As the last nut was bolted, he realized that his engine was complete. Years of work had gone into this one object, an object he envisioned in his youth. This engine, along with the other technology attached to it, would make him a niche in history. Now all he had to do was test it to be sure.
He carted the apparatus up the winding path to the cliff’s edge. In theory, after takeoff, he would attain and sustain a constant radius from the Earth’s center while his guidance system would change his flight path in order to avoid other objects and his energy shield would protect him against heat and g-forces. All of this would allow his engine to reach maximum speed. He strapped himself in as he thought of their taunts of how much a fool he was and how he would only succeed in failing. Regardless of what they said, he was here, his finger on the ignition. All systems go.
Blast-off.
In moments he was surpassing the sound barrier. BOOM! He imagined how he would appear from the ground; his engine’s sounds trailing behind him, trying desperately to catch him. It wasn’t long before he was approaching the dreaded light barrier. Individuals had invented, over the years, many ways to get past this barrier, but not one ever went straight through it. There was a light boom, a blinding flash of light. Again he thought of his appearance; to those on the ground not much would change, the only difference now was that he was traveling before his own image, being where he was before he would get there. “What barrier could be next,” he thought. Before he could ponder this it was upon him, the time barrier. As he passed this there was a time boom, in an instant he was everywhen at once. The final two barriers came quickly after that, each with their own boom. Reality was next and its boom brought on the cease of reality itself. Then thought with its thought boom which brought forth the minds of all things in existence below the reality barrier.
With the thought barrier came pain. As he felt the sorrow of people on their death beds, animals taking their place in the food chain, entire species being wiped out on planets far from his own, planets themselves slowly dying. He could not help from screaming.
His scream ripped through the universe, shattering planets, ripping stars asunder, and ultimately extinguishing all of existence as he once knew. He shed a tear for the cosmos as it vanished as a result of his thought. He was all that remained, if he even remained or did he only think he did. He had to have faith. For a moment of indeterminable length he was silent. Then he realized that it was his thought that had destroyed the everything and maybe, just maybe, his thought could recreate it. How would he do it, how would he make the universe. He felt that he should most obviously start in the most logical place. He stared into the nothing before him and thought.
“In the beginning…”
-5 May 1993