Void Travels

(Please be aware that the following content contains body horror and coarse language, do not read if you are squeamish around graphic descriptions of bodily anomalies occurring in disturbing ways).

Fall in

Become one with me

And I shall show you the universe

As you linger in your world no more

A spaceship known as the Atlas sixty-three traverses through the starry darkness in search of its destination. Captain Kirk Hinders sniffs at the sweaty air in the command center, hoping that his stinky crew did not make the foolish decision of missing its coordinates. They’ve been hammering away at their respective navigation systems for the past twenty-four hours. It baffles Captain Hinders how those buffoons could comprehend any of the machinations within the sleek blue computers. Strange how I wake up hearing that crappy poem again. Those scientist kept pressuring the officials to cease this trip after reading a poor sap's last words from reportedly surviving a trip through hell. The captain ponders as he taps on a bulky black tablet to the side of his chair. Feeling the ship’s activity die down, he voices the command: “Activate exploration draft!”

“Activating exploration draft: Indicate when you are ready to begin an investigation”. The detached feminine voice of the AI resounds throughout the ship. It doesn’t surprise Captain Hinders to hear the crew around him gulp in anticipation. I wish my name were on the list, a piece of scum like me deserves to die in obscurity. But who the hell would lead the ship back to Earth in the event of an emergency. The last few years have had a lot of confident space pirates pillaging federation ships for members, food, and the always in demand cash that life necessitates. Its still ridiculous to refuse opportunities for trash management. Captain Hinders presses one of the several buttons on the right arm of his chair.

“Auto Navigation focus turned off. Reactivating Navigation and Trek features.” The Atlas models are primed for fitting items and bodies in than actual space exploration. Those cozy engineers are just as sick as the prison bastards for conceptualizing this deal. The screen alight with numerous numbers, queries, and interactive schematics in blazing neon blue goes black. Brightening up to display the anomaly that his crew is to delve into.

Captain Kirk Hinders gets up from his seat in the center of the command center, not neglecting to set the speakers on, he clears his voice.

“See that beauty right there! That’s the place we have to search in for what those spineless bastards are too scared to do themselves!” Before all of the crew members on the screen is a ghastly swirling mass of darkness swallowing light. An all-consuming spiral that is illuminated by the long stretches of dying light as the last remnants of stars in the path of the endless void. A greedy abyss that is distorting the very space around it, causing fluctuations that contort or twist its size and reach. “Believe it or not, the eggheads back home sent a drone through this hole to see what happens. As you can guess, something happened and that something is another universe. Your asses have a better chance of going to another universe for a clean slate than remaining here or getting caught up in a pirate crew!” Captain Hinders pauses. My military voice still carries enough for these scumbags to listen here and wake up back in the cells. “The first seven teams will be sent in only with their specially designed spacesuits that are said to withstand up to 100 g-force and high degrees of radiation, which is standard for the model wealthy explorers wear! When you hear your name spoken by Lexy, you are to be escorted down to the dock and suit up for the voyage!” No applause is needed save for the air freshener system activating in response to the silent expulsions of methane from the crew.

“Announce the names for the first investigation.” Captain Hinders says calmly aloud.

“Ricky Rennett, Bourbon Dale, Sam Helix, Pendleton Wart, Ryan Custler, Remy Limbus, and Cole Statham. Please report to the docks for investigation duty. Resistance to this order will activate the nerve chips within your body as previously stated at the briefing session.” A click cuts off the speaker and leaves behind silence accompanied with the soft creaking of machinery in the background.

The docks are occupied in a fervor of activity as the shipwrights of the pods do last minute checks on them to ensure efficiency. Pods on the Atlas 63 are not for space travel and are instead meant to act as human cannons for the explorers. Powered by carefully inserted nuclear energy after its mastery in lightspeed tech, they can launch anything through the stars at a wide array of speeds. For the purposes of this investigation…it is set at approximately 60 miles per hour in layman’s terms. What is important in regard to the ship is that it is designed to withstand the specific odd properties of the black hole for six months in reference to earth time. Those limits of the newly developed time-space resistance shields are going to be tested with a meager transport vessel. A strong bout of pressure twists Captain Hinders’ entire abdomen and organs enough for an entire yoga session. Although the Captain is seasoned in traversing through the experimental hyper speed system on top of carefully walking in bone-crushing gravity, there is something odd about this black hole to cause much internal instability. Those nerds did speak of the drone suffering from its innate structure becoming that of an abstract art piece. Still functioning but permanently altered from going through this type of black hole…if it even is one.

The seven participants of differing sizes are in their suits, listening to Officer Fry Brooks, a squat Irish man with red hair, explain once more their suicidal mission. It is no understatement that the Atlas 63 is drifting closer to the black hole in order to properly deploy the first team according to the cosmic aerodynamic schematics. Some might imagine that getting nearer to a supermassive black hole would have no physical effects on the body until the event horizon, but things start to feel funny as Officer Brooks grows to a spine-breaking six foot two from his original five-foot seven height. Neck and back jutting upwards as the rest of the body constricts like a stretched-out wad of gum. The officer grunts and continues with his speech until his Adam’s apple swells to the size of an emu. The sensation of Captain Hinder’s narrow black eyes bulge to the size of basketballs and dwindling to raisins is painful as the distortions cause everybody’s bodies to fluctuate analogous to cartoon characters from the 60s. Before the agony of his once square head swelling to loony proportions takes the captain out, the seven participants are locked into their pods poised to launch. Without any bullshit, Captain Hinders yells with his watermelon size mouth, “FIRE!” And seven loud booms sound off around the pods, reverberating through his elephant ears.

Some of the sights from the docks are appalling to witness for any man. Flesh becoming malleable silly putty to the cosmic forces instead of chunks of ground beef indicates something off to any dickwad knowledgeable about black holes. An English Cadet screams at the sight of his arms bending into an S, an Italian engineer has their hawk nose expand to the size of a football, and a Russian guardsman looks bewildered at his muscular legs moving as coiled plump slinkies. The flaring anguish Kirk Hinders endures from his ailing knees extending vertically to the length of palm trees sends tears down his eyes, as the sensation of the hyaline cartilage tearing apart and refusing to snap is unbelievable. It aches to speak or breathe with his neck extending to an Anaconda’s size as the command to back away from the black hole thunders out of his doughy windpipe.

In a few minutes the crew’s bodies attempt to stabilize back to normal. Officer Brooks did appear slightly taller with a disproportionate spine and the Italian engineer has copious amounts of snot running from a pencil sized nose. Everyone’s body was throbbing hard from the odd experience that might have rearranged every single cell to a volatile degree. The crew went into observation mode which allowed for them to report to the sickbay to manage the symptoms.

Sadly, this is part of our ordeal to endure. I can’t tell if it is worse to volunteer to this mission or for teleporter testing. Kirk Hinders thinks as he heads towards his quarters.

Nothing more to do, than to watch those dead men suffer for science.

Cross-media Records Online. Recovered Neuro-Log

As I hurdle down into that expanse of darkness, I can’t help but see the men flying down with me twist and stretch to great discomfort. Its supposed to be a process called spaghettification but it may be something else as somehow my head has not yet been ripped apart despite getting so close. “I think I am getting closer to seven feet from the incredible back pain!” Statham’s normally brusque tone becomes that of a squeaky teenager getting a wedgie. Not to downplay his pain but my neck is on fire as every muscle around the trapezius is pulled up fiercely. A quick death is too good for us, which might be why this hole is taking its sweet time snapping us apart into finely squeezed parts of atoms.

As the darkness soon overtakes my view, I take increased notice of the fellow bastards speaking on our transmitters for any news. Although the only news there is to get is the strange transformation of our bodies the closer we fall in. Spines becoming long strings of bony taffy, legs turning into dangling strands of beef jerky, appendages straining to remain attached to our lengthy frame. Forget about the stars and the ship seeming to fold in on our view of the hole. The only thing worth noting is the sheer unrelenting pain that overcomes the twisting reality of the situation.

“Oh Shit! My dick is reaching maximum velocity!” The embarrassing sensation of the rod elongating alongside my noodle legs is disorienting without any of the pleasure desired from a dream come true.

Shoulders are crushed as the pressure squeezes me into toothpaste. My hard-earned muscular physique honed for fighting against numerous gang members and killers in the prison yard is being turned to atomized strands of beefy spaghetti. A body that rivals every sports star and fighter…I would have been an official heavyweight if only that bastard hadn’t snitched. “B-back stretching-OH GOD! MY LEGS ARE KILLING ME! THE ARMS ARE USELESS…CAN HARDLY BREATHE…NECK SNAPPING…”

The pain surges to the upmost limit. More than any jumping or beating dished out over my entire life. I can’t even gasp for air as my lungs are probably too narrow to draw oxygen from like blowing into a balloon in a tight fist.

“Everything’s beginning to snap!”

“I’M ABOUT TO POP!”

“I can finally see everything there is in the universe!”

The world around me became an unconscious darkness with us shouting mirthfully at the void for an end to this voyage.

Only a singular laugh answers back.

Captain’s Log

I figure it is time to enact a log of our exploits to circumvent any explanations for failures should the black hole prove fatal for even deployment. Writing while the searing migraine from the encephalic size alterations is surprisingly easy. The Atlas crew has one hour before the next deployment session engages to further damage to our bodies. Even now my right eye has been twitching and bulging occasionally and its been an adjustment to see things further yet closer than before. Grant Manicotti, the Italian engineer, has been dealing with numerous nasal difficulties in leaving behind long strands of snot crusted hair and, in his words, “smelling too much musk.” Which goes hand in hand with Officer Brooks immediately arranging a dating profile upon realizing he is well above six feet. At the cost of his erectus spinae having unstable intervertebral discs that carry the chance of rupturing in strenuous activity. Not that he did much as a short horny military rank climber. Respectfully playing the game while also managing to survive the political landscape. But the most fascinating change occurred to the bodyguard and the Cadet regarding their limbs.

Thanks to them actually going for a quick five-minute bio scan at the medical station, I have gleamed some interesting data. Facts that can prove this “black hole” is not what it seems for everyone on the ship. As if playing with our bodies like mammalian toys.

What this black hole is doing, is manipulating our entire molecular structure while keeping us whole. The Cadet’s arms are as long as a yardstick yet every single cell, tissue, and muscle within them are still in perfect homeostasis to his body. Tiny changes to the organs vital to the creation of blood such as the Russian’s knees becoming enlarged and gaining twenty pounds in bone density are necessary accommodations to their changes.

Could there be someone behind this? Was this planned to occur as a ship wide experiment? Who knows if there is something manipulating the void. All I know is that we have to do these six more times until the Atlas 63 awaits further orders. And we could barely make it through the first time intact.

Everyone was already assembled on the docks, prepared for another bout of heavy pressure from deployment. I march to the viewing platform, struggling to maintain balance with my slightly oval head. Upon reaching the launch site for the pods, the surge of discomfort strikes again. Instead of it enacting erratic changes on my body, it is slow and steady vicissitudes that excruciating my suffering. I once wished for bigger eyes that can pinpoint enemy targets without a scope. Today I would be one of the few humans that experiences what it feels like to have an eyeball inflate to the size of a boulder.

The string muscles attached to the right eyeball are at the breaking point. Every instinct to look around with the optic boulder creates a flash of agony as the extrinsic eye muscles strain to control the rotation. Blinking only squeezes down on the dragged-out muscles and the optic nerve which sends a tortuous shock to the brain. In six unending minutes of my eyeball reaching the size of the monster from a childhood tabletop game, I can see the crew enduring their own torments as I screams for an end. An end brought to the humans automatically with the backup AI program that I had the foresight to initiate. The biggest mistake was not seeing to shortening the retreat sequence to activate from six minutes.

An African man has his left leg slither into a bloated piece of loose twine. The thigh is barely consistent as from the patella downwards blows up as if it’s a water balloon. Curving and stretching uncomfortably until it reaches about ten feet in its swollen length. The same Russian Guardsman that has been documented in the Captain’s log has a new problem dealing with his chest bulking up beyond any human record and getting elongated to the ceiling. Their abdominal section becoming a thin tube of intestinal junk that connects to a pale hairy busty blimp with a tiny head on touching the top.

The worst of this experience lands on myself as the eye boulder shrivels back to normal but at the cost of my body becoming a meaty balloon. The pressure from the eye goes right into my pug nose, causing the small nostrils to become two massive craters with a parade of black hair strands trickling out of them. The sharp tip of the nose sticks out as the red tip to the mountain of white cartilage that twitches with every breath of distress. Every breath of air sucks in chest-bursting amounts of oxygen that has my torso achieve the proportions of a barrel. Feeling the ribs and the costal cartilage forcibly reshape themselves around the swelling mass of my lungs is an alien experience. It hurts to breathe but the very sensation of this much oxygen coming in is overwhelming. And the smells coming from the air are all new and dizzying to take in. The sheer scent of bad breath, burning copper, smoked steak and raspberries are taxing on my nose. In fact, the odors wafting into the mountainous nostrils are all on the impact of sniffing tear gas with the variety of a scratch and sniff book.

For the last two minutes, the nose dwindles back to normal but a certain part of the body starts to grow to unimaginable heights in this demented “gas” exchange. It bulges fiercely and elasticizes the creases and wrinkles out like a balloon. The pressure circulates violently around the skull, mending and breaking all of the lobes around the growing brain. Images of formulas, factoids, conversations, and long-lost memories of missions flash across the mind as a migraine rages through. Bearing the pain, I can hear a voice speak out to him. A voice that is like static played from an old radio in a haunted room.

Send down more people and stick closer to me.

An audible burst of impact reverberates throughout my head as I black out at the last second. The Atlas manages to pilot itself to the outside of the launch area to everybody’s relief. The crew’s bodies all attempt to revert to normal even if it is in vain.

An odd chilling noise reverberates in their minds, a chilling bout of buzzing pounds their cranium. As if something, someone, or a being is emulating the auditory behavior of laughter from the void.

End of Current Transmissions.

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