Big Sky Chronicles

Chapter 1: A Glimpse of Tomorrow

June 12th, 2045 8:12 PM Central Time in the 5th Midwestern District of the Soviet Commune of America. Temperature is mild at 19.4 degrees Celsius with a stiff breeze from the northwest. The forecast is crystal clear skies and the sun has just met the horizon. Just three miles south of a small farming settlement sits a wooden shack with no windows since windows were banned in the 5th Midwestern District ten years ago. Within this wooden shack lives Paul Rogers, his little brother Arthur, his orphan friend Ramsey, and his widowed mother. A small hatch opens on the roof at approximately 8:13:30 PM CT. Paul's homemade telescope peaks out of the hatch pointing towards the heavens.

Paul looks down at a note he found in his fathers old safe. The note read "June 12th at dusk, Pegasus will lose its tail." It didn't take a genius to figure out that whoever wrote the note was referring to constellations. Curiosity got the best of Paul, and despite the heavy consequences by the government for owning a telescope, he had to know why Pegasus might be missing its tail tonight.

Beneath the note was a constellation map that Paul used to find the constellation of Pegasus. The star came into view, or lack thereof. It was a bizarre sight. Paul initially was using his weakest lens to find the anomaly and at first glance, it looked as if there was a halo in the sky. As if a mini solar eclipse was happening with a singular star. Paul was dumbfounded. He slowly took out another lens to get a closer look and gingerly placed it into the eyepiece. Paul peered through the telescope and this time it appeared as if the halo was rotating in deep space. Paul's stomach dropped, he recalled an old book his father read to him about astronomy. The subject wasn't taught in public schools so his father always tried his best to find old textbooks on certain subjects from abandoned schools.

"Black Holes are impossibly dense celestial bodies with enough gravitational pull to swallow stars." Those words replayed in Paul's head over and over again as sweat beads rolled down his head. He recalled the textbook illustration which looked strikingly similar to whatever he was seeing through his telescope.

"The singularity at the center of the blackhole is believed to encrypt fourth dimension information, transcending human understanding. If we could only catch a glimpse of the singularity..." Paul's dad's words rang clear. Without hesitation, Paul grabbed the lens with the highest magnification. His hands were shaky as he carefully inserted the lens. He gazed into the black hole.

Paul quickly backed away from the telescope trembling. He forgot what he saw but it didn't matter because he never wanted to see it again. Time seemed to stop or move in an unusual manner within that half of a second. He tried his best to forget as he slowly put his telescope away and hid it underneath some blankets in the attic. Unable to process what just happened he got up and walked downstairs. While walking downstairs he noticed the clock hanging on the wall. It read 8:09. Odd, Paul thought, must be off or needs new batteries. Except every other clock within his house read the exact same time.

Paul came to the indisputable conclusion that he encountered the singularity of a black hole through the lens of his telescope and gained 4 minutes and 18 seconds back from the sands of time.

In an effort to get his mind off of what had just happened, Paul went down to his kitchen for food. He checked the rations calendar. The precinct grocer had only three more days to arrive at their house for next month's food supply. This was perfect. There had to be some leftover snacks in the cabinet. Paul opened the cupboard and found it completely empty aside from a small box of crackers. He could have sworn there were frosted rice cakes when he last checked. And on top of that, he remembered writing a note claiming the rice cakes. Before closing the cabinet, Paul knew the culprit.

"Ramsey! Where are my rice cakes?" Paul yelled. Ramsey entered the kitchen with a smug look on his face.

"They're nice and warm in my stomach, you got nothing to worry about Paul." Ramsey snarked back. Paul exhaled with a defeated expression and grabbed the box of crackers.