Heaven’s Path

Astra continued to try and scream, though no one could hear her in the dark and empty void.

The sounds of moaning and weeping, and the scenes of the woman getting eternally fragmented continued to invade her mind. 

This was too much for Astra to handle. Soon enough, she thought she was going to take on the fate of the woman who she kept seeing over and over again. She tried to resign herself, but it wasn't working. Her thoughts were completely replaced by the horrifying scenes and sounds.

"No!!!" Astra tried to scream again, but nothing came out. Soon enough, she felt a huge wave of relief, as she was able to make a coherent thought.

Suddenly, everything stopped.

As if nothing happened, the weeping and moaning sounds had vanished, and the scenes that kept repeating in her head were no more.

Astra began panting heavily, as if she had run a marathon despite no breaths leaving her mouth. She held her stomach as if she was puking, but her hand also passed through her.

Her mind was in a daze as she attempted to process everything that had happened to her. She released her hands from her stomach and "laid" flat on the darkness, as if she was in her bed. Her eyes stared into the darkness thoughtlessly.

Astra's eyes then began to light up, to her surprise.

She saw a light in the distance!

She proceeded to see a multitude of these lights! They were very similar to the lights from the cosmic event earlier!

These lights began to turn into trails and rush past her, quickly enveloping the darkness. She was then lifted up by these lights, with her body turning less and less corporeal.

"What the…? Am I saved…?" Astra thought to herself, her thoughts sluggish. She slowly was recovering from the scene she was exposed to.

The lights began to glitch, as if it was uncovering an illusory existence. As it did, small cracks began to quickly appear in each glitch, with each crack exponentially getting bigger.

Soon enough, the cracks got so big that the lights began to shatter. Like glass shards, they began to fall and then disappear.

The scene began to uncover itself, with each shard of light slowly disappearing, one after another.

In an instant, Astra found herself lying face up near a river. Her vision was still blurry as she tried to understand what was happening to her.

Then, in another instant, Astra felt a sudden whiplash of her senses.

She heard the soft but loud sounds of water moving against the rocks and land. She heard the serene windy breeze enveloping the river and moving into the forest adjacent to it. She felt the warmth of the sun and the chill of the air on every part of her skin, and the wind blowing through her now messy blonde hair. She felt the soft grass supporting her lower body, with occasional flying insects landing on every part of her skin. She smelt the earthy and comforting aroma entering her nostrils.

Her senses had returned back to her! 

Pat! Pat! Pat!

She instinctively began to touch herself and pat all over her body as she confirmed that she can actually feel things.

She then began to breathe a sigh of relief as she placed her hand on her chest.

She was able to feel her heart pumping, and at a normal pace. Her mind was still filled with thoughts of what happened earlier.

Astra felt a huge chill rush through her body as she imagined what happened to the woman.

She felt as if she was in there any longer she would've gone insane, thinking that she had to go through the terrifying experience.

Immediately, Astra had the desire to save the woman. She thought that if such a scene was real, such a cruel fate shouldn't be given to anyone. No matter what they did or who they are.

The more Astra thought about the scene, the more anxious, confused and angry she felt. Thus, she tried to stop thinking about it and began to think about the fact that she was in a seemingly normal environment.

In fact, she smiled greatly as she realized that she was alive and was able to feel things again!

She felt normal, and her body felt as if nothing had ever happened!

Most of all, she was extremely happy as she had escaped from that terrible scene earlier, and is now back home. "I wonder where everyone else is…maybe that was just a bad dream…and I just happened to sleepwalk." Astra tried to rationalize her thoughts.

"Hahaha…" Astra then begins to softly laugh in great ecstasy.

After she finished laughing, she inhaled and exhaled greatly, and her vision started to gain clarity. She began to take in fully what she saw.

It was daytime, but the atmosphere was a light bluish-purplish color, as opposed to a pure light blue color. The "sun" was an electric blue, and there were large Saturn-like rings streaking across the atmosphere.

"Wait…huh?" Astra was completely flabbergasted! She was astonished, struggling to find words to say!

In a panic, Astra then began to stand up, brushing off her dirty lab coat and pants. She looked to her left and right in an attempt to see if anything else was peculiar. On her right, there was a normal looking forest. And on her left, she was next to a normal looking river. She looked down at the grass and also saw that it was also normal looking.

She calmed herself down and then looked behind her, and turned around to face the view.

She looked and saw that she was mere meters away from a cliff. The river that was now on her right side trampled down and had its water crashing down to the ground below it, forming a decently sized waterfall.

"It's clear that I'm not on Earth, and I was transported. And It's a good thing that I wasn't transported over that cliff…otherwise it would've ended kinda badly for me. Hm. If I was transported here, then it's likely that other people were transported here also. If they were unlucky, then…" Astra organized her thoughts and imagined scenes of other people being transported in unfortunate situations, and losing their lives as a result. She had contorted her face in worry and slight disgust.

"Hopefully the mechanism that transported us here took safety into account." She sighed and let the thought aside and walked up to the cliff, where she was only a footstep away from falling. She looked down the cliff.

The waterfall had its water fall into what seemed like a small lake. Around the small lake and under the cliff was a massive green field of grass and flowers, looking akin to a well tended garden.

She was still struggling to find words to say.

Suddenly, something caught her eye.

Over the horizon, many miles away, she saw a futuristic and wide city, with massive skyscrapers that towered over the horizon. It was large, with many of its buildings occupying the edge of the horizon. Many things were flying inside of this city and near the skyscrapers, and there were many little "lines" outside that represented pathways for vehicles to go inside of the city.

It looked like something out of a science fiction movie!

"Huh…" Astra's calm state again started to experience a mix of emotions!

"Where…" She was finally finding the words she was struggling to say to describe such a scene.

She then looked above the horizon and saw a large, velvet crescent moon in the sky above the city. It was much larger than the Earth's moon.

"Where the f*ck am I!?" Astra couldn't help but sulk in shock.

Suddenly, a hologram appeared in front of her, faintly illuminating her dark skin with a blue light.

English words were written on the bottom of it in brackets, and above the English words were symbols that she's never seen before.

…

"Gah!" Xavier sat up, his arms supporting his weight as he rapidly opened his eyes. His vision was blurry.

Cough! Cough! 

"Huff…puff…" He immediately begins coughing and panting heavily, as if he died and came back to life. After catching himself, he instinctively rubbed his hand through his brown hair, and tried to scan the area, but he wasn't able to see anything with clarity.

Either way, he felt the cold breeze of nature running past his body.

He felt the warmth of the sun on his skin and the feeling of grass, dirt and plants on his lower body. Surrounding him were many plants, and it looked as though he was in a forest. White clouds were overhead, covering the sky. It rained earlier, so the surroundings were quite wet. There were some insects that landed on his skin, but not much. He strangely felt his white polo shirt and grey sweatpants get stained with many dirt marks. He then smelt the aroma of fertilizer…

"Wait…" Xavier thought to himself. "Something is off! Wasn't I just in a desert? Where am I?" 

He tried to rub his eyes but he was stopped by the feeling of something being slightly wet, dirty and sticky on his right hand.

It was mud!

 He retracted his hands from his eyes and moved them about in order to remove the mud from his hands.

"Am I in a forest that just experienced rain? What even happened…" Xavier thought as he tried to get up. He struggled to balance himself and almost tripped down due to the whiplash of his senses. Fortunately, he was able to get up entirely. As soon as he did, his platinum eyes scanned his surroundings to see if anything was out of the ordinary.

Well, aside from the fact that he magically teleported.

"Ow…" Xavier looked behind him to see Aria, in a dirty tank top and stained shorts, also struggling to get up, holding her head! Her hair was messy and her skin had many dirt spots on it, as if she rolled over in dirt. 

"I felt…like I had…a terrible dream…" She faintly asked, struggling to say words. "I can't even see anything…"

"Aria?" Xavier asked confusingly, raising his eyebrows. His vision slowly started to get better.

"Xavier…? Is that you? Am I still in a dream…" She said, her eyes still squinted. She kept rubbing her head with her hand, as if she had a headache. "I wonder where Astra is…"

"I don't know where we are right now. We were supposed to be by the Atacama Observatory…" He said while scanning his surroundings to see anything out of the ordinary.

Suddenly, he saw a good looking, slightly chubby but still skinny lady laying on her side who was on the muddy ground. He quickly ran over to her and saw that she had black hair that trampled down to her waist, and had a dark blue security uniform.

"It's the security that helped us! Is she okay?" Xavier worriedly thought in his mind.

He got no more than 3 feet away from her. He saw that her clothes and hair were dirty, and she looked as if she was sleeping innocently. Xavier squatted down and pressed his hand against the left side of her chest while bringing his ear closer to her mouth. He was careful not to touch any sensitive areas with his hand.

He didn't get flustered as he was genuinely worried about her. Once he confirmed that her heart was still beating and she was still breathing, he breathed a sigh of relief.

"Where are we…?" Aria asked while approaching Xavier with a fatigued face, as if she just woke up. "Do you remember anything that happened before we got here?" She asked.

"I have no clue where we are. I don't remember anything either. The last thing I remember is us taking off of our heavy clothes since the weather got much hotter all of a sudden…who knows what happened after that. I have no clue where Dr. Sera is either." Xavier said, having an equally as confused face as Aria.

Suddenly, the security's body started to twitch. Her legs moved first, and her arms came second. Slowly, her eyes began to open up and her head began to move upward along with her upper body.

Cough! Cough! 

"Ah!" The woman's body sprung up as her eyes widened in surprise. She felt her senses quickly coming back to her, and received a massive amount of sensory information instantly.

She tried to get up but she tripped and fell right back down, losing her sense of balance. She tried to look around her, but her vision was blurry, and her mind was in a daze.

"Don't…tell me…I got…drunk and…I had weird…dreams…again…" The woman struggled to say as she shook her head furiously on the muddy ground.

"Again?" Xavier and Aria thought simultaneously and lampooned inwardly.

After about a minute, the woman was able to get herself up, and her vision was starting to become clearer. After looking around trying to ascertain where she was similar to what Xavier was doing earlier, she saw him and Aria in the distance. They both seemed as if they were searching for something.

As such, she ran up to them. Her boots were trampling on the muddy ground, with some unfortunate plants as collateral.

"Are you okay?" Aria asked, while looking behind her. Xavier did the same.

"I'm fine," the security replied in a low voice. 

Xavier nodded and then looked in front of him, walking.

"Do you guys know where we are? I don't remember anything past the point where Dr. Astra Sera came out of nowhere…" She asked while walking behind them, trying to stay calm.

"We have no clue. There's a possibility that someone may have abducted us and left us to rot in a forest." Aria responded.

"But why wouldn't they just kill us? Plus, we were many miles away from any civilization." Xavier replied with a nonchalant expression.

"Who knows. Maybe they were after Astra and didn't care about us three, hehe." Aria said while giggling softly.

"I think it's more likely that we were drugged when we ate the food at the facility. That's the most likely explanation…" Xavier then turns his head back toward the woman walking behind him and Aria. "And as miss security over here, it's likely that in order to drug everyone, they had to drug the entire food supply going to the observatory."

"My name is Emilia, by the way. Emilia Rose." Emilia said with a hint of annoyance in her tone.

"Oh, sorry about that." Xavier sincerely apologized. 

"Ha…couldn't you have asked for her name first? Were you nervous?" Aria looked at Xavier with a teasing grin.

Xavier didn't respond and simply sighed.

"I'm Xavier Hale, by the way." Xavier turned to Emilia and introduced himself.

"I'm Aria Brown." Aria introduced herself also.

"Nice to meet you two," Emilia said in a slightly teasing tone.

"It's nice to meet you too." Xavier didn't catch on.

Aria closed her eyes and smirked slightly.

A short silence ensued.

"I genuinely think that this is something propped up by the government," Emilia broke the silence. "I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but I feel that the government secretly kidnapped us in a Hunter Games style thing." Emilia mentioned an interesting, albeit random theory.

"The Hunger Games is pretty old…that'd be weird for the government to do something like that, don't you think?" Aria asked, her eyes showing curiosity.

"No, I feel as if that's the exact reason why…" Emilia clapped back.

They bantered for a while with Xavier being silent.

Soon enough, they felt the heat of a full ray of sunshine penetrating through the sky as the clouds were parting.

They looked up instinctually to make a comment on the sky, but they were astonished.

They gasped as they saw a blue sun with a bluish-purplish atmosphere. And most of all, they saw large rings streaking across the sky, like Saturn's rings do!

They all looked at the sky, speechless. They all froze for an extremely short moment, their mouths opened wide as they took in the scene.

After no more than a second, they moved their gaze away from the sun and rubbed their eyes as they were slightly in pain.

While they were rubbing their eyes, each one of them had different thoughts in their mind.

"We're on an alien planet?" Xavier thought.

"It turns out he was right…we were drugged, and we were drugged good…" Aria thought.

"Where the f*ck are we!?" Emilia thought.

Squish!

In shock, Emilia took a step back and felt as if she stepped on a fruit. It was a very soft sound, so Xavier and Aria didn't notice it.

She lifted her leg up and pulled her face closer to see what she stepped on. She then saw a red mass on her boot, and it had a gooey texture.

She actually did step on a fruit! And it gave off the scent of fertilizer!

In panic, Emilia gasped and held both of her hands to her mouth as her foot came down.

Xavier and Aria, who were already struggling to articulate anything, turned around with a face of confusion, wondering why Emilia gasped.

"….What's wrong, Emilia?" Xavier asked, curiously. Aria had the same expression.

Emilia then removed both of her hands from her mouth.

"I think…" Emilia hesitated slightly.

"I think this is someone's garden."

"And it's a pretty big one!"

Xavier and Aria froze.