"Kathar, my friend. I have a very interesting proposal that I want to make to you. Are you willing to accompany me on this journey back to earth?"
Not only did Kathar look at me in amazement at my proposal, the crew members also looked at me like that, but it seems that they were in denial about an Ixorian traveling to our dimension, to our world, because they began to oppose it.
"That? Have you gone crazy, Harper? What do you intend to do by inviting this alien into our world in an apocalyptic moment like the one we are experiencing now? You've definitely lost your mind," Rourker complained.
I look at him, and I can see in his eyes the reflection of fear and contempt for the alien races.
I understand, the aliens may be doing a lot of damage to our earth, to our humanity, but we cannot close ourselves to everyone being equal. At least, I trusted the Ixorians, and for that reason, I was inviting Kathar to come with us, because I knew he would be a very good asset to our mission.
"Rouker, be careful what you say. The Ixorians are not like the other aliens we have met. They are reliable, sensitive, they only defend themselves when danger attacks them. They are a great family, and Kathar is one of my greatest friends, he is my family, I want him to go with us because he can be a great element for our mission to save humanity," I answered Rouker, I did not want to sound aggressive, I simply, I wanted to make him understand that the aliens were not our enemies, or well, that the Ixorians were not bad.
But instead of changing his mind, Rouker snorted, behaving like a little boy who didn't like to admit his mistakes in front of his mother's scolding. He stopped talking, and I just smiled with satisfaction, knowing that nothing would stop me from taking one of my own with me back to earth to feel at home.
"Well… What do you say? Do you accept?" I turned to Kathar again, despite everything, he was analyzing whether the situation was worth it to happen.
"Okay, I'll go with you. "I was thinking about who we could leave as our substitute while we're away," Kathar finally made his decision, and I was comforted knowing that he had agreed and wouldn't leave me alone in this.
An hour passed, and, finally, we were all aboard the New Aurora, that was what they had baptized the ship after having returned to Earth and having built another one for this mission.
"Captain Harper, it's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Alice Swift, the new pilot in charge of piloting our ship. It is an honor for me to be part of this crew with you, you are a hero", a girl with reddish hair with green eyes approached me, shook my hand, and smiled at me very warmly.
"Alice, leave the captain alone, he's working," said Jade, I could perceive a touch of jealousy taking over her voice, although she tried to hide it, but I realized that there was not a good relationship between the two of them as colleagues.
"Girls, please behave in front of Harper. Act like adults," Rourker scolded them.
I had known Rourker for a long time, we were colleagues since university, I met him doing my professional internship in the company where he worked, and in and of itself, he was a tough character, now, I think he was tougher, more difficult to work with. He was getting a little irritable. Will it be problems of reaching 50?
"Leave them, Rourker. It's better for them to be like that than for them to be bitter like you."
I meant for my comment to sound like a joke, but I think instead all I did was make Rourker upset, since he walked away from where we were in the ship's entrance room and went to your place.
Kathar looked at me, he was by my side all that time, and I knew that if he looked at me, it was because for him, that situation was not comfortable at all, because these were not things that he understood at a glance why they were happening.
Hours later, we found ourselves traveling down the path of a wormhole.
When we encountered the wormhole on our way, upon entering it, we witnessed an incredible change between us. Well, before us a pulsating vortex opened, a maelstrom of bright and chaotic energy that seemed to devour light itself, it was a journey between galaxies and dimensions, or perhaps, it was something much more inexplicable to us.
The cabin remained completely silent, we all carefully observed the event that was witnessed before our eyes. We were paralyzed by such a fascinating event, but I remember that the first time we went through one and that led me to live in Ixora, it was not exactly like that.
That experience was extremely different from this one.
However, I felt strange, since I knew that going through this wormhole could only mean one of two things: our salvation, or our extinction.
The instant the ship passed through the edge of the vortex, the universe disintegrated into a symphony of chaos. The stars stretched like infinite threads, and the laws we knew of physics seemed to fall apart. Gravity oscillated, causing our bodies to float, even though we remained seated in our seats and with our seat belts securely fastened.
From one moment to the next, a kaleidoscope of impossible colors invaded the cabin, forming hypnotic patterns that were recorded in our minds. Every molecule of our being vibrated as if trying to separate and, at the same time, merge with the cosmos.
During the trip, time stopped making sense, it was perceived as if it had never existed and had only been an invention of humans to control our life systems. Suddenly, my mind was invaded by visions of places I had never visited, of which I had never had any knowledge, I also saw memories of which I knew that these were not mine.
It was as if the wormhole was showing us fragments of other realities, of other lives that wanted us to see what they were going through with the enemies thirsty for other people's blood.
It was like that, everything went out. The deafening roar gave way to absolute silence.
The ship stopped shaking, and the multicolored abyss dissipated, replaced by a dark void dotted with strange stars.
Onboard systems sputtered, some completely shut down.
The crew was panting, and the girls... well, they were the ones who vomited on the floor because they couldn't stand the feeling of having gotten into some kind of roller coaster from which we wouldn't know if we could get off.
I looked around, I wanted to make sure everyone was okay. No one said a word, but in their eyes I saw the reflection of what I also felt: we had seen something that would change our lives forever.
Finally, the ship passed through the earth's atmosphere, and soon, we found ourselves landing in an area specialized in this type of activities; NASA.
But before we could leave the ship so that the others would receive us with a warm and glad welcome, I noticed something different about Kathar, his eyes were very irritated, his body was not moving, and his lungs were not breathing.