Boredom is not the word many think of when faced with the concept of being spread out across space and time like a bug on a car windscreen, but after countless years floating further towards his doom, but never getting any closer, Siebren could only feel boredom.
He had this... general dissatisfaction towards the way his life had turned out. One would think becoming trapped within a black hole would be much more spectacular. A sight more interesting.
It wasn’t as though nothing ever happened to him, of course. Occasionally he heard voices, whispers, all in his own voice. Sound doesn’t travel within a black hole, and so he had to wonder where the voices were coming from. Sometimes he felt tired, as though something was draining him of his energy, tapping him as a source of power, but without data, he couldn’t properly theorise what that was about.
He was alone in the hole, the harmonious melody of the universe gently singing along to his descent into the hole, his only source of company.
He closed his eyes. He couldn’t remember the last time he closed his eyes. Then hummed along softly.
Over his time here, he had memorised every star visible from the outside, every speck across the sky. He had, too, spent an eternity staring in the other direction, in the endless black. So dark your eyes seemed to slip off it, unwilling to see the beauty of an imploding star.
He hadn’t had a reason to close his eyes, his physiology seemed quite unaffected by anything he did. No breathing, no blinking, no swallowing. As though he was trapped in a fixed point in time, however much time seemed to flow around him. It was a curse, only confirming that there was no escape from this hell, even if he would never physically leave the black hole.
He continued to hum, feeling the tiny adjustments of a universe in flux around him.
But then something began to happen.
The song got louder in his ears, looping as though responding to his hums. He didn’t stop though. He wasn’t scared. Nothing scared him anymore. There was only a sense of excitement at the discovery of something different.
And then... Siebren dropped.
After an eternity of falling, actually hitting the ground felt like sweet relief. He opened his eyes, scrambling up quickly to his feet. He was standing! Goodness, he could almost cry.
He looked around, it was a lab, but not his lab from the space-station, nor the one at the Hague, no...
Over by the other side, floating quite unnaturally was... himself?
