Chapter 1:

My name is Johnathan Lateran a scion of house Branchburg, but my friends call me John. I'm just your normal, world-renowned genius with an IQ score of over 200 I'm basically the smartest guy you can find. I mean, one of the perks is not understanding how people fail exams. Like, I don't even need to read to pass just listen in class read once and boom, you got a 90. But that's enough about me. I know I'm cool. I don't need any praises, nor do I like to brag, so the real reason I'm writing this is to have something to pass on, so enough about me. Now let's go back to the real world. We are in the year 5036, and humankind is not really as advanced as people think we should be by now, it turns out constructing something like a Darwin's ring around the sun isn't so easy but I guess we also haven't killed ourselves yet until today that is we needed more fuel and since building a Darwin's ring is not easy and will also waste a lot of resources we needed another source of energy for our spaceship or did I forget to explain that yeah you heard me right we are building a spaceship—not a normal boring spaceship mind you but one that can really travel at light speed and if all goes well a bit beyond is not out of the question personally I think it's cool What am I talking about? I am so excited to be a part of this program. I mean, this is my chance, and I don't want to screw this up. At least that's how I felt. It turns out we are to try to build a dark matter extraction device, and there is a reason I say try. I know I shouldn't be saying this as one of the major contributors to the dark matter extraction theory, but I don't think we can or should build this stuff on our home planet or even in our solar system for that matter. I don't think they understand this, but that's like trying to drag a black hole into our planet. The suction force, the mass, a lot of things can go wrong, and they are doing all this just to power one spaceship. I know it's a huge ship, like really huge, but that doesn't mean they should rush it now, does it?

Week 3

It's week 3, and the black matter extraction device is running perfectly. As of now, it is stable, and by running it in a vacuum box 2in a Faraday cage surrounded by 5 reality anchors, we are able to balance out most of the instabilities. At least it's not looking as bad as I expected. I just hope it stays that way.

Week 4

I was wrong. It's not stable; it's a quantum effect. Things have gone bad, real bad. We messed up big time. The planet can't handle the force needed to extract dark matter. It's veering off course. No, not just the earth; our entire solar system is unstable. The sun is dying, and planets are getting tossed about like some sort of gas carrying out Brownian's motion. It's crazy. Our atmosphere is burning up, And volcanoes are popping out of nowhere. Everything is going boom, literally igniting from just the air alone. Yeah I don't think they are survivors good thing we are on a space ship meant for light speed travels it was designed to be near indestructible I mean imagine flying at light speed and boom you hit a asteroid while in light speed I'm telling you that is not a good or smart way to die but we good for now at least and I'm thinking we should probably start flying but it looks like we are waiting for something not sure what we are waiting for but I don't want to be here when the sun explodes it will be massive from what I'm seeing the sun has destroyed all the other planets so yeah it's pretty big the only thing even keeping us here is the dark matter extractor it created some sort of quantum field or something and who knows how long that is going to protect us.

Week 7

You know how I said no survivors? Turns out I was wrong. Turns out some politicians got themselves a bunker that can survive the end of the world and a weird vehicle to move around in. I'm not even going to comment on the resources you will need to build that kind of stuff. Well, it seems we are ready to take off now that the dark matter extractor has also extracted enough energy to go light speed. I just hope the oxygen generators work well on light speed and the stabilizer too. And we are off. I would have loved to tell you how everything looks in light speed, but we are not allowed to look out; it's too dangerous, and we also don't want some quantum effects messing with our flight. Also, the stabilizers work perfectly fine; the proof is that we haven't turned to mush yet. Imagine the recoil force of light-speed travel, man. We're taking so many risks today. I'm not scared of anything, but I think we are fucked. The sun went boom, and now we got ourselves in the range of several solar flares and a black hole or a neutron star. I personally hope it's the neutron star. I don't want to get squished yet (except if it's by a girl). I'm surprised the politicians aren't really panicking; they just got this weird smile on their face. I mean, we just got ourselves blasted out of light speed by some random space instabilities, or the space is so messed up going light speed it might have led us into some sort of subspace so nobody can tell exactly what is keeping us below light speed. I suspect the shockwaves from the star are rippling the space around it, and yes, some shockwaves can move at the speed of light. While this is not really possible under normal conditions, this is not exactly what I'll call a normal condition, and damn, the sun has completely collapsed on itself. It has gone supernova, or should I say hypernova? (It's multiple times greater than a normal supernova.) Even with the stabilizers and the reality anchors, I'm not sure we can—whoa... I don't know what to say. It's beautiful. Who knew a star dying could be so glorious? No, it's not dying; it is being reborn. It is changing forms, and they say the sun is just an average G-star. Now I wish to see more. I want to witness more—the birth of a new star. There are so many things mankind has not seen…. But I guess dying here isn't so bad after all; dying in this beautiful moment is way better than dying of old age in some creepy old house or hospital... I thought this moment could not get any more beautiful, but I was wrong again. A black hole—not many know about the birth of this stellar body, but it is beautiful, no, beyond beautiful, indescribable, the way it appeared, the way it was bathed by the flames like a phoenix. It grows in the flames. the aurora of colors I don't know when, but tears started dropping from my eyes. I looked back, half embarrassed, hoping they were too enamored by the flames to notice my tears, but I guess I wasn't the only one. It seems we have all accepted our death... I guess I was wrong again. Our captain, in his eyes, there was no hint of acceptance, no guilt, no hate, nothing but pure determination, and I heard him mumble ever so slightly, Pathetic, something about training and weak minds, and then he laughed like a madman. He laughed and yelled at me, no, at us, at all of us. He looked at us with nothing but disdain, and then he said, Have you all given up? Are you all going to just wait here and die after what you did, after surviving the cataclysm, after killing the entire world, after destroying our entire solar system, after becoming the last of humanity? Are you all going to let mankind end in such a pathetic way without resistance, without doubt? ... if so you are all unworthy and then it happened the sparks of determination burned in us all and I remembered an oath one I thought I understood but didn't until now at least particularly the last phrase of said oath (may the flame of mankind burn till eternity ends) so I declared my flame no the flame of mankind shall burn after all it is not the end as long as one of us survives and the captain I saw the ever slightest hint of a smile on his face as we manned the ship and blasted our way through the space debris we piloted through the flame like a comet across the night sky but all was for naught as the black hole grabbed us within its pull we could feel it ounce more despair creeping into our bones and the captain he once again burned like a star his light leading us unto the right path he demanded no commanded for us to go light speed normally we would have complained or argued on the possibility of temporal space explosion (our name for a break down in the subspace) but right now we needed all the hope we can get call it blind faith but we truly believed we could throttle out of this and throttle we did as all the power was directed to our thrusters the space ship groaned and roared as we immediately broke through the speed of light but we didn't stop even as the anchors showed critical signs even as the space around us started to collapse and in a flash of genius our captain gave us the order ounce more to turn on the experimental warp device and power all the reality anchors at ounce a massive overload in normal situation but not this time so obey we did like faithful men listening to a god and for the slightest hint of a moment everything stopped as the space itself grew heavy as time itself seemed to stagnate.