Through the Black Hole | Teen Ink

Through the Black Hole

October 25, 2013
By Annabelle Carter, Denver, Colorado
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Annabelle Carter, Denver, Colorado
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Madeline sat in the space shuttle looking at the dark speck in the sky where there are no stars visible. This is the black hole she is about to enter. Madeline is an astronaut, the first human to go into a black hole. She stares at her fate getting closer and closer, the black holes darkness, wishing she had not agreed to do this. The news papers had said “how brave, how courageous” Madeline was but right now she did not feel brave at all. The training she did didn’t prepare her for the entering of a black hole or what to do once on there. All they said was to tell them what happens after she had entered the darkness that is unknown.
She is sitting completely still, after a few minutes; her muscles get tense and lock in their place. She smells the peanut butter paste that she ate for breakfast, it makes her queasy. She forces her eyes to close tight, trying to make the queasiness go away. She opens them quickly when she feels the shuttle start to move faster, pushing her into her seat. The black hole is huge now and it is starting to pull Madeline in. The shuttle moves faster and faster towards the black hole, pushing her even harder into her seat. In a matter of minutes, she is surrounded by the darkness of the black hole, an instant reaction is to take what might just be the last look of the stars she will get but the stars are distorted by the black hole. Her eyes hurting from the distortion of the stars, she closes her eyes and turns forward.
Madeline awakes to a jolt 12 minutes later. She must have fallen asleep because of entering the black hole.
“Interesting,” Madeline said. She wondered, why would this happen, how?
The shuttle seems to have stopped. When she looks outside, she is surprised by what she sees. In front of her is a large, grassy landscape but the grass was blue, and the sky was a creamy orange! Not far away there seemed to be a city, mostly made out of the colors red and purple. Madeline, excited by the thought that she might be able to feel wind and grass again after 8 years on that shuttle, where the only thing to do would be to look at the stars, sleep, and eat ( which isn’t that bad but after 8 years was boring), she quickly looked at the readings on the outside. There seemed to be a good amount of oxygen in the air, good weather only a bit cold, and there seemed to be no toxic gases or high levels of radiation. Madeline did not hesitate, she ran outside. Oh, how happy she was to feel the wind and the grass, smell the humid air. She was so filled with excitement that she ran with her arms spread wide, leaped and twirled until she was overcome with tiredness, she fell into the grass and fell asleep with a smile on her face.

A few hours later, Madeline awoke with a start; she was no longer in the field! In fact, she was in a bright, white room, on a metal table, her hands and feet strapped to the table. She starts to struggle against the binds, when a tall purple, alien with hooves for feet and blue hair walks in wearing a lab coat. She (at least she think it is a she), starts to try to talk to Madeline in an odd language, that isn’t spoken by any human race on Earth. The purple alien quickly realizes that this new comer clearly doesn’t understand the language that she is speaking so she switches to another language that she knows. She is surprised to see that this strange being also doesn’t understand this language as well. Most of the new comers that came knew one of the two languages, they are mostly universal. Where did this mysterious person come from she wondered. Madeline was also wondering the same thing.
After trying a few other languages she knew, the purple alien left to try to find another way of communication or someone else who know more languages that she knows. Madeline lay there alone on the cold, hard table, thinking about how odd that purple creature looked, she didn’t trust them. How animal like they looked with their hooves and their tall, narrow body. How could they be civilized, they looked so odd, so different, and what was that language they speak, it sounded like snake and the other one was like a French man talking with a lisp very, very fast, both where so impossible to understand.
When the purple alien came back, she brought a few others; all different colors, but no black nor white was spotted in the crowd. All of the aliens tried to speak in all of the languages they know to the strange tan creature strapped to their table, but she understood none of them. How uncivilized, they all thought, she knows none of the languages we speak in the universe and her space craft is like nothing that they had ever seen before. That hour long session left both Madeline and the Alien race confused, wondering where the other had come from and how they lived their lives. They both left with the same thought as well, that the other race was uncivilized and where frightened of each other.
Madeline woke up the next morning but kept her eyes closed tight, hoping that that was just a dream and that she would wake up back in her bed on the shuttle. When she opened her eyes, she found that it wasn’t a dream and it had actually happened. Although she was happy to find that the straps, that had been keeping her restrained, were no longer there. She rubbed her wrists to get rid of the feeling that the restraint was still there. Madeline swung her legs over the edge of the table and jumped off. She quickly walked over to the door and tried to open it but of course it was locked, why would they just let her go? She crossed her arms, walked over to the wall, then slid down and sat against it. She hugged her legs tightly to her chest, hoping for some form of comfort.
As she sits there, she starts to cry, letting the tears roll off her cheeks, to her chin, then drop on the floor.

Suddenly, there is a loud bang, then another! Madeline could see a large dent in the door. The door bursts open, revealing four other humans. Madeline soon realizes that they where former astronauts that and gotten lost in space. They look at her with a sad look on their face.
“Come on we have to move,” says Jennifer, a short redhead.
Madeline stands up and they start to run down a hallway with many turns until they get to a door that leads outside. They run for a long time but the sprint has now turned into a jog. Once the jogging slows, she begins to look around and take not about everything, she is a scientist after all. She notices how the field of soft, blue grass turns into an orange, rocky terrain. The rocks feel odd and spongy. The sun has lowered quite a bit since the morning. It must be close to night fall.
The group of four finally stops at a cave where they would camp for the night. The cave is also made out of the orange rock, Madeline notices. Jack, who has black hair and a tall, tough body, starts a fire while Jennifer starts to cook. The fire reflects off the walls, creating a strange light. The two others, Madeline has never seen before. They introduce themselves as Timothy and Rhidian. Timothy has an average height and has brown hair, Rhidian has blonde hair and a short but well-built body.
Dinner consists of soup that tastes like watered down chicken and some strange looking roots. While eating, Timothy begins a conversation.
“You, why did you come here, because of you, the tosians know that we are here!” He gives me an angry glare, the fire reflected in his eyes making him look even more threatening.
“Hey leave her alone, she didn’t know what was here,” said Rhidian.
They both glare at each other for a second then finally Timothy breaks the silence.
“I know, but still… Okay so what is your name?”
“Madeline.”
“Well Madeline, sense you got us into this mess, after surviving here for three years without them finding out about us, you have to help us fight them.” Madeline notes how he says “them” in a disgusted voice. “We need to get your shuttle to leave and that is in their headquarters. It won’t be that hard, we don’t trust them so all we have to do is fight then get your shuttle and leave. Alright?” says Timothy.
“Alright,” said Madeline. She thought that this plan had been said too fast to have been just thought up, she wondered if he had been thinking about this in the three year span they had been on the planet.
“Hey,” Jennifer says, “That’s a little rushed isn’t it?”
Rhidian and Jack nod in agreement. There is some silence for a few minutes but it ends when Timothy says “Hey, don’t you want to go back home, see your family, change the world with what we have discovered?”
“Yeah but maybe we can try to communicate.”
“How do you think we will do that? We don’t know their language and they don’t know ours. There is no other way besides this.”
The humans sit in silence, staring into the fire until Jack finally says that they should go to bed if they do decide to go to battle in the morning and that they should all sleep on the idea.
That night Madeline has a horrific nightmare where she is fighting the tosians and when she stabs them, their multicolored blood splatters all over her. She then tries to scream but their blood fills her mouth tasting sweet, she gags. She gasps for air and finally wakes up. Luckily, she doesn’t scream, that is the last thing she needs, to wake up Timothy and get him madder than he already is at her and she doesn’t know how the others will feel if they are awoken by a scream.

The next day, when everyone has awoken, they talk about what they should do.
“Well we can’t stay, they know we are here now.” Says Jennifer.
The rest of the group nods in agreement.
“But we can’t ask them for the shuttle,” Rhidian said, “we can’t communicate!”
Timothy can’t just sit there and watch anymore “Like I said, the only option we have is to fight!”
Everyone agrees, that is the only way that they can go back to Earth, they must fight.
The group plans the fight. The plan is to try to sneak toward the room where the shuttle is kept until they need to fight, simple. They make the plan over breakfast. Madeline wondered where they got the food and how they knew that it wasn’t poisonous. It consisted of some odd looking red and pink plants and some animal that Madeline could not identify. The group will go together. Timothy is excited to finally get off the planet and back home, but the others just don’t want to kill anyone, they were trained to go into outer space, no to kill and fight! This thought lingered in their heads for the majority of the walk.
They walk toward the headquarters, fast but not too fast, they need to save energy. Their faces show no determination, but some echo of the remembrance, of home that is the only thing that is driving them to do this. The group also only brings what they need, if their plan went well, they would get to the shuttle and be able to survive the trip home and no battle will commence. They take the same trek back as they did to get to the cave. Soon they are at the headquarters, a large white building with a lot of long, wide arches around the windows and doors paths go from the city to headquarters twisting and turning like noodles on a plate. The group lines up on the wall, Timothy first, Madeline last. The wall is smoother than glass and is frictionless. Timothy watches for any tosians, but none come so they enter the building. They are in the same hallway that goes off into many turns. Madeline questions how they will ever find the room with her shuttle. Somehow Timothy seems to know the way to the chamber where the shuttle is kept, so the group follows, all of thinking the same thing; I hope no tosians come, except for Timothy, who wants one of them to come so that he can get sweet, sweet revenge. They all also wonder how Timothy knows these confusing passageways. Madeline thinks that he was studying the passageways so that he could one day fight this battle. He truly hated the tosians; he didn’t trust them even in the slightest bit.
When walking cautiously down a long passageway, the group of humans hear the clickity clack of the tosians walking down the passageway. They encounter a few scientists, there are about five of them, most of them were brightly colored. It’s time for them to fight. Weapons fly, it seems that none of them have guns, the humans had to create weapons when they arrived to hunt but with the advanced technology of the tosians, Madeline wondered why they didn’t have guns. But no time for wondering now, the battle is getting intense. It seems to be a blur, Madeline barely knows what is happening, all she knows is that bodies and weapons are flying, moving at such a fast pace. The group is not wining the fight so far against the tosians; there are about ten tosians and five humans the odds for them are not that good. The tosians push them further and further from where they need to be. Madeline looks back where the battle had begun, she sees no dead bodies, but blood with hoof and boot prints. She is happy for no one has died but in the moment that she looked back, she felt a sharp pain in her side, a yelp escapes her throat. She quickly grabs her left side, she feels blood running down her side to her leg. She had been stabbed.
Filled with horror, she tries to move back, away from the battle, but Rhidian grabs her, he shouts over the noise of the battle, “We can’t lose track of you!”
They are forced out of the building, still moving back, onto the field, to a flat rocky terrain. Madeline has lost a lot of blood, the edges of her vision are going black. Soon they are backed onto the edge of a cliff. Now Madeline is being held by Jack, her body was starting to fail her, becoming a wad of noodles. What shall they do, they will be killed, captured or fall for sure. The humans stumble off the cliffs edge, the rocks crumbling from under their feet. They closed their eyes, not sure if they wanted to meet death. They all feel the sensation of falling. But only after a few seconds of falling, something catches them. A sudden rush of relief overwhelms them. But what caught them, they didn’t expect, it was the tosians! They were pulled up to find an orange man smiling at them. The smile he gave was unexpected and kind. But what was even more unexpected was that he said hello to them in plain English. They had found a man who did know of the human race and they communicated.

“I am sorry if we frightened you. It had all been a misunderstanding; I was on vacation so the scientists had no way to contact me.” The orange man’s warm smile turns into a frown, sadness flooding into his eyes. “If I had been here, this blood bath would not have happened.” He lowers his head a little.
Madeline couldn’t help but be angry at the orange man for not being here to stop this from happening but she couldn’t feel that angry at the moment, the blackness from the corners of her eyes was now starting to leak into the centers as well. She needed medical attention fast. When the tosians finally realize this, she is rushed to a hospital. By the time she gets to the hospital, she is out cold. After a few weeks, she was released from the hospital and they made the arrangements to leave. Daughter
“Okay, here is your shuttle,” said the orange tosain, “do you need anything else?”
“What we need is for you to shut up and just let us leave.” Timothy mumbles under his breath.
“No, I think we will be fine, we have a stock of food in the shuttle that should last long enough to keep us feed for the 8 years back.” Madeline answers. Timothy glares at Madeline, how can she be so kind to those animals? The humans walk into the shuttle. They can’t wait to go back home. They did indeed trust the tosians now; the tosians and them were friends with Earth and the human race; they had now gotten each other’s trust now, though Timothy still didn’t trust them, Madeline did and she planned on telling Earth about them and their wonders. She would in fact return again.



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