The Universal Experiment

The Recording

This past Christmas, I went on vacation to Russia to visit with my grandmother. It had been years since I've been to see her, and I knew she was excited to have me with her for the Holidays. As a special treat, she took me to a local flea market full of interesting artifacts, most of them Cold-War Era.

I was instantly drawn to a tent housing what looked like audio recorders. They were all pretty cheap. I listened to a few, most of which were just old-timey sounding music, though some seemed as if they were audio diaries or recordings of meetings.

My Russian is a little rusty, but I was able to get the gist of most of what was being said. Some were, in fact, just diaries of people's day to day lives. Some proved more interesting, and harder to translate. I settled on one that looked brand-new but was overall the hardest to understand. I figured it would be good practice for me, and interesting at the same time.

We got home, and I immediately set to work. My grandmother didn't bother me much while I struggled to translate but helped me here and there when I got stuck on to phrase or word. I'd like to say what I found was... enjoyable. But really, I was disturbed by the recording. The man speaking sounded old and tired.
Here is my transcript of the recording.
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"There are some things we, as humans, aren't meant to know. Things about our universe shrouded in secret. Things that should remain as such. But we're curious beings, humans. We have a thirst for knowledge unmatched by anything else on Earth. Our quest for answers has led to the destruction of men far greater than me, and civilizations far better than ours. The Universal Experiment sought to answer questions better left unasked.
I'd prefer not to mention too much about where I work, and who I am. Everyone on the team was required to sign a contract of secrecy, swearing that we would never tell a soul what it is we have been working on. I am risking not only my life but the lives of my colleges... This needs to be said. People need to know what is happening, and what a colossal mistake we have made.

Forty years ago, I joined a team of brilliant scientists to take on a project that would 'unlock the deepest secrets of the Universe.' We were tasked with building a particle accelerator, much larger than that of the Largest Hadron Collider. For those who don't know, the Largest Hadron Collider is a 27-kilometre long ring of superconducting magnets, created in an attempt to recreate conditions at the time of the Big Bang on a molecular scale. The Universal Experiment follows the same basic principles, except takes it to the next step. We have done what the Hadron has not. We have created the Big Bang on a molecular scale. Our own miniature universe growing and glistening under careful watch by microscope.

My first time seeing it, I was in awe. It was the most hypnotically beautiful thing I had ever seen. Swirling, dust-like galaxies formed before my eyes at incredibly fast speeds. There were births and deaths of massive systems within hours. We believed it to be a perfect recreation of our own universe, it's lifespan sped up an astronomical amount to ours. The project was considered a success by our directors.

It had been two weeks since our universe was formed, and over the course, it continued to grow in size. We figured that by the end of the month, it would be big enough to see unaided. Everything changed when we started to notice changes in its coloration. Around the edges, it was growing dark. Bright dust clouds of stars no longer shone bright, but dull and dim. This darkness slowly ebbed its way across our creation. Very slowly. It appeared as if our Universe was shrinking, and being replaced with an incomprehensible void, so deep, it... It discolored... It consumed All.

It continued to spread inward towards the center, and by the end of the month, all that was left of our glorious creation was a void of nothingness. There's no other word to describe it, except for Nothing. Both Transparent and Solid. Both Existent and Nonexistent. My team and I had named it Schrödinger's Void as a joke. Little did we know... Little did we know that we had caught a glimpse of The End. I see now. It has graced my mind and can not be unknown. It holds horrors and wonders no words in any language can describe.

I say this as a warning to everyone. There will be an End, just as there was a Beginning. I have seen both. The signs are already here. Just look up. The stars will burn out... The stars will burn out. The stars will burn out. The stars will bur-"
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It was, as I hoped, interesting. But disconcerting all the same. I thought it would be an interesting story to tell, the ramblings of an old man. But I can't help but wonder: Was he right?

He had not said his name, or where he worked. It's true, I knew of the Largest Hadron Collider, but could someone have created a larger one? A more successful one?

My grandmother lives far from the city, in an old farming town. There's barely any light pollution out here. On cloudless nights, I stand on the back deck and look up to the sky. Maybe it's my mind playing tricks on me, but the stars seem to be disappearing.