Mike sat by the wireless set tuning the amplitude modulator he had designed to narrow the radio beam his equipment generated. Mike had served in the military as a radio operative, and had continued working on radio equipment as a civilian, and had tinkered with radio electronics as a hobby, developing a network of friends throughout the world. But it was only since the car crash he had developed the amplitude modulator.
Radio seemed a strange way, for many, to deal with his grief, but Mike had found very quickly that expressing his grief and the horrible pain he felt inside to those around him was a very effective way of stopping family and friends calling, or visiting. There had to be a different way to rid himself of the pain.
It wasn't his fault his wife Julie and two children -- daughter Caitlin, son Mark - had been killed. It wasn't even the fault of the driver of the lorry -- it had just been one of those things in terrible weather, with snow on the ground, as his family returned home from a few days at Julie's mother. Mike knew it wasn't his own fault, but he seemed to be the one punished. They had been an ideal family. He had adored Julie and his family, but now they were gone no-one was able to cope with his grief so that he had to bottle up, a grief nearly destroying him.
The one glimmer was his hobby. He had a thought about two months after the accident -- he had to get rid of the pain somewhere -- why not get rid of it to outer space! He knew it was absurd, but there was at least a symbolic action to sending it out there which could help him cope with the pain, rid him of the darkest moments.
As a result Mike developed the amplitude modulator. It simply focussed the radio beam, so when he cried, or screamed, or was totally overwhelmed by darkness, he could turn on his microphone and send it all into infinity without anyone else even hearing, or receiving. Radio was his life, and somehow through his life it helped him -- a bit -- deal with the pain. He simply fired it into outer space, so no-one could be touched by the utter darkness in his soul from the accident........
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The dark shape soared invisibly through the darkness on its journey of discovery. It had journeyed for several years, unseen and undetected. For much of that time there had been no-one to see it even if they could have detected it. But now the dark shape was travelling through an area with a sprinkling of meteors, giant planets, smaller planets. The scanners were trying to pick up any signals. They were aware there was one planet with a lot of electromagnetic activity, bouncing from it's surface to shapes hovering in the sky, back to the surface. They were aware there was a lot of random radio activity being sent out. It was very primitive. Then the scanner picked up a single beam, aimed straight upwards, seemingly at nothing in particular. It was different. The dark shaped veered towards the beam to intercept it. It crossed the beam beyond a giant planet with rings.
As the shape cut through the beam there was a scream in the beam. Echoing the scream, there were many screams within the shape, beings in awful pain........... The dark shape veered away, the screaming stopped. The shape invisibly came to a halt............
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It had been a difficult day for Mike. It was Julie's birthday. It had started dark and had got worse. He had turned on his radio, he had sobbed, screamed, shouted his anger into the radio, knowing it was the only place he could speak openly without being heard or hurting anyone. He had spent some time through the evening on the radio, before the darkness had exhausted him and he dragged himself to bed and asleep. Sleep was probably the only place he couldn't feel his pain. Except for the nightmares. .......
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Inside the dark shape there was a real sense of disaster. It wasn't meant to wake up, but it had.
The darkness, the pain, the anger, the suffering that had come up the radio beam had caused so much consternation -- the pain had been felt horribly within the shape. There had been debate, but a few had followed the beam to the surface of a planet - those who could survive outside. They had gone to its source, and found the source. They had taken the source back up the beam so all could see, believing it would stay asleep when they placed it into the middle of the chamber, thinking their powers would keep it asleep.
But something had gone wrong -- it had woken up.
Mike opened his eyes in the shaded light -- not dark, not bright -- just comfortable. Mike was disorientated, then remembered his grief, going to bed, his radio. He often woke up in the early hours. But this was different. This was something else.
Mike looked around -- he noticed he was in what looked like some sort of industrial, metal chamber, but painted dark blue. He was on a metal floor, though it wasn't cold. Mike thought "industrial" was the wrong word -- there was a real beauty to the colour around him. Somehow he was so shocked he wasn't afraid.................
Then he was.
As he looked around the room he was aware of shapes appearing, just becoming solid, materialising all around him. Mike screamed, as these figures perhaps 9 or 10 feet tall, humanoid in shape but with no features, appeared all around the chamber. His voice was silent, until they stopped seeming to get more solid, and ended semi-transparent, each of a single colour, transparent pinks, blues, greens, with one who was red. If Mike had not been terrified he would have thought the sight would be stunningly beautiful.
Mike was paralysed with fear. There was a tingling sound suddenly surrounding him -- a sound with some urgency, which Mike later understood to be conversation between the creatures. His levels of fear rocketed even further as he realised the red figure was moving. Moving towards him. Mike looked to where he could run, but there was nowhere. Suddenly the figure was lifting him -- later Mike would have said it felt like warm velvet jelly, but alive. He screamed, but still he was lifted, then wrapped around by this creature.