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Light. A blur. A teardrop. Sharp pain. Slowly Tim’s consciousness regained and his thoughts oozed back into reality, the memories returning. And then they had returned. His eyes opened sharply as fear dragged him rapidly into the here and now. What is now? What time is it? Tim was lying face down. He pulled himself onto his back and looked at his wristwatch – 00:01:04. One minute! The panic that set in was debilitating. It was too late! Tim stood up and rushed for the door. He pulled at the handle but it didn’t move. He pulled harder but it still didn’t move. Something wasn’t right, this door doesn’t do this? In a fleeting moment of inspiration Tim began looking for the key. Unfortunately that moment was followed by an equally fleeting moment of realisation that even when locked the door handle doesn’t stay frozen like that. Someone had fixed it from the outside. He wasn’t getting out.
“HELP!” Tim yelled, banging on the door.
“Help!” There was no answer.
Time. How long? 00:00:22. Gasping for air, Tim collapsed to his knees.
Twenty two seconds later the massive explosion roared through the structure of the building housing Tim’s quarters. Tim looked out of the window. He couldn’t see the point of the explosion from his room but he thought he would be able to see the aftermath. Flames, bits of buildings being thrown about, secondary explosions.
There was none of that. Instead the sky began to flux through shades of violet, blue and red. Tim watched as waves of colour passed by the window, blocking his view of nearby buildings. Static electricity began to dance around these buildings, piping, gangways and now the aluminium alloy frame around his window. Tim had to rub his eyes as structures outside simply vanished and then re-appeared and then vanished again in front of him. Was he dead? Had the explosion taken him? Before he could answer his own question the colours stopped and the buildings reappeared. Now, however, the buildings sat on a different landscape. There was no red desert, no red sky. The sky was now black and dotted with bright star constellations. The ground was rocky and grey with tufts of green here and there. The air was clear and free of the ubiquitous clingy martian dust. Tim didn’t understand what had just happened. The station looks intact but where the hell has Mars gone?