by Chris Wright
They discussed their fears, their thoughts of dread, and lamented the wasted opportunities they'd both had. Auton wanted to learn so much more than he did about the universe, they had been trapped in this floating prison for almost every single moment of their life. Danny regretted never having had the chance to have children. The time was never right and then the Elite took control. Even by then he would have only had a week to try, before his mind was swiftly snatched away and launched into space. Perhaps one of the fifty other him's might have children one day, on a far-off planet, he thought.
Eventually the fear and apprehension got so great they seemed to fade away, as if those emotions had been numbed away, being replaced with an acceptance, a strange calm.
The hours dragged on, seeming longer than they expected, still waiting for the final thoughts in their minds to flat line and eventually they did. Both of their last thoughts seemed to hit a stop button and that thought was flattened out to infinity, stretched out endlessly across an unknown plain.
What previously existed as Danny slowly stretched its awareness beyond the darkness it had lived its last hours in, to an ethereal sea of brilliant light. Every thought he had ever had dissolved into an ocean of all-thought. Every thought seeming alive, teeming with an energy that swept across the galaxy.
Auton's thoughts pulled them at all sides at once, before they saw an all-encompassing pattern of realities dancing with each other, entities of light and vibrations in a divine embrace. Auton was then diluted blissfully into this impossible dimension, a dimension of all things, a place from where all places sprung from.
And then the craft went completely silent, no almost inaudible hum from the mainframe, no lights illuminated inside or outside. For the first time in over seven billion years, the craft was empty, slowly drifting in the twinkling cosmos. Eventually, after another two thousand years, the sun expanded further, swallowing the craft. The immense hydrogen-filled monster that had given so many creatures life now swelled to such a size it was taking control of most of the solar system. Only the outer planets remained, lingering for billions of years more, a lifeless sprinkle of orbiting rocks around a star threatening to collapse in on itself.
Epilogue
The spores had maintained their precise course. A few were swept up by meteorites that flew past them, but the majority continued, momentum on their side. The craft they had launched from had been engulfed eons before, now not even a memory, too long for a memory to be held.
They soared past uninhabitable solar systems, ghostly planets that had long been ejected from their own solar systems, and fields of asteroids, on their quest for the survival of the human race. The calculations had been as precise as any could be, but ultimately, they were all at the mercy of the universe. Would it let them sail through the expanse of cosmic dust and birthing nebulae, or fling obstacles at them to scatter their chances of reaching any Terra Firma.
The universe was kind to most of them, it allowed the majority to move on their desired path. It helped that they were small enough to escape most showers of debris and pass effortlessly through other star systems, their trajectory carefully planned to avoid being pulled into a nearby planet's gravity.
It took seventy-four thousand years, but they finally made it to their destination. The tiny cloud of DNA'd mushroom spores descended towards their new home, a beautiful green and blue pearl spinning enchantingly in space, much like the DNA's home world.
They reached the outer regions of the exosphere, the planet's gravity now pulling them even faster towards it. They were grabbed by the hands of gravity, like it was welcoming them in, and they were flung deep into the thermosphere. They began to fan out across the hemisphere, the spores skydive sending them all hurtling deeper down and through the stratosphere, where they spread themselves further apart. Eventually they all crashed to the ground, across continents, some unlucky ones landing in oceans. The whole side of the hemisphere had been punctured with the tiny spores, littering diverse areas, wherever they happened to land. Primitive animals had watched as the series of streaks created a beautiful aerial display across the skies, before the spores descended and took root in a diverse range of locations.
The planet was inhabited already, large beasts roamed the land and seas, a whole balanced eco-system that had evolved to work in balance with their environment. Creatures with two legs, four legs, six legs, eight legs, and uncountable legs made this diverse and lush planet their home. It was the perfect place for humans to start again, and eventually they did. The spores had survived the vast journey, they had survived the impact and the task of bringing them back to life had begun on this new world, a planet the humans would eventually name 'Earth'.
The End
