CHAPTER ONE - INTRODUCTIONS

It's the year 3001.

Humanity has already colonized several solar systems.

Though humanity has really gone a long way, no alien civilizations or species were discovered or even evidence of it was found anywhere, leaving humans to still be alone in the universe.

But there were many scientific innovations and discoveries made. One of which, is going to play a big part in the permanent changing of my life.

It's my birthday, and I'm spending it alone, as I always do, in my laboratory, doing research on an element I've devoted my life to, Element OS. It's been around for quite a few centuries already, but chemists, physicists, or all scientists in particular are still baffled by its properties. Strictly speaking, out of all the new elements, compounds, and such formulated and discovered, this element is the most special out of them all.

Element OS is just something I call it though. OS stands for "other side." The name the Galactic Scientific Association gave it is something I believe to be unworthy and just too lame to be given to such an interesting and strange element such as it. I won't even say it. I don't want to.

It completely made scientists rethink everything they've believed in for so many centuries, all the laws and theories they've made and believed in. This element does not behave according to any known law and its properties are not those it should have, according to logic and reasoning.

Now, what it does is actually pretty simple and easy to understand. If you ignite it, since it is very flammable, it produces a green flame. Some describe its color as ominous, while some, simply as creepy. I'm no chemist, but I have seen an ordinary green flame, and the flame this element produces is no normal green flame. It's paranormal.

One reason being is that it's not hot at all. But one of the major reasons is that you can't actually feel it. When you try to touch it it's not there. It doesn't emit anything like EM waves and such, but the human eye sees it. Animals stay away and go crazy, feral, for that matter, if one forces them to touch or touches them with the flame.

Though you can't feel it, it does have its effects on humans like making you feel drowsy, or suddenly becoming tired after a minute, on average, of contact with the flame. One would lose consciousness after an average of 3 minutes of direct contact with the flame. It's subtle as that it is almost akin to falling asleep.

But what's interesting is that it burns things in exactly the same rate a flame does. It behaves like a flame only in this way. It doesn't appear to produce light either, because in the absence of light, you'd see the green flame only without anything else being lit up. It also seems that it does not require oxygen for its ignition or to keep being lit. To kill the flame one would need to wait for it to run out of Element OS to burn. It's the only known way.

Anyway, I was working on an experiment on its effects on cooking and on plants, so I was roasting corn with it, when I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder.

The said hand was ghastly white, but dirty, as bits and drops of what seemed to be soil or mud and dried dark-colored fluid which I sincerely hoped not to be blood.

"...help me..." The owner of the said hand on my shoulder's voice was weak and coarse, but I knew it was a female voice.

I didn't turn around, though. As a scientist I do not believe in illogical things like haunted laboratories and such. So, as a scientist, I made the most logical choice to be made in a situation such as this.

I gently placed the corn I was roasting back down on a plate. I took a deep breath, and did as any good scientist would: run away as quickly as an overweight, unhealthy, stamina-less scientist such as myself can.

Maybe working with Element OS made me rethink my non-believing.

END OF CHAPTER ONE

Thanks for reading! Do leave a comment and tell me what you thought of this story and whether or not i made a mistake, or if you'd like a continuation or something. I wrote this to get rid of some energy before sleeping, so you really can't expect a second chapter anytime soon.