Professor
Ariel Sheratan, a research astronomer, had been researching the practical
applications of stellar energy as a power source aboard the privately-owned
Next Element Space Station (N.E.S.S.). Her hypothesis was that the energy
possessed by stars could rival the efficiency of nuclear power as an energy
source, if it could somehow be harnessed.
In order to
more closely study this stellar energy, Professor Sheratan built a
one-of-a-kind telescope (the Nebulous Starscope 1.0) designed to analyse the
spectra of light observed in outer space. While observing stars aboard the N.E.S.S.,
Professor Sheratan witnessed a supernova explosion through her telescope—an
explosion so blinding that she was knocked unconscious. When she came around,
she found herself in the clinic, under the watchful eyes of the only other two
people aboard the N.E.S.S.: Professor
Fergus Hadron, her research partner, and Dr Celia Gray, the on-board surgeon. She
could hear them whispering to each other at the other end of the room.
When Ariel
opened her eyes, she could not see and instead felt an intense heat around her
face; she heard screams of agony, the ripping of metal; she tumbled from the
gurney and found herself face down on the floor. She was finally able to close
her eyes, and was met with only silence. Confused, Ariel attempted to stand but
did not yet have the strength. Why
doesn't someone help me? She didn't know how long she sat there when she
was finally able to summon the strength to stand. Keeping her eyes closed, for
her silent contemplation had given rise to an impossible theory, she fumbled
about the clinic; she found her way to the equipment cabinet, though not
without obtaining several bruises. After rummaging around in the cabinet, Ariel
found what she sought—Extra-Ultra Violet (E-UV) Protection Goggles (the solar
equivalent of bulletproof glass)—and put them on. Tentatively, she opened her
eyes ...
With a pang
of sorrow, she saw the destruction around her. Angry smoke billowed, concealing
part of the room. She stepped through it and cried out mournfully. Covered in
debris and surrounded by smoke lay her colleagues, so impossibly still it could
only be certain they were dead. Tears flooding from her eyes, she pushed her
way through the wreckage and out from the clinic. On the observation deck,
everything was as she had left it, except that her telescope’s lenses were
cracked and burnt. She looked around wildly, unsure of what to do. It took her
only a few moments to decide. She grabbed her telescope and her sheaf of notes,
and made her way to the dock. Flinging herself into an escape craft, she
punched the access code to open the external shaft into the keypad. Ariel
steered the craft out of the station, leaving behind the destruction but not
the overwhelming guilt.
Ariel
looked in the rear view monitor and saw that a shimmering haze was emanating
from the N.E.S.S.. As it was expelled, it folded back on itself and around the
craft, almost as though trying to envelope the space station and conceal it
from sight. She thought she saw something dark moving away from the ness, though
she couldn't tell what it was at this distance; only a moment of puzzlement was
allowed to her, however, for even as she pondered the mysterious haze and
equally odd shadow, a blinding light suddenly engulfed the space station. When
it cleared, in place of the N.E.S.S., there was only a void.
Now more
terrified than despairing, Ariel rammed forward the lever that would bring the
escape craft to warp speed and belted herself into the seat to await the
thrusting sensation she'd come to know so well from previous return voyages to
her own solar system. It wasn't until she was back in her home galaxy, unsure
of what to do and where to go, that Ariel realised her eyes hadn't been the
only part of her body affected by the supernova incident. With horror, she looked
down at her arms and saw they had turned black as the space surrounding her;
black, but speckled with light, as though the night sky had been drawn to her
and clung to her in place of skin. Her eyes drifted down and she saw that her
clothing had burned away and this starry phenomenon had spread across her
entire body. She wanted to cry, but no tears came. She was left only with the
sensation that plagues the tear ducts when one is devastated but has run out of
tears.
Ariel
suddenly felt faint and lost consciousness. When she awoke, she found herself
amid the wreckage of her escape craft, frightened but otherwise unscathed. She
climbed out of the wreckage and saw she had landed in a great, open, sandy
space. The desert. Ariel slowly spun in a circle, both because she was still
dizzy and in order to take in her surroundings. Wherever she looked, she saw
the same golden expanse, no direction offering any more suggestion of safety
than another. Shifting her gaze to the night sky, she saw a single cluster of
stars to the east. Taking this as a sign, she rummaged in the wreckage for her
telescope and notes, also discovering the survival kit. She threw the
lightweight blanket—which she found alongside a water canteen, some bandages
and matches, and a compass—over her shoulders and began walking wearily towards
the stars in the distance.
As the
night faded into the dawn, Ariel became increasingly troubled; she was fast
running out of water—her weariness prompting more sustenance than might usually
have been enough to sustain her—and there was no shelter in sight. More than
anything, she was afraid she would come across someone, not being able to
dismiss the thought as irrational ... Who
could I possibly find out here? Then, just as the sun crested the eastern
skyline, she saw something unusual out of the corner of her eye. She hurried
over to a sand dune and realised something concrete was protruding from it. It
looked like a wall! Ariel frantically dug at the sand, after only a short time
revealing a low concrete wall inset with a heavy metal door. She tugged at the
rusty bolt and found she was easily able to open it.
She crept
inside and lit a match. It looked like an abandoned bunker; perhaps somewhere
scientific experiments had been conducted. She could see cracked flasks strewn
across the floor, the latter stained with the fluorescent colour of chemical
spillage. On tables, dried up solutions within intact vessels and notebooks
yellowed with age but still fresh enough to write on, gave testimony to the
hurried escape of the bunker’s occupants. In the corner, she found an old cot.
She shook out the blanket covering the thin mattress and sat, finding it not an
uncomfortable place to rest. A small door was nestled in another corner and
Ariel crept over to it, nudging it open to reveal a small wash room. The
showerhead, toilet and basin were a welcome sight, but only wishfully until she
tried the tap and found that the water ran reasonably clear after several
moments. I think I’ve found my new home.
Months
later, holed up in her bunker, Ariel was finally able to prove that impossible
theory she had in the moments after regaining consciousness. A previously
unobserved stellar light frequency, on an invisible spectrum, had filtered
through her Starscope when she observed the supernova explosion. The unique
lenses of the instrument, having been designed specifically to analyse the
composition of stellar light, had enabled Ariel to see the invisible frequency.
And it had somehow been harnessed inside her body, without causing her any
physical harm. With nowhere to go once it had extended to all her extremities
and transformed her fair skin to ebony, it travelled her eyes, almost as though
attempting to escape. When she had regained consciousness in the clinic, her
lack of control coupled with her lack of awareness of her condition, had caused
the stellar energy to project from her eyes and destroy everything in sight;
including her unfortunate colleagues.
Over her
time in seclusion, Ariel learned to control the emission of stellar light from
her eyes. But her eyes did not appear as normal anymore; they were, instead,
glowing spheres as brilliant as stars. To keep them hidden, she must always
wear the E-UV goggles.
Today, she
continues her research; but rather than seeking discoveries about the practical
applications of stellar energy, she searches desperately for some sort of cure
for her condition. Though it did not
cure her, one of her experimental serums allowed her to change her skin back to
normal. It was never a permanent change, always shifting back to her
star-speckled skin after some time; by taking doses of the serum regularly, she
was able to hide her condition and return to society, if she so desired. Still
overcome with guilt at the deaths of her colleagues, however, she wished to
remain hidden until a permanent cure to both aspects of her condition could be
found. But her research brought her to the attention of a secret organisation
dedicated to fighting evil forces that plague the world.
Ariel was
recruited to fight alongside other members of this organisation and, in memory
of her lost friends, she decided to take on their nickname for her as her
alter-ego. And so, she became Nebula ...
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