Into the Unknown

The date was September 11, 1997, and the green grass overlooking the plains of Texas were calm and tranquil. Everyone that lived in outer Houston seemed to be oblivious to the events that led to this. On this particular day, NASA was conducting a launch, but it wasn't an ordinary one. The details of the mission were quite secret and were being held from the unknowing public. Still it didn't seem to stop anyone from taking the time to come and witness the launch. Within the command center, Steve and Susan Hayefield along with a half dozen other NASA technicians were monitoring everything the shuttle was doing with utter scrutiny.

Susan got on the center to shuttle intercom just then. "Johnny? Now you take care of my..." The intercom broke for a second before a response echoed.

"Don't worry Susan. He'll be back in plenty of time to see Junior enter the world."

"I'll hold you to that Johnny, and George I'll see you when you get back." Suddenly, Colonel Iwalla seized the microphone away from Susan.

"Captain Armstrong, Lieutenant McCrady, Lieutenant Sinclair, are we ready to find out what that signal is?"

"Yes sir!" Colonel Iwalla turned to Susan just then.

"Start the countdown!" She nodded her head. Over the loudspeaker one could hear a set of numbers counting backwards from ten. When it reached zero, the shuttle's thrusters ignited and within moments the shuttle was in space. It was weird, but the shuttle was on course for the strange phenomenon. Once they were a sizable distance away from the Earth, the intercom came back on.

"Chris, this is Steve. Go ahead and release the capsule." A few seconds later a capsule could be seen floating toward the sun. It took a couple more days before they arrived at the strange tear in space. It was Steve that had first discovered the strange phenomenon through the Hubble Telescope. It appeared to all of them like a rip in the fabric of space and they felt it necessary to investigate the purplish rip. George came to the back of the shuttle to say something.

"Guys we're here! It's time to get to work." Chris and John were the only two that left the ship, while George stayed behind to keep the shuttle under control. Everything was going great as both Chris and John were getting satisfactory readings. Then a flash of light from within the tear changed everything. The tear grew and became a suction as it pulled the three of them and the shuttle through.

George was the first to wake up in this strange place. He looked over to see the shuttle was in serious need of repairs. He volunteered for this mission for his abilities as an engineer and now the engine to their shuttle was literally destroyed and George would need to rebuild part of it if only to get to the head gasket. He saw John outside, so he ran to him.

"John are you ok?"

"Never better." John tried to get up, but couldn't. That was when he noticed.

"George. I can't feel my legs."

George immediately ran to get him back to the shuttle. Once he was situated, George looked to John. "Where's Chris?"

"You know. I have no idea." George spent a couple of hours looking, but came up empty. That was when he got to work on the shuttle.

"Well Johnny, it's not as pretty as it was, but at least it'll fly again." Then from out of nowhere there was a noise that sounded really familiar, but completely out of place for where they were. George went to go see. He looked down to see a baby crying. It was here that he noticed he was about a mile from the crash site. George sneaked the baby aboard the ship. The three of them made it not only back into space and through the tear, but George was able to get them back to Earth. He awoke in a hospital a few days later to see Susan. She was there with a baby and a two-year-old boy.

"What's going on? Who are they?"

"They are Colton and Quinton. Colton was born after what happened, and Quinton was the baby you found." She announced.

"How is Colton already this old?"

"George, you've been gone for two years."

If you liked this story be sure to check out.

Colton McCrady and the Lost Civilization

By Shane Milton

Available August 25 on Ebook everywhere and

September 1 in Paperback at Amazon