Surfing Chance - Chapter 14

Universe Beta[1]

_3 days before Chance's arrest_

Kimura, Chance's father and Yuri were talking at the coffee place near the hospital. In an attempt to fix things, Yuri confessed to Kimura about his son's doings. She wished to find a way out of this mess. Kimura felt sad to hear the bad things that Chance did, but he was mildly surprised. He began telling Yuri that it was in most part his fault. He should have taken full custody of Chance before his mother took him to Australia. He was about to explain the reason behind the darkness that laid dormant in Chance's mind all these years, but he was interrupted by swarming special operatives. They were picked up and detained by federal agents. Their full discussion was recorded and this was enough evidence to prove the guilt of Chance. It was also a complete guide on how his super powers work and how he could be disarmed.

_One minute before the destruction of Earth_

Kimura was standing in silence next to Yuri. They were allowed to be there, uncuffed and unharmed until the moment that they reached a final verdict as to their complicity. Kimura was trying to say that he regrets not having contacted his son sooner.

"He was in Japan for so many months and his letter reached me in September. I was scared to meet him and I was getting ready to do it on my own terms. I could not face him after abandoning him at such an important moment in his early life. His mother, she was a troubled woman and she handled things as best he could… He should not have been left alone in all of this…"

"When I saw him in Pakistan, trying to fix those houses… trying to heal those patients… I felt like I was looking in the face of a child that is afraid to be caught red-handed. He was scared and had a look of complete devastation. His eyes, were innocent and yet I remember it only now. He never wanted anyone to suffer and I… was the only one in which he confided. I was the only one that knew. Even so, I wanted to leave it all behind and live in ignorance of the suffering I saw there. Leaving things to oblivion, was the only way to move forward in my life. He needed my help and I … failed in helping him.", said Yuri in a saddened voice.

As she finished saying those last words, the room around them became soft like melting cheese. The walls were sinking and the floor turned to quicksand. They did not have time to properly react, but their torture did last for whole seconds due to the gravity's time dilation. Their bodies were getting crushed like pumpkins. Yuri vanished from existence and escaped harm in some miraculous way. Kimura was not as lucky and his eyes popped out of his small gray-haired head. All of the military personnel of the Okinawa military base were being slowly compressed to the size of a peanut. In alarm and anxiousness, they were witnessing their own irreversible demise.

…

The Orion entity walked out of its shadow to look upon the screen showing the destruction of the Beta Universe. Just as scheduled. It teleported Yuri to its dimension, because she still had an important role to play in all of this. The girl was now lying unconscious on a bed of emerald-colored start dust.

"He is expected to arrive soon…"

…

Chance was bored of this world and the people in it. He was watching all life break away into nothingness. In slow motion on Earth, a tribe of people from Papua New Guinee were melting into the warm forest lands as monkeys and wild boards were screaming loudly. A gigantic skull crushing swamp, from which none could escape. The buildings of New York were folding on themselves like a snowball with people inside them being compressed as they stood at their desk computers. The ocean waters were shooting out with immense thrust and then they were instantaneously vaporized when reaching the outer layers of the atmosphere. Even people that Chance never saw, never thought off or was never even aware of were dying like ants in a giant burning anthill. All the Volcanoes exploded; the world was covered in the oozing molten layers of the near-core.

Chance saw the Earth become the size of a stadium, and then the size of a car and then the size of an apple. He stared at the odd apple which he had created. This little black hole trapped inside a self-contained super dense shape. He stepped away from his outer orbit throne and then after glancing at it one more time, he suspended it in midair in front of his face as if was trying to put it back onto the tree branch from which it once fell. He force-pulled his throne that transformed in an instant into a long surfboard and he sat on it like one would sit loosely on a swing. He was balancing his feet one after another saddened by the reality of his fate.

He sighed and as he exhaled, the water vapor from his breath went past the force shield he had around him and crystalized into small diamonds that were floating aimlessly through the empty darkness.

"Break!"

The Earth apple started pulling spacetime onto it. With accelerated velocity, the solar system swirled around like the waters of a giant toilet about to be flushed onto even higher density. The light of the sun disappeared, but not for more than a few instances because soon after, Chance's face was already lit up by the Proxima Centauri sun. Then solar system after solar system, were coming and going past him in a show of blinking lights. He was still sitting on his surfboard watching all of it fold into a single point. Chance closed his eyes smilingly, imagining that this gigantic strobe of Milky way lights was like his red-carpet walk. Paparazzi's everywhere trying to get a photograph of him getting closer and closer to his movie premiere. The whole galaxy had vanished into the black hole and it was pitch dark again. When he opened his eyes, like elongated light bullets, the other galaxies were shooting towards the very same dark point. The expansion line was drawing near…

…

Stephen and Albert were watching the whole universe get sucked into one black hole. As much as they tried to offer support to the professor, they ultimately failed. It was not technical knowledge that the professor was ultimately lacking… The classroom that they were usually in turned into a set of giant monitors resembling a NASA launch room filled with lolicon girls instead of astronauts. A scientist is just as good as another scientist and their way of thinking will be predominantly analytical. The lolicon girls were thinking like old men that spent their whole lives trapped inside their books and labs. Most of them were even secretly admiring Chance's dedication to go through to the very end of everything. This is the price that must be paid for the truth…

Stephen was reminiscing of the times when they were guiding Chance's solar system exploration journey. They instructed him to try out one optics technique for forming glass lenses in empty spaces. Unfortunately, this experiment was not finished, but what it entailed was to teleport inside the Virgo cluster and use a giant telescope to spy on Earth's dinosaurs from more than 65 million light years away…

The scientists were anxiously waiting to see the grand finale.

…

Chance was only slightly resembling a human being anymore. He was covered in self-made scribbly tattoos that were glowing on his skin. His whole body was shielded from the effects of things like electromagnetism or gravity. Spacetime was spiraling like pasta on a giant cosmic fork and he was blank staring at his dinnerplate. He was reminded of a headline that he read months ago, back when he was still checking the Japanese dailies.

"Indiscriminate mass murder on the rise in Japan!"

People were killing complete strangers and up until this moment now, he never understood why.

"The world around us is immune to our suffering, just as I am immune to this chaos that is unfolding before me. People are immune, out of ignorance, to the pain of others and this causes hate misdirected towards a general crowd — towards an 'everybody'.

When someone is drowning at the beach, the last thing that person would see, are the people relaxing in the sun. Just standing there, sunbathing, playing, running with kites and this dilemma occurs … why are they ignoring my struggle to survive?

It feels like standing in front of giant towers upon towers of constructs that one can neither control nor change. A bird, makes its own nest and thus acts as a free agent that controls its fate and comfort. People were told that they can do anything… be anything… have anything they want if only they work hard enough and watching all the giant towers just standing there… watching the world as it refuses to bend to your will. Not getting, what you have been for so long promised. This, is just about enough to want to break the whole of reality. So that for just that one second, you get to bask in the self-delusion of control."

…

He stood up and walked onto his stardust surfboard and got ready to break through the expansion line. As the galaxies were shooting at the black hole like an infinite bombardment of bright laser cannons, the universe behind Chance was growing darker and darker. He added luminescence to his shielding and now his tattooed skin was glowing even brighter. This pulsating glow resembled the glow of a deep-sea fisherman. The expansion line was in sight, like a giant capsule closing in. Chance shot out towards it and bent it from the inside. It was trying to resist the release of spacetime from within it, in an effect similar to the surface pressure of water. With one final break, Chance tore through… and he felt the universe behind him shrink infinitely into one single ultra-dense glass marble. Darkness…

_Chance had a strange vision of his young parents_

Kimura and Sam got married soon after their first meeting at the karaoke. They just knew that it was a leap of faith type situation and they were scared of missing this last chance to jump on the family life train. People of their age grew less and less interested in having a family and taking on the responsibilities of raising a child. Kimura did not have the best paying job at the Fuji films factory, but he was already in his forties and he knew that all else was failing quickly and he needed a way out. A child was an opportunity for happiness in an otherwise dead-end life. Sam was a young Australian woman in Japan trying to fit into this crazy new alien world. She was struggling to keep appearances and to maintain good relations with management. Her contract was temporary and it was hanging by a thread. At any second, she was at risk of it being cancelled and her being forced to retreat back to Australia. This reality put heavy strain on her health. When she got pregnant, this worry grew inside her mind in parallel to the baby that was growing inside her belly. Like twins, it seemed for months on end that she was going to give birth to two entities, but she was too afraid to say this to anyone. Her husband, least of all.

…

"You have a boy! Healthy!"

Sam and Kimura were crying together at the hospital because at long last, their dreams were coming true. A shining ray of hope. A smile from beyond, in defiance of this cruel reality. An opportunity to take back life and change things for the better. A new beginning!

…

Sam asked for maternity leave and it was denied to her, so she told her manager that she had a miscarriage only to get her job back. She created a story of how she suffered a lot and she needed a few weeks to get back into shape. The manager displayed compassion, but he was secretly relieved to have her back at the office. Their government contract deadlines were not giving them any room for error.

The twin of darkness, growing inside her mind had found a way to come to light in the form of this story that she told to others but also to herself.

"Not a mother. A failure. Barren."

Sam was living through this reality every day as she entered the office building. The deception grew so big that it started to engulf her other half life. The one in which she had to be an actual mother. Chance's mother was transforming and soon enough Kimura started noticing that it was endangering their son.

…

"Chance, let's play hide and seek again!"

"I don't want to."

"Chance… please. We need to do this, remember?"

Sam was taking Chance with her to work and she kept him hidden in a janitor closet at her office. He had to stay silent and play in the dark for hours until his mother would come take him and go home. He never felt crammed or claustrophobic because he had his own games to play in the dark. Whenever he saw his mother, he'd be joyful and glad to get back into the light. They hugged every time to celebrate the end of this separation. Sam was crying because she felt how unfair all of this was and Chance was crying because he was happy to see her. He was happy to have escaped the darkness of the confined space back into his arms of his beloved guardian and protector. Every time he imagined that his mother was fighting off dragons and magic creatures while he was tucked away and he was only released when it was safe to travel again…

Sadly, things did not stop at this. Sam started to feel worse and worse. In time, she could not handle being near her son anymore. Her job demanded that she design blueprints for aerospace machinery. For each material she proposed for usage, she needed to perform a standard set of calculations that would predict the material's behavior in extreme outer space conditions. She was overwhelmed with numbers and coefficients… she knew that at any moment she could get fired from her job and this would mean the annulment of her residence permit and her departure back to Australia… the end of her family life and everything in it. She begged her young son to hide and allow her to work.

"Please Chance, do this for me… for us… play hide and seek with mommy!"

The young boy stayed hidden in a closet for the whole time of her work. Everyday. The darkness from his mother, was latching on to him and corroding his young mind. He created imaginary scenarios, imaginary persons. He imagined himself an illusionist that would always try to escape from deathtraps in front of large audiences.

One night, Kimura was dismissed from his job earlier because of a machinery related injury. He came home to find his son in the closet. Finally, all of the suspicions that he had, came true and he needed to save his son from the only other person that he loved. He took him in his arms and left the apartment. Kimura was running through the park, a 48-year-old man, running with his 7-year-old son. He knew he had to go somewhere, but he did not know where…

…

"Now! Snap out of the hypnosis, Chance", said the psychiatrist after finishing his walkthrough. He tried to make Chance remember a certain deep trauma from his childhood in order to treat the physical illness that he had. Chance felt like he was in some strange dream to which he was a first-person viewer…

"What happened? How did I end up here?" he thought and when he tried to say something, he could not. He was unable to speak, not move his arms, or head or legs. He was trapped inside a broken body.

"Chance, do you feel better after today's session?"

"I can't speak. What is happening to me? HELP ME!" he thought.

"Nurse! He is going into shock! The memories that we woke up must have completely destabilized him. Bring the depot injection. We need to put him back to sleep before he has another severe stroke.

"b….", this was the only sound that Chance managed to whisper.

"Wait! He is trying to finally say something…. Yes, Chance, speak to us… tell us!… Tell us, boy…"

There was no damage in his brain speech center as confirmed by multiple CAT scans and MRIs. He was able to speak, but was choosing not to. They were using hypnotherapy to fix it.

"… Yes, please, Chance… try harder for us… I know you are ready!"

The nurses were readying the tranquilizer to be used just in case. The doctor asked them to wait:

"Stand back! You are scaring him. Please Chance, say it! Tell us how to help you… tell us!"

"b…. B…", his mouth was drooling and his face muscles were clearly atrophied. His lower lip was hanging down and his skin had spots and wrinkles like he's been in this chair for ages. He got tear-eyed because he was failing to say that one word. His eyes went wild and he suddenly felt a surge of previously unavailable power running through his veins… as if he remembered the source of his strength:

" b… B …BR...BREAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAK!!!"

…

The world went black and Chance was back to his normal self. Standing, in his shielded form with tattoos glowing and with full strength in his young body.

The Orion entity approached him from the darkness:

"You have managed to cross the expansion line of the universe…"

Chance crashed on the imaginary floor that the Orion entity had created.

"I never imagined you'd break not one, but two entire universes in the process. When crossing the expansion line, you were accidentally absorbed into another parallel universe. The second one was stuck to your home universe like a smaller soap bubble at its surface."

Chance was unable to stand. Through that parallel universe, he managed to witness a real memory of his. He witnessed the beginning of his dream… the darkness that was lurking inside him all this time, craving to escape…

[1] Universe Alpha is the Universe in which Chance and his students explore the universe together.

Universe Beta — scheduled for annihilation.