Victory With No Survivor

Through a half-open eyelid, I was able to see the all-white surrounding. Bright with white walls, white curtains, white furniture, and a white door, the room smelled like ethanol and esters. It was so hard to open my eyes that it felt like tones of weight was loaded on my shutters. Ignoring the difficulty I summoned all my strength and forced open my eyes to see a white man with a white beard and white hair standing by my side and smiling widely.

Why is everything here white?"Hello!" he said in a baritone voice. It took me a few minutes to concentrate my wondering eyes on his giant figure and my ears on his words. A dim hello slipped out of my pale lips by default and the next question was "where am I?" The man grinned like it was the most obvious question (It really was.) and replied genially "It is a hospital. But don't worry you are absolutely fine. You would like to know that you were sleeping for the last 2 days". What? Was I? Really?

Suddenly my mind dragged me on the timeline when I was completely mesmerized by the site of a black hole while I was moving towards it for a head-on collision. But the memory fainted again as I laid more stress to remember. Yes! It was a black hole and I am an astronaut ( or was?) but now I was in a hospital with an all-white interior. Is this heaven? Is he THE GOD standing beside me? But immediately I was pulled back to wherever I was by a needle that pierced my skin and made its way to one of my blood vessels. I was obviously in a hospital, and if not then why is THE GOD giving me an injection? Slowly I was again feeling dizzy but not tired or exhausted but as if I was drugged. As soon as my eyes shut I was at the mouth of the black hole, which was not at all black, (I was surprised at the discovery) heading into it.

"I was in my BAM3 spacecraft when my jaw fell at the sight of millions of shades of the spectrum twinkling before my eyes as if peeking at me through the dense gases. Lasers of monochromatic light were bending inside the hole. I was literally creeping into the hole. It was as if the hole itself wanted me to click snapshots of the mystical view as a probe for the dumb creature, sitting umpteen light years apart and claiming that the black hole was the most horrible phenomenon ever existed. As I was moving closer to the huge ball of gases at the center of the hole my speed was increasing exponentially and I was able to feel the pressure. It was like my arteries and veins are going to burst and soon I will be shattered into pieces."

I opened my eyes to see a new and young face sitting in front of me. He was carrying a digital notepad. Suddenly I felt an urge to drink water so I turned around in its search. I didn't know why my throat was so dry but it felt like I had just delivered a 1000 words speech. As soon as I got hold on the glass, the young boy said enthusiastically "You are such a good narrator". It clicked like a piece in my puzzle, when he muttered those words.

"Was I actually dictating the whole incident to you? Why am I feeling dehydrated? How did you do that?"

The boy's irregular teenage voice replied "Its just simple medical hypnosis"

"What" I exclaimed.

"We just injected a drug in your blood that made you hypnotized." (It seemed really simple this way)

"But there is no such drug !"

"There is. Ok, leave this and take rest. It will make you recover and remember fast."

Now I was really panicking. There were a lot of questions in my mind. Where I was? How did I get here? What happened to me in the black hole? Why is everything here white? Why is this youngster pretending to be so knowing? Noticing the wrinkles on my forehead, the boy said calmly " Its all right. You need not worry."

"But I want to know what is happening."

"Then listen" he murmured with a sigh.

"Its twenty-second century and you have time traveled?" My eyes widened reflecting mixed emotions of confusion and surprise. He continued " As per your description and my research you had accidentally entered a black hole while you were on a space expedition ." I nodded in consent ."According to the improved version of cosmic censorship theory an astronaut, who entered a black hole, might not hit the 'singularity' and instead fall through a wormhole and come out in another region of the universe. This would offer great possibilities of space and time travel."

" What's the 'singularity' ?" My eyes were still wide.

"It is the dense mass of gases you saw at the center."

"Oh!"

His eyes twinkled as he continued, "And you are the first person to witness the naked singularity"

"But time travel is just a chimera." I was quite surprised by my choice of words.

" No, it's not. In our time it's quite normal."

"Can I go out?" The boy pulled his childish face up surprised. From my childhood, I was a science freak. I loved reading about the future, time travel, and time machines. That was probably a reason for me becoming an astronaut and know I am myself in the future. The boy chimed in between my thoughts, "You seem very excited. So you can go out but remember not to take much stress as I am waiting for you to continue the description."

"Yes " I said and slipped out of the bed. Immediately I turned to the boy "Can you please guide me."

The boy stood up apologizing and guided me through the doorway, a staircase and a passageway to the main reception. The hospital didn't seem any special to me. It was just like other hospitals of the twenty-first century. But as I stepped outside the hospital's main door I was completely dumbstruck. It was a dream come true or an oasis or a mirage or a miracle. Whatever it was but I decided to live, the rest of my life, here in this paradise. Huge glass skyscrapers, flying cars, automatic automobiles and robot in the place of humans.

What! all robots? I scanned my surroundings to pinpoint any single human being on the busy street but there wasn't any. Not even a single person except us. My expression changed dramatically from that of pleasure to that of confusion. I turned to face the boy and he immediately understood the reason behind my distress. His face also fell suddenly. He sighed.

"Where are the people?" I questioned.

"It is twenty-second century is very busy to just roam on the streets."His eyes did not meet mine.

"This is no reason. I just can't see a single living cell around me. Why it is so? Where are the birds? Are the birds also very busy to roam in the sky?" I looked up at the sky to witness the darkness spread over my head. The street was lit by small street lights emitting millions of light rays but there was no sun, moon or stars."Is it day or night?".

"Its day." His words send a shiver down my spine. The sky lacking the sun looked like a steel roof. Suddenly a sight of green fields, sparkling water fountains and birds making merry flashed before my eyes. I started feeling homesick. Was this the future? Was this my childhood dream? My train of thoughts was halted by the boy, "You have to lose something to gain something. That's the law of nature."

"But you have lost everything."

"Due to the excessive exploitation of nature our world saw a drastic change in the climatic cycle and due to this, the ozone layer depleted very dangerously. Last year the ozone layer above our head reduced to only 2% and that created a serious threat of numerous diseases. At that time our scientist developed an artificial layer, which you can see, to block the harmful UV-B radiations coming from the sun but because of this we also lost the useful one."

I shivered in horror and now the whole picture came in front of my eyes. This was the future but surely not my childhood dream. I never imagined a future like this. This is not the place where I wanted to live.

"So, are you staying here?"

My heart shrank. This was the time to decide. My mind was swinging back and forth from the trees to the hi-tech skyscrapers to the blinding sun to the flying cars to the twinkling sky and at last to the lifeless street."NO!"

"I don't have time to waste. I have to go back to my time and warn people about the future, about 'a victory with no survivors', about a future with no future of its own ."