text: By Chris Doerksen **Thursday August 9th** The printer whirred to life and began to spit paper. Jamie Kerr waited for the pages to finish printing. Scooping up the warm documents into his hands, he placed them in a Manila folder and brought them up to the top floor of the office building. While he could have looked at them, he knew it was best not to, as their information could be confidential. Jamie had been the intern for Dr. Hugh Carols, top researcher and head astronomer for NASA over the past six months. Throughout this time Jamie had met and began to work under Dr. Carols, though he found very little of that time was spent together. Jamie found that the word ‘intern’ had different meanings to the two of them. While he was very excited to be working for one of the nation’s most brilliant minds, never did he dream of that work being nothing more than a glorified secretary. Fetching copious amounts of coffee, filing paperwork, and being asked to leave most meetings due to “*classified information*”, was what the brunt of the (unpaid) job had included so far. With only six months left Jamie had wondered when he was going to be able to participate in some of Dr. Carols’ research. *Was this really where ten years of schooling had gotten him?* The master’s degree hanging in his apartment made each *2-cream-and-1-sugar* more belittling, and Jamie had slowly been working up the courage to ask Dr. Carols to let him take on something more, and to prove to him that he was there for a reason. Jamie’s growing frustration had only been accelerated by Dr. Carols’ increasing distance from him. The past month had seen Hugh buried in his work, often staying late into the evening, which Jamie found annoying since he wouldn’t dare leave before Dr. Carols, even if it was considered beyond the usual hours of working. What finally forced Jamie’s hand, however, was what happened on Thursday: As per the usual schedule, Dr. Carols received a weekly update from the team at Hubble, located in Baltimore. The updates included various information, such as recent diagnostics, prospects for new projects, and very occasionally new images taken by the actual telescope, which seemed ironic. Jamie brought in the briefing folder and handed it to the doctor, who began passively thumbing through the documents. Suddenly he stopped. Jamie could sense the change. Hugh began slowly reading the content of the folder, stopping every now and then to mumble something, as if needing to reaffirm what he was reading. As if something didn’t make sense. “*Is something wrong, Hugh?*” Jamie asked. Dr. Carols continued reading, not paying any attention to him. “*Hugh, if something is wrong I-”* Jamie started to say but was interrupted. “*No! No, it’s fine.”* Though it appeared to be completely the opposite. A few moments went by with neither of them saying anything. Dr. Carols continued to slowly examine the documents, until coming upon what seemed to be a set of images. He gasped, which made Jamie jump. Hugh then spoke in a low, soft voice: “*I’m sorry Jamie but I need you to leave the room for a while, I have to make a call.”* he nearly whispered, “*Perhaps you can join in on next week’s meeting.”* Jamie, who had never been heard Dr. Carols sound this way, was confused. “*Why?”* He asked. “*This is too important... too big. I-I’m sorry Jamie, but not this time. I need you to leave. Now.”* Jamie had no idea what had possessed Hugh but it seemed like it was serious, so he left without saying anything more. He returned to his desk which was across the hall from Hugh. The initial surprise from his removal wore off and Jamie began to become frustrated. *Wasn’t his internship supposed to include all the challenges involved with the job? What could be so alarming or important that Jamie couldn’t be let in on it, after having worked with Dr. Carols for the past 6 months?* This incident, along with the general dissatisfaction that had plagued Jamie since his first day there, was what pushed Jamie to decide it was finally time to say something to Hugh. Despite his gratefulness for the position, Jamie knew he was not being used to his full potential. He decided that once his call was done, Jamie was going to go back and speak his mind. The rest of the day passed and Jamie heard nothing from Hugh’s office. He went up several times and knocked on the door but heard nothing in return. The 5pm clock-out time came and went as Jamie continued to wait and speak with him. As the clock approached 10 Jamie realized that at this rate, he was going to need to sleep at his desk in order to catch Dr. Carols leaving, and that this conversation would have to wait. He packed up his things and headed home, picturing what he would say to him the following day. He didn’t sleep well that night, kept up by bad dreams. **Friday, August 10th** Arriving 15 minutes early as usual, Jamie had noticed that Dr. Carols’ car was already parked in its spot. He found this odd: Jamie usually got there a good while before him and began working on the day’s menial tasks. Thinking it was probably just another meeting he had not been invited to, Jamie sighed and hurried into work, hoping that Dr Carols had not expected himself to arrive early as well. Jamie had hurried up to the top floor to find that the door to Dr. Carols’ office was shut. Normally the cleaning staff left all the building’s door open overnight to air out the rooms, so the closed door labelled *HEAD OF OPERATIONS - DR. HUGH CAROLS* stuck out. Jamie approached the door to see that the light was on inside, but when he tried the handle found it to be locked. Jamie knocked and called for Hugh: “*Hello? Hugh? It’s Jamie. Are you there?*” Nothing. Jamie called Dr. Carols cell phone, seeing if perhaps he had stopped by later last night to pick something up and had left the door locked. He had just barely put the phone to his ear when he heard ringing on the other side of the wall. Whether or not Dr. Carols was in there, it seemed that his phone was. The phone continued to ring until eventually transferring Jamie to the voicemail. *Dr. Carols never missed a phone call*. This had been the case ever since Jamie had met him, and many a time did Jamie get interrupted when the phone would ring and he would suddenly be abandoned while his boss went into the other room for a twenty-minute exchange. For Jamie, this was the first thing to truly make him worry. Knocking harder this time, Jamie called out more loudly. Surely Dr. Carols could be asleep on the office couch, or perhaps using his desk telephone. Jamie continued trying to think of reasons that there would be no response at all to his knocking and calling, but this only caused his stomach to tie into tighter knots. After waiting for security to arrive, Jamie asked if they could let him into the office, explaining his ever-growing worry for the doctor. Accompanied with two officers he returned to the locked door and had them try knocking as well. After no response, the guards explained that the door was going to be forcibly opened, in case someone was hiding on the other side of the wall. Surely the threat of violent entry would be enough to force Dr. Carols to open door, to avoid causing a scene and even more forms to fill out and documents to sign, Jamie thought. Still nothing. Finally, the door was kicked in, and Jamie found Dr. Carols inside. Apart from the man hanging by a noose in the centre of the room, what Jamie noticed next was the mess. Dr. Carols had been an impeccable neat-freak, and it had not taken long before Jamie was used to being reminded about where to place certain papers, how they were to be folded, and that when leaving his office things must be left in the same place they were when he came in. What Jamie saw before him now was the den of an animal; folders scattered from corner to corner, papers ripped and thrown about like confetti for the mad, and all three chairs tipped over and left strewn in random spots. The blinds covering the windows were partially down and partially ripped off their tracks, causing a slanted sunrise to cascade itself along the corpse before them. As for Dr. Carols there was not much different aside from the rope keeping him from ever touching the ground alive. His hair was a bit messy, as though he’d run his fingers through it a few too many times, and his glasses were mildly askew. He almost appeared at peace, taking with him all the secrets of what had led him to his seemingly apparent suicide. The desk on the left-hand side of the room appeared to be the only things nearly untouched; the nameplate and lamp remained upright and in their usual position, and there seemed to be no clutter or mess on top of it. All Jamie could see was four pieces of paper, all of which were laid face down, their importance and contents unknown to anyone. The tidiness of it scared him, but not enough for him to want to see what was on the other side of those pages. These observations all flew through Jamie’s head before time felt like it sped up at an alarming rate. Suddenly he was in the hallway again, answering the same questions over and over to various police officers. He felt like each time he explained what happened the reality of the situation was getting further and further from him. His boss, who at the start of yesterday was completely sound and utterly unremarkable in so many ways apart from his mind, was now dead not ten feet from him. Now he was being walked out of the building by the police, being told that he may be contacted again, but that overall it seemed to be a cut-and-dry suicide. By the time he finally began to come back to himself he was home and in bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to untangle his thoughts and go through them one by one: *What made him kill himself?* *Did he go into work planning on it? Why didn’t I notice any signs if he was?* However, one thought kept coming back to him, which he felt guilty about but his curiosity couldn’t help but come out on top: *What was on those four papers?* Again, he did not sleep well, kept up by nightmares. **Saturday, August 11th** The sky seemed to grow darker overnight, and when Jamie found himself tossing and turning at 5am he was surprised to see that the sky appeared blacker than it had been when he went to bed. Perhaps it was just because he was up earlier than usual, but still he found it odd. Finally succumbing to the approaching morning, Jamie grabbed his phone and was about to begin scrolling through various apps when he noticed a new email from one of Dr. Carols’ associates who worked in Baltimore with the Hubble team. The email had been sent at nearly 2 in the morning, so Jamie had missed it, but it seemed that the message was rather urgent: *To Jamie,* *I’m terribly sorry to be reaching out to you so soon following Hugh’s death, but there is a favor we need from you. We believe that on Thursday he received a report from one of our scopes with some highly classified information. From the forensic file we received from the police, it appears that the contents of the report are in that office. We need that information to be sent back to us as soon as possible, as they are time sensitive. Could you go into the office at some point today and collect the documents? There should be four pages, and please try your best not to look at them as they are above your level of clearance. We have someone who will be at the RRNA at 1800 who can meet you and bring the documents back to us.* *Forgive me again for the late email, but we can’t afford to have such sensitive information out in the open. Please let me know if you can do this, as I’ll be contacting other members at the DC branch if I don’t hear from you by noon hour today. I’ve made sure a key to Hugh’s office is available for you, just ask for it at reception, they were told you may be stopping by today.* *Thank you,* *Paul Geraghty* Jamie spent a few minutes reading and rereading the email, a pit forming in his stomach. *What information could be so valuable to require a personal courier and need immediate delivery? Why did it need to be done so soon, and why was Jamie supposed to avoid looking at them?* Despite his reservations, Jamie knew that this would look good for him in future career aspirations, as well as allow him some closure on the last twenty-four hours. He replied immediately that he would pick up the files and proceeded to shower and get ready. He left just after 7AM without eating, not feeling hungry in the slightest. Though only a few minutes by car, Jamie found that between leaving his apartment and arriving at the office, his shirt had begun to stick with sweat, and walking outside felt more akin to swimming with the humidity. Luckily for him the building had good air conditioning, and the thought of his damp clothes was soon forgotten about. July heat in Washington was a killer, and this morning was no exception. Still, today *did* seem different. The clouds appeared more than dark grey but instead black in the sky, looking more like wisps of smoke than average nimbostrati. There was little wind to be felt, and everything seemed to be moving slowly, as though the entire world was in the midst of taking one giant breath. Jamie kept thinking he heard thunder but looking upward he couldn’t make out any lightning. *Weird*, he thought. *It wasn’t supposed to storm today*. Due to it being a Saturday, the place seemed a little less cramped. Normally the hallways were bustling at this time: people going in between meetings, breaks being taken just a little too long, and the seemingly endless line of interns and students trying to get their feet into doors. Jamie smirked at this thought, being an intern himself. The smile quickly faded as he thought about why he was here on a weekend. Stopping by the front desk, Jamie asked about a package under his name, and the receptionist reached behind their desk and pulled out two items: one being the key to Hugh’s office, and the other was an empty folder. “*The man who spoke to me on the phone said that you’d know what to do with these.”* Taking the elevator, Jamie collected himself as he rode up alone. *Remember, all I’m here for is the papers, I should be in and out.* He knew that as difficult as it would be not to inspect the office or search the drawers for signs of Hugh’s sudden demise, he could get in a lot of trouble for not doing exactly as he was being asked. All he had to do was grab the papers, head back outside and proceed to the airport. Simple. After what felt like an hour, Jamie finally emerged onto the top floor, walking swiftly down the dimly lit hallway towards where his and Hugh’s offices stood. Perhaps it was the recent suicide in the building, but something about the place seemed ominous now. Though far from flickering lights and cobwebs, the beige paint and pale fluorescent bulbs made Jamie feel slightly paranoid, claustrophobic even. He picked up his pace and finally arrived back where he had been nearly twenty-four hours ago, though it felt like years. Jamie took out the key, and unlocked Hugh’s office. Never in his life had a lock felt more mechanical; a slow and heavy deadbolt that held behind it the place where a man Jamie had admired all his life had taken their own. Looking down at the key, Jamie thought for a moment he saw his hands tremble. Taking a breath and steadying himself, he pushed open the door. Following the police and paramedics, the office had been returned to a state of normalcy. Cluttered papers and office supplies had been placed back in their piles and in their respective holders, chairs once upturned were not back in their rightful state, even the overturned shelves had been placed back against the wall, with books mostly put in their original spots. Had Jamie somehow missed the events of Friday and Paul’s email, he would have returned to work on Monday and thought nothing had happened. Any trace of the uniformed officers’ visits, nor even the man who hung mere feet from where Jamie now stood, could be seen. Jamie stepped further inside, taking a moment to gaze around the room, looking for any sort of difference. Suddenly he realized that the four pages were still face down on the desk, perfectly placed and aligned, as though no one had seen them the day before. Hairs stood up on the back of his neck as he made his way over to the desk. Though he knew there was other people in the building, Jamie felt alone as his footsteps resonated on the cold hardwood floor. The windows looking out over the parking lot showed the dark sky looming over the city. For a second Jamie thought he heard thunder outside. Opening up the larger envelope, Jamie began to grab the papers, but before he could go through with it, he paused: *Is* *this what drove Hugh to kill himself? These four pieces of paper?* Jamie’s morbid curiosity began to get the better of him: *How would anyone even know I looked at these?* Jamie knew that the pages in his hands would eat away at him for the rest of his life if he didn’t turn them over. No matter how far he distanced himself from this event, the knowledge that he could have seen what possibly traumatized Dr. Carols would be in the back of his mind. He knew that he shouldn’t even risk it, but- The first page had already turned over subconsciously in his hands, and Jamie realized that he was staring at a letter addressed to Dr. Carols. The letter contained very little text: *Dr Carols,* *We received some very disturbing images from Hubble Telescope. We took three separate pictures and realized something is very wrong. We need your input on this, and we fear that our time is limited. Please respond as soon as you can.* *N: Currently at 30.31AU as of Sunday, August 5th.* *S: Currently at 10.12 AU as of Tuesday, August 7th.* *M: Currently at 1.4 AU as of Thursday, August 9th.* *Attached Photos taken Thursday, August 9th.* Trying to make sense of what these could mean. He knew that the AU numbers stood for astronomical units, referring to an object’s distance from the sun compared to the earth, but the dates and letters *N*, *S*, *M*, rang no bells. Jamie turned over the second page, where he saw a mostly black image, with a few fine specks of blue, scattered across the landscape. In the bottom left hand corner, the line of text from the letter was printed: *N: Currently at 30.31AU as of Monday, October 5th.* Jamie realized that this was a photograph from the many he had seen all throughout his childhood and into his schooling. This was a Hubble Telescope image. As he continued to study it, the numbers on the left seemed familiar to him, and suddenly he realized what they were: the location of the planet Neptune. This made no sense to Jamie, as his eyes began to dart between the blue specks that dotted the page: *This has to be a mistake, where is Neptune if this photograph is claiming this is the location? And why are these blue specks on here? Is this some sort of issue with the telescope?* He knew that the telescope could be finicky and there had been problems with the machinery every now and then, but this felt too authentic and urgent to all have been some kind of technical error. Jamie noticed that his hands had begun trembling again. Deciding to move on, Jamie turned over the second page and saw a second image, this one containing “*S: Currently at 10.12 AU as of Tuesday, August 7th.*” in the bottom-left corner. This time the image was much more obvious of what it was supposed to be: Saturn. However there seemed to be something very, very wrong with this picture. Inexplicably, only half of Saturn was visible, as though the entire gas giant had been cut in half. From the view of the telescope it seemed like the core was now split down the middle, a million jawbreakers worth of coloured layers all the way down to a dull silver centre. Long and stringy wisps of various chemicals and frozen rocks were coming off of the flattened edge, leaving behind a trail of haze and specks. Even the rings around the planet were strewn about, half circles which ended in frayed ends and slowly dipping into the endless depths of space. The axis clearly off kilter, the semi-sphere looked as though it were falling on its bottom, like an acrobat tumbling from a well-balanced trick. “*Tuesday, August 7th.”* Jamie dropped the second picture in his hands, trembling so bad he couldn’t hold it any longer. *There’s no way this isn’t some kind of joke. Some convincing doctoring of a photo, or maybe it just printed out completely wrong. This can’t be real.* Suddenly Jamie was very aware that there was still one photograph left on the desk, and that *M* could only mean one thing. He slowly picked up the final page, and turned it over, knowing what he would likely see. “*M: Currently at 1.4 AU as of Wednesday, August 9th.”* was unnecessary as Jamie instantly recognized what had been photographed: Mars was in the midst of what looked like an explosion. The only comparison Jamie could think of was the time he had seen footage of a bullet being shot through a watermelon, the entire thing splitting apart and spraying across someone’s lawn. This, however, was a lot larger than a fruit. Gigantic chunks were flying in every direction, as hundreds of smaller rocks trailed behind like a tail behind a continent sized comet. Maroon streaks of iron and nickel expanded beyond the borders of the page, and Jamie knew that if enough time were to pass, earth would see meteors the likes of which hadn’t been witness since the dinosaurs. Though a still image, he could almost see it moving if he looked close enough, breaking apart and becoming less and less recognizable as the red planet. Jamie’s vision blurred with tears as he continued to stare at the page, which trembled unapologetically now. The horror of what he was seeing made the room spin before him, and he nearly fell over just trying to make sense of it all. He noticed there was something different about this image. Looking at the torn apart sphere, Jamie could see that across the top right crust, the colour of the planet looked... darker. The one aspect still intact of what he knew of Mars was the red hue of its surface, except now a portion of the planet appeared almost black. Jamie suddenly realized that these three images were taken yesterday. He also realized that whatever was happening to these planets, it was closer to earth each time. Jamie looked at his hands and tried to stop them from shaking. He clasped them together before gasping: *It was the room that was shaking, not him.* It had begun just a few minutes ago; A tremor so faint at first Jamie thought it was merely his trembling appendages growing more out of control, but now the whole room was vibrating. Books falling off shelves, a lamp falling and its bulb smashing against the floor, Jamie could barely tell what was happening as he looked out the office windows to see the sky had gone from a darkened grey to a completely black backdrop, against which lighting flashes were erupting nearly every second. Thick clouds of what almost looked like smoke swirled and twisted as the office suddenly felt very small against the dark ocean above. Jamie saw people running out from the front of the building, trying to make it to their cars and drive off. Jamie suddenly was forced to jump back as the rumbling increased and windows began to shatter in Dr. Carols’ office, littering both the floor and parking lot below with shards of glass. Knowing that it was no longer safe to be on the top floor, Jamie grabbed the papers and ran. The long hallway back to the elevator suddenly seemed a million times longer, as though the camera tricks he remembered seeing in Hitchcock movies had come to life. Deciding that the elevator was unlikely to last the ride down, Jamie flew down the stairs as the rattling and cracking of thunder continued to grow and swell, even in the muffled stairwell. Finally escaping into the main lobby, Jamie sprinted for the front door and was able to exit into the parking lot just as he thought the entire thing would come crashing down. Suddenly the shaking stopped, and there was complete silence. The thunder ceased, and there was a sort of still calmness present that made Jamie’s hair stand up on end. He looked back at the office building to see it still standing; nearly windowless and a parking lot completely covered in glass but standing. Looking up towards the sky, Jamie saw that, remarkably, lightning was still emerging from the great black sky above him, twisting and curving through the air, but the thunder was no longer sounding. It looked as though some giant switch was being silently flicked on and off. Jamie noticed that in fact, he heard nothing. No light breeze, no birds chirping, not even the sound of traffic. For a moment, Jamie thought that he was the only man alive, alone in the parking lot. Looking down, Jamie saw that the pages from the office were still in his hand, haphazardly bent and folded from the way they had been handled on the way out. His eyes drawn to the last image once more, what was likely to be the last picture of Mars, he could not help but notice that darkened area. He finally realized that it was a shadow. Suddenly, a sound emerged from the overwhelming silence; he nearly felt the sound before he heard it, a frequency so deep in nature that it rattled Jamie’s bones. It came from all directions, both earth and sky, a deafening pitch that nearly caused Jamie to fall to the ground and cover his ears. It was inhuman in nature, but for a second Jamie thought it sounded like a low roar. The ground began to shake again as the clouds rapidly dissipated, as though being swept away by something. The smokey haze gave away not to the blue sky as Jamie expected, but somehow the blackness of space itself, complete with twinkling stars and glow of the pale moon. However, Jamie realized something *was* moving away the clouds, and that his view of space was being interrupted by the waving of hundreds of shapes of some sort, blocking the darkness beyond. A bolt of lightning, long and jagged pierced the empty plane above, and Jamie finally saw what he knew had caused those planets’ destruction. The flash of light illuminated a creature, far beyond the comprehension of what Jamie could fathom. An amorphous being of pure black, which shone against the light as though it was wet with some sort of perspiration or other ungodly fluid. Eyes formed and unformed across its mass, blinking and darting back and forth before being swallowed back into the being. The forms Jamie had seen waving were tentacle-like limbs, flailing about slowly and in rhythm with one another, as though each movement was purposeful. Though Jamie could see the front of it, his eyes struggled to see the end of it as its body contorted and twisted through the sky like some sort of massive snake of unimaginable length. At the very front laid a mouth-like orifice, with a concave appearance and jagged teeth lining the entire circumference, row upon row until they disappeared beyond the line of sight. The lightning faded and Jamie realized that he was likely one of the only people to see what was up there; of the only people to *ever* see it. Another lightning bolt further away cast a dimmer view, but Jamie could see that it was already closer than it had been moments ago. The ground began to tremble as the deafening sound of whatever this was descended upon him. This was it. Jamie knew that everyone and everything was about to be scattered across the stars, forgotten in time and space, cold and dead throughout the cosmos. He now understood why Dr. Carols had killed himself, for he did not want to live as one of the only people to know what was about to happen.