“I was hallucinating”, said Brown, “But I am fine now.” He knew he wasn’t. He was going to get to the root of things but if he told others, they would think that he got exposed to the radiation too which corrupted his mind. That is why he lied about his state of mind.

It was day four of the trip now. Each day a couple of mission specialists and a ship specialist were assigned to run a routine check on all the systems which included the systems of the allegedly haunted carrier. No one was ready to take up this task concerning the incidents that occurred yesterday.

Finally Linda, Michael and Edward stepped up. Edward had his own agenda of finding out what caused his real life hallucinations, Michael was not superstitious at all and Linda knew the carrier well. Although Michael wasn’t superstitious, he did have a weird fear of fire. He always felt that the fire was a living monster that would engulf him.

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They completed system checks for the complete ship and went to the carrier at last. As they entered the carrier each of them felt like they had entered into someplace evil. The carrier reeked of death and suffering. Edward went straight to the box where the suit was kept.

“Don’t open it!” shouted Linda but it was too late. Edward had opened the box. To all their horror, the suit wasn’t there. “There’s gotta be a rational explanation to this.” said Hall. He rushed to the recording portal of the module and rewinded the tapes to check what happened.

Their find was astonishing. The box hadn’t been tampered with after the suit was placed in it. ‘Then where did the suit go? Better question… how did it get out of the box?” thought Michael.

By the time he gathered his thoughts, alarms started blaring in the carrier. “COLLISION ALERT…. COLLISION ALERT….” When he looked out the window to see that they were nearing a huge chunk of debris that could cripple the whole spaceship. He did not panick and thought of trying to change the course from the carrier itself.

He started hacking into the command module to steer the ship out of harm’s way. But he was too late. The rear end of the carrier crashed onto the asteroid and before he could do anything, Edward and Linda were swept away into outer space. The open hull wasn’t his only problem.

Due to leaked oxygen the rest of the carrier was on fire. His fear of fire kicked in and he could not think clearly. He kept jumping around crying for help. His crew mates stood by the carrier door and watched as the flames engulfed him slowly burning his skin first and creeping in painfully.

______________________________________________Cut Scene__________________________________________

Edward was busy searching for the suit and any clue that could help him know the whereabouts of the suit. He was unaware that both Linda and Michael were in a trance state. He found a note that said “Find the truth.” Meanwhile Sarah walked into the carrier as she was keeping a close watch on the carrier. She said, “Edward, what the hell are you doing? Can’t you see what has happened to Michael and Linda?”

Edward turned around with haste. He realised that both of them went into the trance state. He shook Michael to try to break the trance. When nothing else worked he slapped him which broke the trance.

He started screaming and figeting. Edward tried to calm him down and make him understand that what he saw wasn’t real. On the other hand Linda was still in her trance and it was difficult to break. Even slapping her didn’t work. So they decided to let her be till she returns.

Michael was so happy to find both Edward and Linda alive. But his chest was still paining as if it was burnt. He took his space suit off and to all their horror, it was partially burnt. It was not all a hallucination.

Some of it was real. It looked like something was inscribed on his chest with fire. With close observation Sarah could read it clearly. It said, “Find the truth.”

Stay tuned for more crisp…