The heat was intense. The orange light shone on the desert, drying up the remaining puddles of water into vapour, rising into the atmosphere. A lizard crawled slowly, almost dying, parched and with a hide so leather like, one would think it was crisp fried.
Slowly, I heard the intense ringing of the siren. Waaang waaaang waaang. It was time to get inside our shelters. The shelters were not made of concrete. Unlike the olden days, concrete was the material of choice. All buildings were once made from stone, from cement mixed with water to form hard solid blocks. What was once a cacophony of gray buildings were mere shards of smooth stones, there edges melted away by the intense heat.
My ears rang with the sound of the siren, blaring loudly under the orange winter sun. Oh wait, winter, no, there has been no winter for two decades. After the last snow, everything seemed to just turn orange and wilt. The rain still came however, with a twice a year visit of sparse showers at best.
Everyone ran, as quick as they could to the hide. The hide is the shelter we now know. It is made literally of cow hide, rough brownish leather which can keep heat away without melting. It smelled though of cooking flesh.
But, before this dry arid vision consumes you, let me tell you something, my home wasn’t like this once. It was once cool, lush with water flowing in every crack and crevice. One can hear the ripple of water through the smooth rocks. Plants thrived, with their green leaves filled with so much water we drank from them. Animals abounded in our forests, and they were not thirsty at all. They were plump, healthy and in the pink of health. We were the lucky planet, the place of life as they call it.
Through the years, we thought we were invincible. We humans are the best among the species in the planet. Among the planetary awards, our place always bagged the most liveable place trophy. And with that, we thought we can do anything. Our factories produced goods endlessly. The products were then shipped by the aeropods into space. All other planetary organisms ordered from us. The industrial areas worked non-stop. It was filled with the sound of whirring machines day in and day out. The soot that came out was as black as night. But we figured out how to clean it. We planted more trees. The trees breathed in the sooty smelly air. It cleaned the atmosphere.
We had cars, cars that burned fuels. When they said it was a bad thing to do, we converted our fuels. Coal burning was bad, they said. It burned pollutants in the atmosphere. It just made us sick. So our scientists figured a way to replace coal. They converted the hydrogen from water molecules into fuel. It was brilliant. The cars never used fossil fuels anymore. Gasoline stations slowly lost clients and the fuel industry died a natural death. But we were too happy about it.
We lived a life of natural luxury. Our ancestors were used to man-made amenities. They lived in buildings, in air conditioned rooms with synthetic plants and even more fake food. Ours was a different era. We combated global warming. We were able to control the earth’s temperature.
They travelled into Mars, into Jupiter, searching for life. Mars was a red rocky planet. It had traces of air and water, frozen into its oasis. Jupiter was cold, it was not horribly cold, but isolating. It was full of cool snowy air. Jupiter had a belt that served as a stabilizer. It was an electromagnetic belt which polarized the meteors and other wayward particles and planets. The asteroid belt sandwiched between Mars and Jupiter was repelled by the electromagnetic space surrounding Jupiter. Our astronauts ventured into Neptune and the place was freezing. Unlike Jupiter, Neptune’s exterior was just solid. It was made of hard rocky ice. It had no air, and the scientists felt like they were suffocating in a freezer. They visited all these Earthly neighbours. However, their search was fruitless. There was no life within the Milky Way.
Life existed in other planets though, and that was our generation’s achievement. But how did our scientists figured it out? It was through the recordings made in the Hubble Telescope. Light radiated from the surface which was caught by the huge planetary binoculars we had. When the scientists analyzed the light, they discovered a pattern. The pulsating recordings had a rhythm. It was strong at times, and weakened during certain periods. It seemed to be highly felt during night time, when the earth turned its back from the sun.
Then the scientists discovered a new galaxy, just after the Milky Way, farther from the sun, but liveable nonetheless. To say that it was not fit for life was an underestimation, for life forms thrived in the planet. We call them life forms, they call themselves Molecules. The molecules were shapeless blobs which had its own brain. It has a neural center which communicates with all other Molecules in the planet. They all looked the same, but they had different temperaments. Some molecules created food, the others cleaned the planet, some guarded it from invaders and so on. But they were so attuned to each other that they always worked in sync.
Our scientists communicated with them through a neural port, which translated earth language into a form they could comprehend. We were not better than them, we were so similar. But them, they were a kind of one big family. They were sensitive to each other’s needs that if one molecule gets sick, another molecule will be activated from its hibernation state to replace the missing molecule.
They were billions too, just like us. Since they were so interconnected, they feel each other. Thus they feared war or any other form of conflict. They knew that when one molecule shall die a violent death, the feeling will ripple across the planet and the wave of grief may crippler the planet.
Their place was so beautiful, majestic actually. It was so clean one can survive without water. The air was so humid yet it was cold. It had a lot of vapour making it a sort of sticky coldish air. One can simply open his mouth or opening and the air will melt into water. They were the utopia humans dreamed of.
With that, we grew envious. We felt more entitled to their planet. We felt that we were wrongly placed in earth. We knew we can easily extinguish their kind. We kill a group, their whole planet will be dysfunctional. They grieve together, they feel as one unit.
Our then world leader Mister Sparks, encouraged by the push of humans envisioned of owning planet Molecule. Of course, humans didn’t know that Molecules can be easily killed since they live as one big group. Our world leaders simply promised us that the planet will be our planet too. We were ecstatic. We can live in a parallel universe, but so much better, so much more beautiful, so much healthier.
Scientists were sent into planet Molecule. Rockets were deemed antiquated. They used a new kind of propulsion mechanics to bring these pods into space. Instead of using fire and combustion to propel the pods, they were brought into space using sonar sound waves. Sound which travelled at a limited speed was infused with more electromagnetic ions. The ions increased the speed of sound, it became so fast, it was inaudible. The human ears can only catch so much sound waves. With these elctrosonar launchers, the sound barely whizzed into our ears. It was surprisingly quiet, too silent that you would never know a pod was already in its trajectory into space.
Moreover, using trajectory mechanics, the pods moved faster. Instead of flying upwards, it flew into the earth’s diameter, moving across the planet smoothly gliding onto space. That way, less energy was consumed. The energy spent as we all know was either converted or lost into space. With the conservation theory, the kinetic energy of the pod became potential energy, stored into space, increasing spatial mass of the universe. The parallel trajectory travel lessened the energy being pumped out of the pods and onto the universe.
Upon landing in the planet of the molecules, the pods were silent. It barely made an impact. Indeed parallel trajectory was the thing of the present, obliterating vertical forceful upwards travel.
The scientists were first friendly to the molecules. Nobody told them they were to possess the beautiful planet, but I instinctively knew. I was powerless however. My father was president, I am Ayra Stark. But I was always the obedient, chubby yet frail bespectacled daughter, the one hiding behind the curtains, literally, for fear of being called intrusive.
What they did was unthinkable, but apparently too safe. They fed the molecules with the compound cholesterol. The human scientists added the substance into their liquid source. To us, it was water, for them, it was a plasmic kind of matter. Believing that the cholesterol will help them be more active for it increased stored calorie and acted as an energy source, the scientists without doubt infused their plasmic liquid with cholesterol.
Cholesterol was a compound which helped humans function. But, large doses of it caused stroke and heart attack. For molecules, it immobilized them. It made them sluggish, eventually retiring to their own deaths from exhaustion.
One by one, the molecules grew in size. They were too heavy that they were unable to glide around their planet, lest accomplish their assigned tasks. One by one, they died in their sleep. They went to their beds happy, full, just as humans after a hearty oily delicious meal. On the day after however, they were unable to wake up. First there were ten molecules, then twenty, then fifty. The increase was exponential, for they felt grief when one of their kindred died.
It took a short span of 5 months to exterminate their species. They died from cholesterol overdose and from overflowing grief. It was two pronged, both their physical and mental health were affected. But they were blissfully unaware with the cause. Their genius thinkers were unable to solve the dilemma for they were all emotionally united. With pain in their hearts, even their strongman was unable to think. Their thoughts were clouded with so much pain and tears.
When the last Molecule went to sleep, it was almost five months too when the last human scientist left. The scientists were unaware, much less knowledgeable that the Molecules would die from the compound they have infused into their liquid. They thought they were saviours, messiah for the race.
That was when the problem began. We thought the new planet would give us life. We thought it would allow humans to live. We were wrong, but we realized it too late. We abandoned earth, happy and delighted that we were moving into another place. It felt like moving from the Block into the Hamptons. We felt like it was an upgrade.
Indeed it was, but not for long. We left earth and left the planet to die and rot. We all moved to the bigger Molecule planet. We went happily with our human ways. We move around a lot, without feeling for each other. We did our own bidding. We built homes, buildings, factories. We sculpted their planet to look like our original hometown the earth.
What we didn’t know was that we were expending too much excess onto the atmosphere. The molecules glided and moved slowly. They moved in unison, sensitive to each other’s needs and emotions. We humans simply moved our merry way. We lacked the care for each other. We were isolated islands of emotions, surviving for our own pleasure and need. What we didn’t know was that we stirred atmospheric ions.
The reason we found out too late for their slow, glided, sensitive movements was that it was meant to keep atmospheric pressure. The ions in the air were sensitive. It was made of photons from the sun.
Planet Molecules was farther from the sun, as compared to the earth. Electromagnetic rays barely reached its surface. But with its electromagnetic band, it attracted photons onto its surface. The photons moved clumsily in the air, like invisible pockets of heat. These little pockets provided warmth to the planet. The movement released energy sufficient to keep the planet liveable, to prevent ice from forming and repelled other polar ions from its surface. In fact, the planet was one big mass of photons. It was like a stable photon ball.
What kept it stable however was the slow, slight movements on its surface. There were no repetitive pounding, loud sounds or big movements that disrupted the balance of energy at the surface. It was a stable photon sphere held together by an electromagnetic band of ions.
We were really unable to fathom this. The photons seemed like normal air molecules. Nobody, as newbies with a few months from setting foot on the new planet dared measure the mass of the air molecule. Had we endeavoured to do so, we would have discovered that these photons moved differently. They weighed heavier as compared to the normal atmospheric mass on earth. Further, they moved quickly, with repetitive shaky motions and little spaces in between.
Human activity disrupted these photons. The endless bouncing of humans on the planet created so much energy which powered these photons. They became energized, absorbing the kinetic energy emitted by the movements of human beings.
With that, these photons were able to move past the electromagnetic field band. They overcame the energy barrier that they literally jumped out of the planet and became attracted into the sun, its original source. With that, the radiation photons from the sun likewise moved with the photons. They were attracted to each other, they formed a stream of moving light particle infused with energy. They appeared like Brownian motion streams. They were chaotic but formed a single band of light.
It was fortunate if they only attracted light, sort of forming a spotlight shining upon the planet. But alas no, for it attracted the particles from the sun’s corona. It was like an unstoppable force of nature. It seemed like a magnet. The photons activated the other photons and eventually the corona particles. The corona particles were so hot that any organism it touched did not have a chance to burn. Burning was a sign of slow combustion. The corona which touched matter simply obliterated the matter, without a sign of smoke, no sign of its past existence.
The photons thus called the corona particles onto the surface of the planet. Fortunately, the electromagnetic band was still strong enough to repel these particles. They had the same negative charge and through the law of magnetic, these particles barely penetrated the surface. But it activated some sun storms inside. The increased destabilization of the sun allowed it to form whirring particles that swirled with so much energy, each time, releasing another group of photons. Thus, the sun storms.
And now, there is a sun storm and we have to hide. We burrowed deep into the hide, and under the planetary structure. Beneath the planet was a sphere filled with ice. The ice refused to melt, not for the lack of heat, but for the excessive pressure felt above. It was a solid piece of cold cave. The photon’s weight kept the ice from melting. The liquid became so packed with each other that it didn’t budge, thus the icy form. However, it was not made of water. It was made of plasma. It was solid cold plasma.
Deep inside the hide, we cover ourselves with fur, and with some cholesterol jackets. These jackets were sewn and infused with cholesterol. The cholesterol kept our temperature within the normal range. Cold and huddled we waited for help deep in our hearts. We were praying that some ship carrying mortals would arrive in whatever form or shape to at least lend us some warmth. But we knew we were desperate, hopeless, for we have killed our only kin, the Molecules.
The earth was in no way inhabitable now. We left it in ruins. It decayed. All structures were eaten by the ground below, from dust to dust. Water dried up. The plants didn’t bloom. We thought it would fix itself, sort of have its own antidote to reverse the damage done. But earth became too weak. The years of abuse left its mark on the once perfect planet.
After the sunstorm subsided, I tried to radio earth as always. With the ions still lingering in the air, I know I can get signal across. You see, the ions were electromagnetic thus it boosted the signal a thousand times, allowing waves to travel onto space quickly. While sun storms were a terrible disturbance we didn’t pray to consume our worst enemy, the after storm allowed us to harness energy. No two sun storms occur, consecutively. Since it is a result of corona photons being attracted to photons in the planet, it takes a considerable amount of time for sufficient energy to build up and create a storm. Usually it will take at least 30 days before the next storm may occur. Having had stayed in the planet for less than 6 months, sun storms disrupted our lives about once a month.
“ Radio earth, radio earth”, whispered, not expecting any response. It was my habit to do the same thing after each storm, yet I do not assume any good would come from this. It was like a ritual for me, a way to bring normalcy into my life.
I heard a buzzing sound, pzzzzt, pzzzzt. It sounded strange. It was the first time I heard some static sound. Usually, it was pure silence. It was nothing but dead air. This time though, I heard a whizzing sound, like that of electricity crackling.
I focused and repeated my calls. Then miraculously, a voice responded. “Earth earth”, it said. I was dumbfounded. My hopes though were quickly pulled aside when my brother suddenly jumped at me and retorted
“That’s a recording, Ayra”.
I shrugged my shoulders and went back to the room, cleaning the space debris that flew into the windows of our house, when the storm brewed outside. I picked up pictures of us in Earth, all scattered on our dusty brown floor. I was about to wipe the dust clinging onto the mirror when there was another voice in the room.
“earth earth”
I was startled. Then the voice continued.
“Earth, this is not a recording, we are humans. If anyone there can hear us, please send help. We are dying along with the death of the planet”
Quickly, i ran onto the dusty brown stairs, not knowing what to think. I knocked loudly on my parents room and panting, I told my father, the leader that there are survivors. My father, old and weary didn’t seem so delighted. He was far from the earth leader everyone knew. With the relocation as a mistake, nobody blamed him for it. But everyone knew it was the strongman, my father who ordered everyone to move into this planet. For fear of a civil uprising, the military dissolved itself, with soldiers retreating as civilians, bent on surviving the horrors of Planet Molecule.
My dad hunched his shoulders and stayed silent. I prodded though, telling him that I do believe these are real survivors and would need help. I radioed earth once again, asking for their location. The humans, as I thought that time responded.
“We are here in the African dessert. Everything else has dried up, but this part of the earth remained watery, too watery we might die”.
I was stunned. How can everything else dry up and one part of the earth remain full of liquid water. I shook my head for answers.
“dad, we have to help them”, I said.
My father waived his hand, as if dismissing me yet at the same time, permitting me to do my bidding. I jumped inside the pod and with the ions still in the air, travel was faster. Through parallel trajectory, I was able to reach earth in about a day, which was once thought impossible.
When I reached the African plains, I saw the water with my two eyes. It was like a vast isolated ocean sitting in the middle of the planet, everything else remaining barren. I landed the pod quietly on the beach. As walked out of the pod, a little child, about 4 years of age held my hand and brought me to a cave. There people were huddled. They were about a hundred, perhaps a thousand.
I came to leader, the guy who brought a large axe-like weapon with him, inquiring as to what happened.
“Planet molecules happened”, he retorted. When we decided to invade the planet, we killed their inhabitants. Little did we know that we are both needed to bring balance to this universe. The presence of humans on the new planet disrupted the ions in the air, creating energy that rippled into the solar system. With the black hole, the energy was sucked out, but the black hole did not expand. The energy allowed it to contract. There was so much pressure that pushed the hole together, its opening becoming smaller and smaller in diameter”.
I was stunned. Little did I know that the ions had an after effect in the universe after all.
He continued, “The destabilization created ripples of the same effect throughout the universe. We increased the free energy available, but it was not converted or absorbed by the black hole after all. The creation was faster than the rate of conversion and absorption. As a result, even the earth was destabilized”
I responded “How did that happen?”
The ions changed the position of the moon and the earth relative to the sun. Gravity as a result has a weaker pull, as compared to when everything was in its proper place. This created more weakness in the tectonics and more frequent earthquakes. Some quakes were weak, some were strong, but the constancy shifted the orientation of the earth’s crust. Once the crust was in different places, scattered with 7 seven oceans in between. Now the crust is one big plate surrounded by one vast deep ocean. We are now here hiding beneath the cave for fear that when the crust moves again, it might break up and we will all drown.”
Little did I know that I was already in tears. I felt shaken. I thought there were no humans in earth after all. But our species was well and alive in the planet.
The leader continued with a deep pause. “Can you help us?”.
Wracking my brains, I had an idea, but I wasn’t sure. “Maybe if we try to stabilize the ions again, the energy level in the universe will likewise not be volatile. This way, we can stop the sun from scattering its photons all over the place. Maybe we can conserve energy, or more of, prevent it from increasing”
I drew something on the cave floor. “I have an idea. What if we try to disrupt the free ions, that they will move so quickly then with that very fast movement, it will release its energy, then the black hole will absorb it. With the pressure, the black hole will then completely close, eating with it the excessive kinetic energy. To disrupt the free ions, we can create soundwaves across space. To do that, we stomp our feet in unison, along with those humans from the other side of the universe.
I haven’t really tested my idea yet, but I had some faith that it would work. As my father always said, you wouldn’t know until you do it. Quickly, I radioed my father and relayed to him my plan. The resigned leader that he was, he was willing to try everything to undo the chaos he has created in the molecular level.
Stomp, stomp, stomp, we moved our feet in unison, like a marching band singing along with a death march. The sunstorm happened in the other side of the Universe. They hid beneath their hides, but they never stopped stomping their feet. We, those who were in earth likewise marched, like soldiers on a final battle hymn. The earth shook, the plates moved, the oceans roared. The ions can be felt, like heavy invisible beads pressing onto our skin. Then suddenly, everything just went still. We stopped too.
I ventured outside and radioed my dad. “Dad, can you please ask some scientists there if they can check the black hole”
After a good few minutes, my father radioed back, but with a weaker signal. “It has closed Ayra, the black hole is gone. It seemed eerily still in space.”
I felt like a black cloud had been lifted above my shoulders. The universe has been stabilized, I said to myself. I felt afraid too. Without the ions floating in space, travel cannot be as quick. Parallel trajectory travel would not be possible anymore, at least not in a quick time. I might need a few months in my pod before I can reach my family in Planet Molecules.
I felt warm hot tears falling from my cheeks. I was home. My pod landed in Planet Molecules. Everyone was awaiting my arrival. I was the hero. I couldn’t help crying. I whispered to my father, who hugged me tightly, sobbing.
Dad, we need to be united to accomplish something. We need each other. Each organism serves a purpose in this universe. No matter how trivial or dumb a thing or living matter may appear, it has a purpose and is irreplaceable.
My dad seemed to agree, he hugged me tighter.
In our house the next day, I cannot believe I was able to solve this with one simple formula. Unity. We were united in out goal to stabilize the universe, we knew we had to help each other. We knew we cannot do it alone. We knew we were wrong. So if ever we find another life form again hidden in the crevices of this universe, we knew we will respect it. No matter how unpleasing it may look, how slow it may move, we knew it has the same footing as us humans. We are not special. We are but dusts in this wide vast universe.
Definition of Terms
Planetary Characteristics
Mars a rocky planet that is red and has deposits of water and air pockets
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the sun which has a band of asteroids surrounding it
Neptune is a cold planet which has frozen water and an inhabitable environment
Propulsion and Orbital Mechanics
Parallel trajectory is movement that does not follow that of a parabola
Brownian Motion is the movement of particles which tends to be chaotic but still has order
Plasma is termed the fourth kind of matter which is neither solid nor liquid
Sun and Space Weather
Corona is the outer area of the sun
Sun Storms are storms which brew in the surface of the sun due to intense pressure being released
Photons are the particles that make up light
Destabilization is the increase in energy of a substance or entity which results to greater particle movement
