Two months later…
Stanley was worried. His partner was always a workaholic but he never worked himself to death. Ray Sutherland was getting worse by the day. Project Black Star was a dead end. It seemed like a bad joke played on them. If it was proven to be authentic it could be the first recorded extraterrestrial lithography. However the energy signal that it continued to give off was the reason that they were there, working their bones off in the desert with the piece of black unknown metal.
General Windsor was in-charge of the research facility and supervised the works regarding Project Black Star. Though not a genius when it came to science he had his fair share of MITs and research in various fields. Ray Sutherland and Stanley Pfeiffer were to brief him on their progress. He was a large man with bushy eyebrows and a fatherly smile. “So scientists, how far have you reached from calling quits on this project.”
It was Stanley who spoke. “The steady energy signal that comes from this metal piece is a time varying high frequency periodic disturbance of the nature of a pulsar radiation. Dr. Sutherland feels that it may be an intergalactic transmitter. It remains to be seen what it transmits. For the last one month we have studied the nature of the energy disturbance and have tried our best to reproduce the signal oscillation. That time varying energy disturbance has been formatted as a laser which we plan to impinge on the black star. My dear friend believes that the forced oscillation may be enough to get the transmitter into working condition.”
All this while Ray was busy making adjustments on the gigantic laser gun assembled to open the intergalactic teleportation portal that Ray believed was the key to space travel. You couldn’t travel the distance because of speed limitation so why not bend the distances. If gravity could bend light it could also bend the distances. Just the force had to be strong enough. And there were so many instances of strong forces inter atomic and at quark level. All that was needed was to reproduce that force. If this piece of alien technology could achieve that there were a limitless number of possibilities ahead of them and Ray Sutherland would have etched a place for himself in the history of human progress. He would then have a place of belonging upon the world.
Love had eluded Ray for most of his life. His parents loved one another but the love rarely got transferred to the orphan they had adopted. He had witnessed love for most of his life without getting the slightest chance of experiencing it. He remembered catching his high school sweet heart in bed with his best friend. That experience had further hardened him towards relationships. Now he was even more convinced. Maybe he was not destined for love. But he was destined for immortality.
The laser gun fired up to strike the black star. It was a moment of great expectation for him. A minute passed, then two. The black star went on absorbing the laser energy without the slightest of change. After fifteen minutes the experiment was called off. Ray couldn’t believe that his theories had failed, not that he had plain proof of what that box was but the energy signal had been so distinct. As Stanley went to secure the equipment Ray headed towards the bull’s eye where the star was kept. He knew that the block should be at fusion temperature after absorbing that amount of energy. Still in his disappointment he did not care. When Ray absentmindedly reached out to touch the block he did not feel any heat. Rather he felt cold. The black star was sucking all the energy into it. Just as he realized that he heard some commotion in the control room where Stanley and the General was. He turned to look at the viewing pane on fire. There had been a short circuit in the equipment. He had to reach the control room to rescue his friend but before he could move the laser fired again passing through him to the black star.
Ray should have undergone spontaneous combustion. He should have turned to dust or vapor at that extreme temperature. Instead the laser passed through him without even the slightest tickle. He stood aside watching the beam of laser as it aimed for the star. The fire in the control room had consumed the view pane. Ray turned towards the door that led to the control room when he heard a louder noise behind him.
When Ray turned to see the star his greatest dreams had been realized. The portal had opened and dense black smoke came through. The black smoke was spreading out all around him in thin tendrils absorbing all the daylight that stood in mid day. Ray could feel the chill as it spread from the portal. As he watched the darkness spread he noticed that his line of vision had drastically reduced. The darkness was not just engulfing light but also matter and space. Then from the portal stepped out a creature, a man, or rather a humanoid from whose shoulders spread wide were dark wings, like that of the raven. On his forehead was a crown of black thorns. He had black shoulder length hair and pitch black eyes. His torso was covered with tattoos with writings in the same script as there were on the black star. He appeared taller than Ray but leaner and meaner. From his eyes the darkness spread around.
Ray had forgotten to breathe in his fear. He was always afraid of darkness and this creature was darkness personified. But the darkness was closing around him. He couldn’t keep his eyes open. At that moment the laser gun fired again breaking through the blanket of darkness. Ray looked back to see a half burnt Stanley manning the laser console. Blood oozed from the burn wounds over his eyes. Ray decided to make a run for the control room. Taking the fire extinguisher from beside the entrance he went upstairs to put out the fire. Ray found the General dead and Stanley barely alive. The other technicians in the laboratory all lay unconscious. From the control room Ray could hear the sound of engines as enforcement reached the research site. Ray also felt the chill as the cold darkness approached them further.
Ray knew that he had to overcome his fears for the sake of his friends. He knew he had to take action. Ray supported Stanley through the back door. An ambulance had arrived equipped with life support and the rest. Ray instructed the rescue team on the situation in the control room and with the military guards went to face the extra terrestrial creature.
The creature had by then managed to disarm the laser and was air borne. Ray remembered that the light harmed the creature and he managed to get hold of a concave glass and focused the sunlight on the creature. That managed to get the creatures attention that swooped down ready to attack Ray. The military had been told to be alert to grab the creature as he posed a national or worse, a global threat to security. The military latched on to the creatures legs as the creature latched on to Ray’s throat.
Thus, all in embrace, the creature took to flight. Ray felt the chill as the darkness of the creature spread through him but the creature was moving sunwards and the darkness formed a tail like that of a comet. Ray barely surfaced above it. But the temperature started to get cooler and cooler till Ray could feel ice prickling his skin. He managed to look down through the corner of his eyes and saw the soldiers gradually lose their grip and fall to their death.
Ray was soaring through the clouds now in the death grip of a flying monster. Logic told him he should have been dead. Science told him he should have suffocated by now, his senses should have failed him and his limbs should have numbed but he was alert and active. Through his adrenaline rush he finally managed to croak “Who…What are you?”
“I am death. I am darkness. I am Samael.” So saying the creature let go of the grip on his neck and Ray plunged headlong into the clasp of certain death.