they could not recognize.
He was mesmerized, and wondered if he was even classified as being alive!
He gave vague gasps as reality magically spun around in patterns, while he wondered how worse the things could get!
Could they actually get trapped there, for all eternity, and was he even underestimating that?
Something grasped his attention ahead, and he studied it, and a white blur emerged in a central region of darkness ahead, as they slightly swirled around, and he grew more interested in it, and wishing it would be an exit, and he started to recognize detail to it as it grew, and they shifted into it, and once within its depths he saw magnificent giant distant stars of the universe blazing out, blending into his surroundings in brilliant magnificent colors.
Spectacular beams of light exploded out, and stars shot to and by him at incredible velocities, and he realized the tremendous speed they were accelerating at, and realized it was a different form of gateway with a far higher velocity.
Space was expanding all across his front, and they shot into it.
The stars filled his entire vision everywhere as magnificent bright white and golden lights, and like a cartoon universe.
Stars turned dazzling, and he could not recognize what forms of stars they were, and he wondered if they had actually entered another universe! Space was so condensed he could not believe the density of the stars everywhere, and he was staggered that they could exist in such a state, without being pulled together, into a colossal explosion.
At his side he spotted Orwell staggered at something and he followed his vision and back at where they had come from and saw the most colossal anything he had ever seen! A colossal black hole was stretching out everywhere, going straight across space, and he actually saw it entering other dimensions and regions beyond the universe, and he realized the true immense speed that they had been traveling at, and that they had just shot through a black hole gateway, the size of a small galaxy.
Chapter 20
The Mind-Bending Black Hole
For a moment Cronenberg was blinded, as a powerful dazzling radiance blinded him, and he thought he had been thrown into somewhere deadly!
The entire sky was filled with trillions upon trillions of magnificent incredible stars everywhere, turning the whole sky a magnificent white and gold, and Cronenberg stood upright with the others, and watched the colossal black hole shift across the sky above, and he realized it had to be the center of an enormous galaxy, and suddenly he realized it was more than that, and it was the central galaxy, and center of the universe, and they were on a world that was going into it, and slowly entering its confines.
The sight was fantastic, and probably the most magnificent sight he had seen, and he sensed mysterious and dangerous things existed out in space there, in the deepest depths of the universe.
Cronenberg stood examining the flat top of the massive mountain they were on, which had to be the highest on the world, and he watched it overlooking the world for immense miles in every direction, going out into distant horizons, and he watched a distant fog blanketing an entire region going into a horizon, which was glowing from some form of sun the world was orbiting.
It was incredible that they could feel the colossal gravity of the black hole from there, and he was astonished!
Its entire massive galaxy seemed to be orbiting it, and he gasped, wondering how they had managed to enter and escape from it, and he gasped at how much power what had put them there had.
For a moment they were all blinded, from a powerful dazzling radiance in space, and they shaded their eyes, and he saw it was a bright sun exploding apart in the depths of space, and he wondered how deadly it was on the world, and how protected they were, and he realized that they were on a large world, with high gravity, and he watched another dazzling radiance of another massive sun explode.
Strange multicolored streaks of starlight exploded through thin regions of fog around them, reminded him of lasers, and in the sky on the horizon massive blinding stars were appearing, as the world’s rotation showed new regions of space.
It was a truly unique world that saw no darkness, and probably would never know it, and he realized it was also a doomed world, and would be destroyed in the black hole.
Stardust fell down from space and covered everything, including their boots, and lower spacesuits, and he imagined the mind-bending landscapes out in space there, on magnificent worlds, and he watched an altering mist surrounding them, and he wondered what the hell the place was originally like.
Chapter 21
The Ancient World
They found parts of an ancient structure buried beneath sand and debris from the sky, from the vast mysterious galaxy surrounding the doomed world.
There had been an advanced civilization there once, and what was left of a structure was buried away in a region nearby, on the edge of a vast cliff face, going straight down for miles.
The area was now had vast nearby suns overhead, and in the brightness Cronenberg spotted the shuttle crew excavating an interesting part of a structure, and he wondered what they were up to, and started examining what they had revealed and stood back and started to see how advanced the race had been, and realized there could be something of value buried away in its interior.
The air at the incredibly high region was fresh and breathable, and he believed the mountain was not as high up as it had seemed, and that the area across their front there was an immense cavity and that the world’s normal surface was far higher.
He felt the temperature at the area increase, and his spacesuit altered to compensate, and he realized how well his spacesuit controlled its temperature.
There were no clouds, or the mist, and they were glad, as none of them wanted to enter any cloud formations if they had to.
They were lucky to be alive after everything they had been through, and they all now realized the dangers of being in such places and on such a world!
He studied the bright, now warm stars, and observed faraway sand being blown about by gusts of wind. The area was like an oasis on the world, but he was unsure what the rest of the world was like in its different regions.
Even though the world was doomed to enter the black hole and be destroyed he was sure most of the world had something wrong with it and he tried to prove it by studying the landscape in greater detail than he had, looking at places he had missed out, and he was sure it had immense earthquakes that had destroyed vast regions.
He was surprised when a creature of the world appeared and darted by, close by, examining them, looked like a miniature monster, and he examined it, looking for why it did.
A structure the others started entering looked primitive, but he was sure it was advanced, and it was the fact it was buried away like it was.
He strolled through heaps of sand entering the structure, and he wondered if the Earth would ever fall and turn into the place, and have beings like them from other worlds exploring their remains.
Gusts of air, like breezes coming in from the colossal stars, threw sand and red dried out bushes about wildly, into different directions, as if unable to decide where to go, and he wondered why there was no sign of rain, and if that was what was wrong with the world, and that all the water was nearly gone.
The temperature was now higher, and he rested and
watched a small lizard-like creature rushing away, showing them it was there, and he heard others.
In the interior of a structure they entered an underground chamber and he heard underground creatures burrowing behind the walls, as they burrowed through hard ground and sand.
Under heaps of stones and debris they had uncovered a form of skeleton, looking like a fossil, with close resemblances to an upright ape creature, and he was staggered that anything there could be close to looking like a human, and he uncovered its skull, covered in sand, and finally proved it had a far more unusual shape, which disappointed some of the others, and he wondered why they wanted it to be like a human, and he realized that they might want to settle somewhere on the world or another, if they could not return, as they would eventually be killed by something, as the dangers were immense, and seemed to be increase.
He believed the skeleton was of an inhabitant that had lived in and had built the structure they were in, and it surprised him that they thought it could have been more advanced than them, and he realized that there could be far more advanced versions of humans, perhaps in city type regions there, and still alive, and they could have a highly advanced civilization and he started to realize the dangers that there were there.
Chapter 22
The Extraterrestrial Castle
At the edge of the cliff further along there was a structure like an ancient monastery, where they found water from a stream, and they managed to find food, which they had found the alien civilization had eaten, and they collected supplies, water supplies and they rested and tried to find the entrance to the structure, as if they were to stay there it was best that they were inside it and protected from the outer dangers.
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