Obligations

I am standing in the parking lot of an abandoned gas station.

People are rushing out from the nearby encampment. They were expecting another probe today.

I see them getting on their walkies.

I start shouting to them, but then remember I still have my space suit on.

I start taking my helmet off.

I still don’t know if I did the right thing.

-

That night I was brought to the airbase, where I was given a room to stay and a fresh set of clothes.

I was allowed to keep the locket I had of my wife and daughter, a small heart dangling from a silver chain, but that was the only personal possession I really had at this point.

The following day, I was brought to an examination room. At first, I was spoken to by a soldier who went through a series of formalities with me in broken English. Then, he left, and I was met with by Martin, a special liaison from the country’s intelligence community—some version of their CIA.

“Hello, Mr. Walter,” he begins speaking in clear English, “How are you doing today?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. I still don’t know how I’m doing, to be honest.”

He nods. “Fair enough. You certainly did something crazy, eh?”

I huff and shrug again. “Desperate times and all that, you know?”

The man nods again. “So, are you ready to begin?”

I nod too. “Yes, sir. I’m ready.”

“Remember, this doesn’t have to be too detailed. We’ll do that later. Right now, we just want to get a simple statement down.”

The man pressed the button on the tape recorder.

-

[Okay, it’s recording. Please begin whenever you are ready.]

(I nod.) Alright.

So, we, um. (I clear my throat.) We began our voyage to the OOC to investigate the anomaly—the wormhole—fifty-one days ago. Or, well…

[Don’t worry about the details, Mr. Walter.]

Right. So, we make it up there fine, obviously, since I’m here. And… Well, everything goes as planned, which should also be obvious, seeing as you’ve been receiving the objects and probes so far. However… While things are going fine for us up there, things stop going fine down here. We all know about the conflicts and the tensions—we all know what the appearance of the anomaly meant for us all seven years ago, that maybe it would give us something to… Come together on. Some sort of Godsend. We all sort of—

[We all know, yes.]

Yes, well…

The band-aid started peeling before we even got the OOC up there. The band-aid was dangling from our skin since before we launched. Well. By about thirty days in, the band-aid falls off. Violence erupts—funny enough—right here, in your country. Isn’t it crazy how life loves ironies like that?

(Martin stared at me, not saying anything.)

It starts to cascade—and it cascades fast—but, violence always happens. We tried not to think about it, just focus on the anomaly. But then… Then you guys go radio-silent forty-five days in. nd so… and then… Well…

So, we don’t really know what to do. We take away most of our focus from the wormhole and attempt to reestablish communication with… Well, anyone—and we do. The next day, we’re contacted by the Brazilian government, and they don’t tell us much, but they do tell us that the mission will be terminated prematurely and that we were to return to Earth as soon as possible.

Well, then they go radio silent. Almost immediately. We’re alone up there, no contact with Earth, no idea how we’re supposed to return without any instructions, and… The day after that, forty-seven days in, around two in the morning your time, we watch the fireworks start to go off.

Hundreds of thousands of explosions start going off—and, we knew they had to be nuclear weapons, because what else could be seen like that from space? And… All we could do was watch… All we could do was watch. We couldn’t talk to anyone. We couldn’t reach out. We couldn’t do anything… And within twenty-four hours, we realized there probably wasn’t anyone left to reach out to.

The skies went dark. We couldn’t see through the atmosphere at all—except for orange glows from what we could only assume to be firestorms that were burning whatever hadn’t been annihilated by nuclear warfare. We couldn’t see anything. Anything.

So… (I sighed.) So, not knowing what else to do… We decided we had to enter the wormhole—something that wasn’t even on the table with animal testing yet. And we decided we had to do it as soon as possible because, well… Time obviously was of the essence, considering what we’d just witnessed. We had to at least try to get back here as soon as possible to tell everyone—to try and stop this.

And we deliberated on it for hours, every day, for three days. A lot of the deliberation was just long silences, but… We eventually decided one of us would go back once every two days, rather than all at once, in case something went wrong that we wouldn’t know about. Rather than one flip of a coin, we’d try seven, and spread them out. So, someone else should be coming back tomorrow, then two days from that, and then two days from that and so forth.

We tried to figure out what order to do it in, but I eventually volunteered to go first and left them to decide who would go after that.

And, so… I went. Four days after the world caught on fire—and stayed on fire—I left the OOC and leapt through space into the wormhole, and now I’m back here, 51 days ago. Or, 50 days ago now. Or just today, I suppose.

And it was the most terrifying thing I’d ever done. As you know, the OOC is nearly two-hundred meters from the wormhole, and the wormhole itself has only grown to about three meters wide, so there was almost no margin for error. But I had no real option.

As you can see though (I laughed.) It uh… It worked out.

And… (My eyes got wet.)

And you know what?

I saw something so beautiful in there. I saw something so beautiful, and… I wish I could show you all… But… I don’t… I don’t know if I ever can. In fifty days, everyone sets fire to each other, so… So what do we do? What do we do?

(I wiped my eyes.)

What do we do from here? What—

(Martin cuts off the recorder.)

-

“—do we do?”

Martin spoke. “Don’t worry about that. Thank you. That should be fine for now.”

I nodded. Regaining my composure.

“Can I ask a question?”

I shrugged. “Of course.”

“Why’d you want to come back first? Why’d you volunteer?”

I huffed and reached down to my chest, lifting up the silver locket.

“I wanted to see my wife and son as soon as I could.”

I let the locket back down.

“I wanted to hold them again. And if I couldn’t do that, I wanted to at least keep them safe.”

Martin nodded. “I can certainly understand that.”

“My… My wife doesn’t know about this, right?”

“No. She still thinks… Well… This is hard thinking about, isn’t it?”

I smiled. “Yea. It doesn’t get easier.”

“She doesn’t know you came back. We’ll put it that way.”

I nodded. “Do you think I’ll be able to see her?”

The man started to talk, but then stopped, taken aback. “You don’t have much faith, do you?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know to be honest. I don’t know. I just know… I just know I want to see my wife.” I laughed.

He looked at me. My post-laugh grin slowly faded. I think we both realized how… How strange this all was. How strange everything would be.

“And… You know what Martin? You know what the worst part is? This whole… everything… it’s just so delicate, you know? I mean… who knows what sets this all off, and… And… I still don’t know if I did the right thing. I still don’t know… I still don’t know.”

Martin stared at me. Then finally looked away. “Go get some dinner, then get some sleep. Someone will contact you tomorrow.”

I nodded. And then, I did what he said.

I got dinner on base.

I went to my room. And I stared into the dark until I fell asleep.

-

A knock on the door woke me up.

I got out of bed and opened the door.

Martin stood there.

He didn’t smile, but he looked… Happy. In a way that made me feel uncomfortable, but… I was still just waking up. Everything seemed uncomfortable then.

“I was told to let you know that the mission was a failure. The ship didn’t make it. There was a docking failure—a malfunction—that caused the ship to move off-kilter. A fuel tank was punctured. A domino effect of unfortune events occurred. Both the ship and the OOC were destroyed in the process.”

I was stunned.

It took several moments of trying to process this all to finally ask:

“Are the… The objects we sent back, and the probes… Are they… Do they still exist?”

He nodded. “It’s strange how it all works. Who would’ve guessed?”

I shook my head. It didn’t make sense, but… my mind was so jumbled. “But… What if this all still ends the way I saw it? What if no one’s up there to come back?”

The man smiled. “Don’t worry about that. Welcome home, hero. You ready to see your wife and son again?”

I shook my head and looked away, my mouth open, not shaking it to say no, not open because I had anything to say. Just shock.

I still don’t know if I made the right decision.