Ever thought about the end of the world? Ah, who am I kidding? Well, of course you have. Whether it would come from some sort of apocalyptic ending, demonic takeover, or so on and so forth. But, other than some sort of outside force, did you ever think it would be... us? "Humanity will destroy itself." A quote I once got from my grandfather. You know, at the time I thought he was crazy. Turns out, the truth is harder to realize than you think.
I was 21, young, fresh out of college with a Doctorate's degree in Astrophysics. You know, they say that getting good achievements beforehand speeds up the process. They were right. I graduated at a lightning fast pace, not really spending time on my social life. I found solace in things like Anime, thoroughly enjoying the series of Naruto, and its many types of fillers. After many months of hard work, and proving my mettle, I was picked up by CERN to work on the LHC (Large Hadron Collider).
If you don't know what that is, it's basically the world's largest and most complex supercomputer and machine. It exists for the sole purpose of smashing particles together, to create new ones, or simply to observe the process itself and gain some sort of knowledge from it. They had assigned me to work beside the ATLAS crew. Our job was to discover the origin of matter, and anything else that came on the side. We didn't know when we would peer into deep space, but we would regret giving ourselves the power to accomplish that.
Frankly, I was happy as hell. I had just received the job of my dreams. Everything I had done, everything I had accomplished, the endless nights of studying; they were all worth it. Rather than just being called a useless otaku or weeb, I would actually be someone respected, someone important. Who knows, maybe I would get a particle named after me if I did find something out of the ordinary.
The LHC had gone offline for about 2 years to undergo some upgrades. Particularly stronger magnets to accelerate and withstand larger collisions. The whole thing was just for us to be able to do the things we loved while being able to give ourselves a reason, a purpose. Often I questioned my purpose, but I found solace in my job. Working there did make me worry, however, with there being a small hypothetical chance of some sort of microscopic black hole or a hypothetical particle called a 'strangelet'.
We had finished the 'training' of the magnets, and were ready to start it up by June. Of course, full operations wouldn't really be in full gear until the spring of 2015. On a separate note,I had also finished up the last episode of Naruto Shippuden. Along with thinking about the possible end of the world, I also began to think a little bit about other dimensions. Maybe I would get sucked into a portal and meet everyone's favorite jinchūriki
June 3, 2015
"Alright, I'm starting it up." A miscellaneous engineer said, while the machine whirred. I looked down at the big rig with hope. Two years of being offline and now we were back. My partner looked at me with determination, and I returned the same. The day had finally begun. There were no collisions to be had that day, however. Safety precautions and all that, you know. To be honest, I thought it was complete bull. We waited days, months, years, and all just for more endless waiting. However, the determination would not leave my face, not even in the dullest moments.
After a day's worth of preparation, we were about ready to leave. I retired my lab coat, which I always thought to have been cliché in the sanitary bin. It still wasn't like we worked in a hospice or anything. One of my colleagues bid me farewell and left the complex. Sighing, I grabbed my backpack that I always carried with me and began walking out of the complex. Thoughts entered my mind about a certain poem. 'This is how the world ends. Not with a bang, but with a whimper.' I recited in my thoughts.
Before I could try to recall the rest of the poem, an alarm rang, sounding a collision. Panic immediately entered my head. The LHC was definitely not ready for any type of workload right now, and authorization was completely out of the question, as we were strictly told to not give any permissions. I turned around only to see my apparent doom. A microscopic black hole had arrived, I could tell by the warping of reality itself around me. No time to think, no time to speak. For some unexplainable reason, I wasn't afraid, nor confused. But for some reason, I whimpered.