The Morz Dimension

This is the story of the launch of Apollo 20b, a long-awaited launch-that went completely wrong. 

“Gregory, I told you not to lean on the dashboard! You’re going to make us crash,” crewmate Ashley said sternly from the backseat. “Don’t even say that lightly, this is not like we’re in a car. We’ll all die if we crash, so yeah, Gregory, get your elbows off the dashboard,” said another passenger, Alex. “We are the first people to be in a spaceship headed for Neptune, so please don’t screw this up.” 

Gregory reluctantly removed his elbows from the dashboard and placed his hands on the controls, giving Alex an irritated glance. “Okay, are we on course?” crewmate Diana asked Gregory. “Yes, and you asked that 30 seconds ago, Diana.” “Well, I’m sorry I don’t want us to crash and die!!!” she retorted defensively. “Even if we go off course we won’t just crash and die, I can get us back on track!” “Okay, I just wanted to make sure. Check again.” Gregory rolled his eyes and glanced at the dashboard once more. “Yup.” “Yup what? Did you even look?” “I did, Diana, now would you give me a break?!” “SHUT UP, YOU TWO!!!” Alex yelled from the passenger seat. “NO, GREGORY CLEARLY DID NOT CHECK BECAUSE RIGHT NOW, WE ARE CAREENING OUR WAY TOWARDS A BLACK HOLE!!!” 

Alex was right. All around them, pitch black and deep blue and milky white were all spinning and swirling as they rapidly approached the black hole, constantly turning round like a bullet. 

“Well, Diana, I guess all I have to say to you before we die is that I always thought you were annoying.” Gregory smirked. 

Diana looked as though she was about to burst. And she did. 

“Oh. That’s all you have to say to me, huh? WHAT ABOUT THE FACT THAT YOU WERE COMPLETELY CARELESS WITH THE CONTROLS AND LANDED US IN THIS MESS?! YOU are the reason we are all about to die, Gregory, and that the very first manned spacecraft to Neptune is going to fail, all thanks to YOU, Gregory, SO I WOULD EXPECT A LITTLE MORE THAN TELLING ME THAT I’M ANNOYING!!! IF YOU HAD LISTENED TO ME, WE WOULD ALL BE FINE!!!”

Gregory spread an embarrassed, remorseful face as the ship got nearer and nearer to the black hole. Ashley and Alex looked gravely at the deep blue, starry sea around them and a little tear lingered on Ashley’s clear blue eyes. 

“Well,” she said, choked up, “I guess this is the end.” “You guess?” said Alex snarkily. “Don’t make this worse, Alex.” Alex half smiled sadly, and returned his gaze to the massive black hole in front of them. 

They all stood and made a line in between the lines of seats, clasping their hands together and shutting their eyes. This was their last goodbye. 

Whoosh. The spacecraft zipped through the black hole. 

And they all opened their eyes. 

It was silent for a while as they took in their surroundings. 

It was very different. 

The sky was, instead of pitch black, composed of blobs of bright colors, like pink, green, blue and purple! They were all pleasantly swirled together and made the sky gleam from the neon of the colors. There were no stars, but they were approaching a planet- a very -different- planet- than Neptune. 

“Wait- WHAT?!” Ashley suddenly blurted out. They were all expecting it, though- someone had to break the ice. They were indeed frozen for about five minutes before she said what they were all dying to say. 

It was a rational question. No one really knew what happened when you got sucked into a black hole, but assumptions were that you die instantly. 

From what the crew knew, they could not escape. 

As they approached the planet, they all sat in utter silence trying to contemplate what just happened. It was like Ashley never said a thing. 

The spacecraft came to a stranger, slow, automatic stop as it hit the surface of the strange planet. The jets were turned off, it just seemed to- float; but it was a controlled float. 

The crew hesitantly put on their heavy spacesuits and went outside. They had expected to be instantly disintegrated, but instead, they just- stayed there. They felt light, much lighter than they did- well, outside the black hole. 

Ashley stood on her tiptoes to look over the spaceship, and turned around in every direction to see exactly where she was. And she still did not know. 

Oohs and ahhs erupted from the crew as they looked around. They all doubted their surroundings and thought they might be in some weird dream after they died, but it was a very interesting dream indeed. 

They started to explore the planet a little more, still not saying a word to each other. The experience was- fun. They felt like they were floating, and they were! A few inches off the ground, in fact. 

When they had been walking for about 10 minutes, they started talking again. 

“Uhh-” Ashley began.

“Where are we, you mean?” said Alex with a grin. 

“Yeah,” Ashley laughed. 

“That is a pointless question, none of us has the slightest guess where we are,” Gregory said grumpily. 

“Jeez, Gregory we know!” yelled Diana from the front. “We’re trying to NOT question everything around us right now, okay?!” 

They all chuckled a little bit. 

Then they were silent again.

Just when they thought they were never going to find anything walking around, they saw something in the distance.

“What is that?” Ashley asked, staring at it and trying to figure it out. “Looks like a house,” Alex responded. “No, I think it’s a barn,” said Diana. “Barn, house, same thing,” Gregory retorted from the back. He was lagging behind quite a bit. “Excuse me, there is quite a difference between a barn and a house. That’s how I can tell it’s a house, not a barn,” Ashley said. “Well what is the difference then, Ashley, why don’t you name every single thing that is different about them,” Gregory sarcastically said. “That’s a stupid waste of time, Gregory, now shut up so we can go see what it is.” 

They started up in a jog to get closer to the- house- or the barn, whichever it was, and as they approached it they found-

“It’s a building,” said Ashley. “Again with you guys, a house and a barn are both buildings!” Gregory disapprovingly said. “No, no, no Gregory! I mean like a-” “A what?” Gregory asked impatiently. “Jeez, Gregory, give me a break! I mean like a-” “Market,” Alex finished for her. “Yeah,” she said, looking up at it. 

It was indeed a market, with a little door, and a sign over it that they could not interpret, and may I say- didn’t even try, and several- creatures- if that’s the right word for it- were walking into it. 

Ashley gaped. “So does this mean-”

“Aliens.” 

Alex looked distantly at the creatures. He couldn’t see all of their features, but they were not human. It looked like they had tentacles, or some other type of windy, slimy legs. 

The crew slowly approached the market, and a whole lot of other markets came into view. It looked like they were approaching an alien marketplace. 

Once they were within a 30 feet range of the market, a certain alien spotted them and- walked?- his way over to them. (He was swishing his tentacles around to move, and it looked more like a mop than a walk.) 

When the alien approached them, he seemed to be- quite honestly- scared of them. They did look rather intimidating in their bulky suits and large, globular helmets. 

To their surprise, the alien started speaking to them. They were even more startled because he was talking in English. 

“Welcome- er- ju- welcome,” he said, clearly unsure what they were. “I am Morz, I live here.” “Yeah, Morz, where is, ‘here’ exactly?” Ashley asked impatiently. “Well, it depends. How did you get here?” 

The crew all gave each other concerned looks, each one hoping the other would answer, until Ashley quickly said, “We got sucked into a black hole.” Morz nodded and continued. “Ahh. Well, that was not a black hole, that was a portal to another dimension, so you are in an alternate reality of Earth.” Morz turned around and started walking towards the marketplace. The crew followed. 

“If you are to survive here,” the alien continued, not turning around, “You must take off your helmets. The air here is an alternate form of oxygen, which diminishes all oxygen you have connected to your helmets, it’s hard to explain but if I were you, I’d take off my helmet.” The crew hesitantly took off their helmets and took a deep breath of the foreign air. It was almost the same, it just felt-heavier. It was hard to describe. 

They took off their suits as well and were much more comfortable. And floating around was much more fun. Their surroundings were a lot brighter without their fogged up helmets. 

Morz went on. “There is no way out of here, so you are going to have to adapt to how we do things.” “What if we don’t want to?” Gregory said crabbily. “You’ll die,” Morz replied. “You can take a tour of the marketplace, it’ll give you some idea.” “An idea of what?” Diana asked. “Of how we do things. Go on now.” 

The crew walked towards the marketplace, not knowing or expecting what it was going to be like. The anticipation was riveting. 

And when they got there, it was amazing. 

Everything was- so different! The fruits and vegetables, the meat, they were not normal. The fruits were so many different colors! And the vegetables, oh, the vegetables, all sorts of different shapes and sizes! The meat wasn’t red, it was- blue. There were stands everywhere selling everything from beverages to trinkets, and the currency! It wasn’t coins or dollars, everything was traded. It was like a giant swap meet. Everything was so strange and unexpected- exciting and different. It almost made them happy that they were going to stay there until they died.