In the first 3 microseconds of the THRESHER device's activation, it functioned as intended.
Enormous graviton generators, cooled by giant tanks of liquid helium, activated. Gravitational anomalies began to form within the experimental space of the great machine, marked by a sudden twisting of worldlines in the direction of their pull. One by one they collated, each twisting space and time further and further—to a point where it could bend no more.
Light warped inwards. Space-time tore. The universe screamed as everything in the area collapsed inwards, beginning the formation of a black hole.
THRESHER reacted immediately.
Emitters, interspersed around the edges of the machine, fired pulses of tachyonic particles into the nascent singularity, slowing its timeframe to an utter crawl in comparison to local space-time.
Next, a mat-laser fired, pulsing streams of exotic matter into the center of the slow-forming singularity. The universe howled, gravitational forces generating pressure as high as that of the core of neutron stars in an attempt to shut the wound in space-time—to collapse reality into a singularity—but the repulsive anti-gravity fields formed by exotic matter particles held it open.
The wormhole formed and stabilized. A blackened, spherical thing of torn and twisted space-time, it opened onto nothing and darkness.
Beyond it lay something that mankind did not understand: a parallel universe.
And this was the first error in logic made by the Visionary and his scientists. They had assumed many things, of which the most egregious was the assumption that the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum theory was the correct interpretation. By the Many Worlds Interpretation, any parallel universes near enough in the fourth spatial dimension to be accessed by the THRESHER machine would be nigh-identical to their own, with only a few quantum fluctuations different.
Thus they had assumed that the universe on the other side of the wormhole would be practically the same—a literal parallel universe.
In this assumption, they were wrong. They were very, very wrong.
************************************************************
The first thing the visionary saw was a flare of red on his screens.
WARNING! DETECTED UNIVERSAL CONSTANTS EXCEEDING DEFINED PARAMETERS!
STRANGE MATTER DETECTED BEYOND GATEWAY! INITIATING SHUTDOWN—
But before he could read it, or even comprehend its existence, a 'shockwave' of strange matter spilled from the THRESHER gateway. It blasted outwards in a viral plague of chromatic aberration as sunlight filtered through newly converted quarks, splintering the sky into prismatic shards.
Onwards it swept, a tide of quark matter ripping across the world beneath it, the rate of its expansion growing exponentially as it accelerated.
In theory, the strange matter tide should have absorbed the entire world. Due to its stability, and the entropic tendency of all things to tend towards their most stable states, all matter should have been converted at once to strange matter.
And yet, this did not happen.
The 'shockwave' of chromatic aberration pulsed through the entire world, then rebounded again and again, growing weaker and dispersing slowly as it went.
SHUTDOWN SUCCESSFUL.
The visionary, the engineer, and the general finally comprehended the words of the screen. The engineer stared, horrified. The visionary held his head in his hands. The general looked confused.
"What just happened?" he asked.
The engineer shook his head, then looked at him, then down at his own body, as if marveling it still existed. "Am I alive?" he asked confusedly.
The visionary pulled his phone forcefully from his pocket, almost desperate. His eyes revealed a fearful, hungering light as he scanned forums and news sites for information—one by one, they came online, confirming his worst fears and greatest hopes. The strange matter tide had pulsed through the entire world, and yet humanity had, somehow, survived.
The world had survived.
"What happened?" the general repeated again, somewhat dumbly.
"We're... alive," the engineer whispered, staring at the two words in bold red against the black of the THRESHER device's control mechanism. "We're alive!"
"I... I don't understand," the visionary said, confusedly. "What just happened?"
"That's what I'm asking!" the general snapped.
************************************************************
3:48:32 PM, in a lab within the University of Nova City.
"Professor!" Thomas' voice came from below. "Professor Jenkins?"
"I'm over here!" Jenkins snapped. Sometimes the 24 year old could be brilliant, but other times his foolishness was too much for the old, cranky scientist to handle. It was a pity that only Jenkins' research had fit with the boy's statement of purpose.
"Where?" Thomas shouted, sounding almost hysterical.
"Over here!" Jenkins shouted, stepping out from behind the scanning electron microscope. "What are you..."
He paused. Thomas was holding up a small hologram, projected from a chip in his hand—one Jenkins recognized, for he had made it, three years ago. A side project, practically a joke. Built to detect 'phasons,' a specific form of strange matter correlated to dark matter theorized decades ago in BSM physics circles, the chip was made almost pointlessly; if any strange matter landed on Earth, humanity would know very quickly.
Kind of hard to miss it when the world starts converting to higher-density forms of matter right under your feet. Even harder to miss it when your feet start converting too.
And yet...
"Is this a joke?" Jenkins demanded darkly, rubbing at his poor old forehead.
"No!" Thomas denied vehemently, then paused. "...Not this time. Check the news! The whole world's talking about it!"
Jenkins turned on his implant with a thought, having his personal assistant VI scan through news websites and collate information while ignoring sensationalized data points. Immediately he saw the truth, that something had swept through the sky, causing chromatic aberration as light diffracted and unfocused through it.
Exactly as models predicted it would.
"...No, it's impossible," Jenkins muttered, staring down at the ground beneath his feet. Had it been converted? Had HE been converted? Would anyone notice? "No, it can't be right."
"But sir..." Thomas pointed at the hologram hovering over his hand. There it hung, in the air, defiantly flashing its message—the message he'd programmed into it, years earlier.
Jenkins scratched his graying hair. "It... this doesn't make sense. What just happened?"
************************************************************
The brisk wind brushed against her skin, and yet, she felt no chill. Her light jacket hung thinly off her loose frame, baring skin to the spring wind and air, alight with the afternoon sun.
She sat comfortably against the solid, old bark of a tall tree, in the shade beneath its great canopy. Beyond its shadow, emerald grass grew brilliantly in the sun's light, waving gently in the spring wind that rustled the leaves of the trees and stirred tiny waves in the still waters of the cerulean lake.
Old stone paths crossed nearby, their rock shattered and cracked, with verdant leaves of plants growing triumphantly through their broken remnants. Moss, sprawling olive and green and black on the gray stone, grew over the broken rock; children played over it, chasing each other and giggling and laughing with childish glee.
Parents sat in the shade, watching their children play.
Life was a song, Serena thought to herself. Harmonics and chords, strung together in a grand symphony of stories and tales and mundane moments. Each contributed their own melody that meshed in, sometimes discordant, sometimes harmonious.
She smiled. Vivian would like that. She'd always enjoyed the odd philosophical thought.
Then she bowed her head back over her guitar, plucking swiftly at the strings. Her fingers danced, ethereal and swift. Notes trailed through the air, each a snatch of sweet color, blossoming in the mind, beautiful in its own right—and yet, they entwined and mingled to form something infinitely greater: emotion.
Her voice joined in, a songbird's whisper, humming gently in the embrace of music.
"Dawn's just a heartbeat away..."
A soft, sorrowing song, evoking nostalgia for a dream that never was.
It crested and fell and faded, like fall leaves in winter snow. Color and vibrance, moments of beauty in fire before it burned all away.
Slowly, the song came to a stop; her fingers slowed.
Serena blinked. For a moment, the world seemed to have... fuzzed? An odd blur pulsed through her vision, forcing her eyes closed as a sudden, splitting headache struck her. She almost cried out, but the pain closed her throat and sent her reeling backwards into the abyss of her own thoughts—
—and then slipping, falling, away and away into unconsciousness.
So she didn't notice when the implant in her visual cortex lit up, alerting her to a message.
PRESIDENTIAL ALERT
Stay calm—stay indoors or swiftly proceed to a safe location without panic. Martial law has been instated. The Army and National Guard are proceeding to secure cities and calm unrest. The CDC has been mobilized. Again: please remain calm and proceed to a safe location. All citizens on the street may be subject to arrest.
After a moment, the alert flashed again.
PRESIDENTIAL ALERT
Please remember: they are still your friends, your neighbors, your family, and your fellow citizens. In these trying times, we must all remember that we are still, at least in mind, human.