Sunday, July 17, 2011

The Shell [Episode 3]

She saw another man being vaporised. She wasn't sure whether 'vaporised' was the right word to use. It looked like the man just vanished in front of her eyes with a bright violet light. At first she had thought of something that happened in India, where a nanomachinery had broken and made the entire New Delhi into a grey pancake.

No, this was not it. It wasn't a plague by small nanorobots that consume things. It was far worse than nanorobots, or nanobots. The burning bright light when the man vanished wasn't a sign of nanobots attack.

And it was not a biological attack either, because she saw one of the dome just gone in front of her eyes, leaving a cleared area.

"Look!" Dan pointed up into the sky.

She followed. She saw something was wrong in the sky: there was a indigo-violet blotch up there, like an ink dropped on the sky, but so dark as if the foulness of the Hell had come to take Earth over.

"Run, Dan!" Jane shouted over the noises.

"Run where? There's nowhere to hide!" He was stil staring at the blotch up there. Amazed by the situation.

Perhaps Dan was right. Aliens were starting to attack Earth. Everything was beginning to vanish around her. It was random. The targets were random. All the while in her study in science, nothing was random. And now, she was scared. She was facing things that she didn't know how to face.

"Come on, Dan!" she yelled once more.

Dan was still stupefied.

Then, a bright white light, purer than any light she had ever seen, and so bright like the galaxy core washed out everything she could see. The only thing she could do was crouched. There was something strange about the light. She heard nothing when the light came on. It was a total silence. Too quiet, as if she was drifting in space.

And the light dimmed to its normal intensity. She blinked her eyes. She saw there was nothing around her. Everything was gone, even Dan. There were no domes, no people and nothing but bleak desert. She searched for the shard that fell from the sky.

It was there, still laying still, but there was something odd about it. It flickered like it was a projection.

"Dan?" she called out loud. "Dan! Where are you?" she called out louder this time.

Besides the howling wind, there was no sign of human life.

Shaking, she pulled out a piece of glass. She flexed it with a flick of wrist. It came alive with words and pictures. She touched the glass and searched for Dan's contact and she called him.

She waited for him to pick up the phone, hoping that he didn't quite vanish.

"Hello?" a voice spoke from the glass piece.

"Dan?" she asked.

"Yes? Jane? Do you have any idea what time is it now? It is - "

"Dan! Where are you?" she was shocked. She was surprised. She didn't know what to say.

"I've told you I am in Singapore for the whole month. Conference," he sounded tired. Maybe it was early morning that time. "Can I go to sleep?"

"I am at Sahara Desert, Dan."

"What the - " his voice became alert and awoke. "Why are you there?"

"I..." she paused. There was something very wrong here. She didn't know how to talk or start. It was as if she had a bad dream, a very bad dream and it was a long dream too. 11 years dream. A coma, perhaps? "Never mind, Dan. I will get to you in 24 hours," she said.

"Where?"

"Singapore. I am going to board a plane latest by..." she checked her holographic watch. It was 11am, around 3 hours before the vanishing occured. She shook her head. It was just a dream. It couldn't be possible that she travelled 3 hours to the past. "By 2pm. Be ready."

"Ready for what?"

"Go to sleep, Dan. And we will talk about it soon." She closed his contact and she searched for another contact. She called it. "Sir, I need a full team on Sahara, there is an anomalous object here. I will send you the coordinates now, sir. Just bring your top scientists, we have work to do in 48 hours. And oh, by the way, send me a jet at the same coordinates please. I will send you a report in 2 hours," She shut that contact close too.

Then, she gazed at the shard.

She saw it vanished in 2 seconds and reappeared.

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