Path To Life by Mark Childerley
Chapter 1
The Beginning.
Jnr was tapping away at the Martian rock face, oblivious to the solar winds raging towards him at thousands of miles per hour! His team and base were out of sight, tucked in behind the huge, strange, smooth rocks he was chipping away at.
Suddenly, Jnr was slammed into the rock, knocking him out upon impact. He was caught up in the wind’s turmoil. It crashed upon the rock face, then deflected upwards, out into space itself, taking Jnr with it! Selev spotted it first. He hailed everyone on the comms: “Look at that dust storm.” He pointed to the area behind them and they all looked up. “Oh my God! Archer is up there,” said Julia. “We can’t do anything now, get inside the base, quickly,” said Shaun. “Chai, get back here asap!” Jnr was speeding up and away from Mars, still unconscious. The solar wind had broken his back, both legs and one arm. That wasn’t the worse part, though. Jnr had internal bleeding. The G-force of such an impact was too much for Jnr’s frail human body. Steadily he came out of his unconscious state; it took a while for him to compose himself.
He was spinning really fast, and it put pressure upon his head: it hurt bad. Realising he couldn’t move without serious pain, he used the booster pack controls with his fingers in short bursts to stop himself from spinning out of control. He positioned himself to look back at Mars. It looked so small! How long had he been out? How fast was he travelling through space? How was he going to get back? There were no comms, not much air left, and no chance the ship had enough fuel to pick him up and get back to Earth – that’s if they could even find him. Jnr had a realisation! “I’m going to die! Out here, on my own.” Jnr repositioned himself, pointing away from Mars and towards Jnr-X1. He fired up the boosters on his jet pack for the last time, heading straight towards the black hole! Jnr knows where it’s supposed to be: after all, it was his discovery. He could see the event horizon, but only just: the faint rays of light that were trapped on the edge for all eternity, light that stood still! That meant one thing: Jnr was headed into the gravitational pull of Jnr-X1. Blood started to gather in his mouth and breathing suddenly became difficult. Panic kicked in. Tears welled up in Jnr’s eyes.
The last thing he wanted was this. There was so much more he wanted to do, so much more he wanted to see, to be with his family again. Jnr knew it was the end but if so, he intended to go where no man had gone before, dead or alive: he had to make it to Jnr-X1. He started to gasp for air, frantically trying to force air into his lungs. None left: that’s it, the tank’s empty! Jnr’s eyes started to bulge, and his body started to thrash around with violent jerks, his veins sticking out of his skin like they were going to burst. He stared at the huge black hole he was approaching, his black hole; just before his brain gave up and died through lack of oxygen, Jnr managed to say to himself, “I went in.”
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