Veil

He drove the car onto the road taking a straight path to his in-laws house. Midway he experiences a sharp pain in his head. He slows down the car and stops it on side of the highway. He looks at himself in the mirror of the car for a better look to which he gets horrified to see his face bleeding from every hole known, eyes, nose, ears, mouth. He is horrified to the point that he starts hallucinating and sees a vision. He screams inside his car but no one hears him.

"What is wrong with me?

What is wrong with the world?

Why is it so painful?

Why me?"

He suddenly hears a voice in his brain.

'Save me!'

After hearing this, Ells is terrified to the point that he pushes onto the accelerator so hard that he hits his car into a sharp corner and crashes into a wall. He fainted on the scene but luckily he survived. After regaining vision in the hospital bed with his wife sitting beside him with tears in her eyes glimmering with hope he says one word.

"I want to save you!"

She replies to him in a sorrowful voice.

"There is nothing you can do, but at least don't leave us alone. I don't want you to leave us and be with us no matter if the world lives or dies!"

He is saddened by her reply but as he was about to say something, the radio beside his bed broadcasts a government issued emergency.

'All citizens must take shelter wherever they are.

Do not go outside at any cost.

Especially not children.

There was witnessed a huge gravitational anomaly in Russia and everyone in the country flew up in the sky within 1 hour until the anomaly resolved.

Make sure your children don't go outside to play.

The gravitational field had worsened a lot that air is also not breathable for children and elders at all.

Make sure you use masks whenever going outsi...'

His wife turns off the radio. She says

"Don't worry, it will all be fine as long as we are together"

Ells doesn't say anything but looks at her with a pained expression.

After staying 2 hours in the hospital. He goes back home with his wife. His daughter did not come to visit him in the hospital due to hostile environment. When they both reach toward their apartment, Ells grabs his wife by her waist and takes her to her room and lays her on the bed asking her to get some rest. His wife is pregnant so he has to take care of her and make sure she doesn't overwork. He goes back to his small research room within his apartment and starts thinking of a possible solution when suddenly the incident that happened within the car surfaced his mind. At first he is terrified but then another thought surfaced in his mind.

Maybe due to the divination, I am hearing things that are not real and hallucinating too but what about the blood that came oozing out from my face. Maybe I just imagined it. Nevertheless, I will not make her worried again.

He picks up a piece of paper with a bunch of equation on drawing energy from celestial objects when a thought suddenly flashed through his mind.

What if I could formulate a way to use the energy perfectly for building a spaceship that could generate enough energy to sustain life for at least a century and help us travel at speed of light to reach another planet which we could call 'home'. Well I guess there is no way it will work but I can build a foundation equation for it since there are only a few theoretical physicists who get to directly interact with the objects. Laying a ground work for someone else would be perfect contribution to future generations.

After careful thinking and deduction from various unnatural calculations from the celestial objects, he came with a simple equation. All that was left was to work on it and improve it and provide a better solution to make it practically possible. He went back to his wife's room and told her about this news. She couldn't be more happy with tears overflowing her eyes that were clearly glimmering with shining bright hope. Both of them were silent for a long time with their hands holding each other. Ells sleep beside his wife without saying anything and also texts his colleagues and research head about his idea and equation. They all agree to it and plan to work on a prototype that could somewhat simulate the equation but not entirely.

After informing everyone, he goes to sleep and wakes up the next day. It was a holiday so he didn't need to worry about going to research facility for work.

He at first goes and visit the engineer's house to whom he gave his artifact for upgrade. It looked like a staff but it had chunks of celestial objects powering it from within as a pretty long lasting energy source. Upon reaching there he finds the door locked but he had spare keys because they were both friends. He finds his staff that was integrated with an AI system that could respond and speak the same way as a human. He named his staff 'Staff Of Calamity'. He couldn't find the engineer so he puts the money on the desk and takes the staff away leaving behind a note for not causing issues.

After taking his staff back home, he spends the entire day with his wife, taking care of her and also carefully brings his daughter back home .They spent a happy time together until in the evening he receives a call from the facility urging him to return urgently. He does not refuse it and wishes good luck to his wife, grabs his keys, coat and the staff artifact, hurriedly leaves for the facility.

He parks his car in the basement and enters the facility. As soon as he enters the sector 206, the entire sector enters in complete lockdown and his colleagues come rushing to him. He asks

"What is going on here?"

"The government wants the experiment to be done right now and see if it is successful or not"

Jean replies to Ells's question. He wasn't surprised because the government could be rash when the world was at risk.

They all go to the lab and spend 2 hours assembling the machine with the celestial object as its core. As soon as they finish making it, a celebration all drink is held but Ells didn't drink so he stays in a corner isolated from other members. Jeans approaches him and says

"I think I again owe you a thanks. Because of you, we can again live our lives"

Ells doesn't respond and stays silent without knowing what to answer with.

"The ideal result would be if we throw a neutron at the speed of light and on contact with a concrete bar, it splits and release some radiation. That would be enough to prove that your model is functional"

Ells ask

"It's experimental and I don't think it should be don't with such haste"

"It's for the betterment of everyone, I guess"

Jean replies. Soon they both hear the head of research program calling everyone back to finally test the machine. They all do a countdown for 3,2,1 and start the machine.

After 10 minutes of successful tests and results, Jean exclaims.

"The results are perfect and it does work."

She was so happy that she started jumping out of excitement. Ells stood in a corner with his staff watching it all carefully when suddenly he again experiences a sharp pain in his head and hears a distant voice echoing in his mind with 2 words

'Save Me!'

His vision went blur for 15 seconds and when he regains his sight, he sees a small wormhole like portal that enveloped the entire machine and was sucking everyone inside.

He saw one of his colleague sucked in but only his half body passed through and other half stayed, with his intestines falling everywhere.

Jean was also entirely sucked in the portal and all the lab members one by one either got sucked in entirely or partially and those who were partially sucked in got their bodies mutilated badly.

Ells also got sucked in and loses his vision. Suddenly the entire sector blasted away in a huge explosion.

30 minutes later :

The rescue team comes there with police and some government officials. The research of the scientists was honored and saved and Ellsworth was announced a hero. When his wife reaches the scene, she breaks down into tears and was then transferred to the hospital.

—◆◇◆—

Ellsworth opens his eyes on a dark land covered in putrid black viscous liquid that tainted all his body. At first he couldn't even see properly but he somehow by touching his body form various places under a dark low red light, checks on his body and find his clothes and staff still perfectly intact and fine with him. He stands up and looks at the sky for the source of dark red light when he is shocked to find the sky completely red like blood. A thought comes through his mind

What is this place?