A Matter Of Fact
1
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," Mr. Pearson said, moving towards the blackboard, "These words were said by Arthur .C .Clarke."
"Excuse me sir," a voice rang out from one of the benches, "I beg to differ."
As all eyes turned to that one girl at the back of the class, she tossed aside her hair and began speaking, "Sir, magic is illusion, a mirage. Science is based on facts and experiments. How can science be magic?"
Mr. Pearson adjusted his gold rimmed glasses and said very coolly, "Ayla, there are certain things in the universe which has no explanations in science. Everything from dark matter to parallel universe is still unknown, yet we continue to believe in them. What would we call them? What is science to us, may be magic to a layman. It all depends on your perspective and the level of your knowledge."
She was opening her mouth to argue when Mr. Pearson said, "I think you are not convinced. Come to my house this evening."
She slumped on her chair and hit the desk in her frustration. She had just earned a pep talk from her professor in Physics.
2
Reaching his home, Ayla was shown an empty sofa where she slouched.
Her heart beat increased with each passing minute. Her teacher would again try to feed her a bunch of crap.
"Science is not magic," she convinced herself, 'I have to prove my point."
It was almost five minutes but there was no sign of Mr. Pearson.
She strained her ears for any sound of approaching footsteps.
A faint sound caught her ear. It was soft but there was a steady beat to it, like a muffled drum.
She was suddenly very curious and decided to explore.
She knew it was wrong to sneak into someone's house, especially if he is your teacher. But her curiousness took over.
Searching for the source of sound, she walked along the corridors to a room. The sound was fairly audible now.
Very cautiously she opened the door and peeped in to find a room stuffed with all kinds of weird gadgets, all beeping, beating and whistling. There were tangles of wires, monitors, tools and displays. Nuts and bolts were strewn everywhere.
This was some kind of research area. She was amazed that her teacher did all such crazy stuff.
Suddenly her eyes were drawn to a white cylinder in the middle of the room. Drawn by an unnatural attraction, she reached out and pressed a button on the walls of the cylinder.
The cylinder opened up and she could see a variety of mirrors, levers and switches.
Curiosity gained the better of her as she put one foot inside. Then she was in the machine.
But to her utter horror, the doors closed behind her. There was a low grinding sound as the machine started functioning. The lights above her head danced on the walls and hit the mirrors bathing her with an eerie blue light.
For the first time, Ayla was scared. She beat frantically against the door but no one could hear her cries.
3
Mr. Pearson burst in through the door to find Ayla inside the machine.
Immediately he rushed to the machine and pressed some buttons. The machine sounded a siren and he clutched his head in despair.
As the door opened, Ayla came out.
She looked at herself. Everything seemed fine.
"Sorry sir, hope I did not do too much damage," she apologized.
He stared at her in horror.
"I will pay compensation for any loss sir," she reassured.
"A...Ayla, do you realize what you had just done," his voice was distressed.
She nodded her head. Her heart raced.
"Do you know what antimatter is?"
"It is the anti-particle of matter. Like the antimatter of electron is positron," she replied.
"Yes. Matter attracts antimatter. Somewhere in this world has been created your antimatter. An alter ego. She will search for you. She will be attracted to you. And if matter and antimatter collide..."
"They both are annihilated," Ayla whispered, a lump forming in her throat, "How much time before she finds me?"
He was frantically searching for words...
Finally he said, "It depends on where she is created. It could be days, months or years, to a few hours."
Ayla glanced around nervously, afraid that her death was waiting for her in the shadows.
"No," she cried, "I cannot end like this. This is not real. It's an illusion. There has to be some way out."
She suddenly felt so weak. She dropped to the ground, shivering.
"Ayla, I will try..." his voice quivered, "I will try to stop her. I will make a positively ionized plastic to repel her from you. But I can't guarantee..."
4
Her phone rang for the third time.
She ignored it as she desperately flicked through pages of her books and skimmed through Google. There has to be something.
But matter and antimatter were still one of the mysteries of science as their nature was still unknown.
She realized that was the magic, dark and powerful. Could she defeat it with science?
At the fifth ring she responded to the call.
"Are you Ayla?" a singsong voice rang out from the other end.
"Yeah," she snapped, "Who are you?"
"I am Alya, I want to meet you today at the park. You will know the reason when you come," the mysterious voice replied.
"But how will I know you?"
"You will know on seeing me," that high pitched voice chuckled, "Come fast..."
She hung up.
Ayla was stunned for a moment. Who was this mysterious girl?
She wanted to unravel the mystery.
5
Reaching the park she looked around searching for Alya, whoever she was.
After a minute's wait she started to turn back but froze midway.
Standing there, leaning again a tree was Death herself.
She had dark eyes and long black hair. Ayla felt like she was looking in a mirror, except the smirk on the face, her face. She looked weird too, kind of translucent, glassy. She had no real existence. It was another illusion.
AYLA...ALYA...
Alter ego...Antimatter.
Everything was falling into place. This was her, the cunning, calculative antimatter, her death.
She turned around and started running.
6
Gasping for breath, she reached her room and locked the door behind her. Then she sank to the floor.
"You can't run. You can't hide. You attract me like the opposite poles of a magnet," the voice of her nightmares spoke up from somewhere in her room.
The lithe figure approached her, steady and calm.
She simply stayed where she was. She was defeated. She was doomed to die.
She couldn't escape from her.
"Y...You can't exist, t...there is no explanation of how you could be created," Ayla stammered.
Alya moved forward another step.
With each step, Ayla could feel death approaching her. She felt as if someone was choking her.
"There are a lot of things in this universe which cannot be explained. I existed always, just in a parallel dimension. Something drew me to this world and then I felt the pull which brought me to you," Alya said, still reaching for her.
"But you don't need to do this. You could go back and we both could exist in different dimensions," Ayla said, as a tear drop leaked from her eyes.
"I don't want to die. I want to live too," sighed Alya, stopping for a moment, "I also have a family back there, I want to go back to them. But I am bound. Bound to you by science, by magic, by destiny. Once I could have gone back. But not anymore. Not after seeing you."
"Please," Ayla begged, "Please leave me."
"I am sorry," her anti-matter whispered, "I have no choice, I can feel the pull. It's immense. Every positron in me is craving to clash into your electrons. I cannot stop but I can give you once choice."
"What?"
"Write something for this world before you leave."
Ayla hastily grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled something.
Keeping it aside finally she stood up. She had steeled her heart. If it was destiny, then let it be.
She had made the mistake of underestimating science.
"What will be out fate when we collide?"
Ayla was surprised at the calmness in her own voice.
A tear dropped from Alya's eyes, "We cease to exist in both our dimensions. But somewhere in the universe, in other parallel worlds, in another time, in another dimension, we will go on."
"Are we friends," Alya extended her hand.
"Friends," Ayla reached out to catch the hand of death....
A deafening sound shook the calm neighbourhood as the stunned people rushed towards Ayla's home.
Breaking open the door they found the whole room destroyed. The walls covered with black soot and splinters of glass in all directions. But amongst it lay one piece of paper and on it was written...
1500
A/N Thanks to all my friends for reading. This is again for a competition by ScienceFiction.
I am glad to have written this story. Your votes and feedback are appreciated.
This is for my Scifi lovers. Especially, JWilliamsx98 and wattpawormss.
My best reader Pipigrin, you are welcome to give it a try.
KashishBelikov Check it out.
Love you all.
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