T.J.E. Hostetter

The Viatorem for the White Hole at the Edge of Andromeda 

I know what you’re thinking, and I intend to answer as many questions as I can, so bear with me.  

First, I am a Viatorem, but you don’t know what that is, do you? It would be strange if you did. Well, the Viatorem were a race of multicolored furry aliens, who came from a planet at the edge of what you humans call, “the Andromeda galaxy.” Andromeda. I like that name. It sounds so… stellar.  

Anyway, what happened was we built a machine that could create and harness the power of a white hole, which is opposite of a black hole because they shoot out particles as opposed to sucking stuff in. To make a long story short, it ripped apart our world and we all died. But if I’m being honest, I had a pretty good time with that because I was seeing all these incredible things and learning so much about the universe. Did you know that there are planets that rain glass and there are nebulas which are actually living creatures? It was all amazing. Like, if I still had a physical brain, it probably would have melted. I mean, I don’t remember the life I had, but I have these images in my brain of what life used to be… I don’t really know.  

So, I was the only survivor… or was I? Does coming back from the dead as an energy-based re-creation of my people with cosmic powers and a greater understanding of the universe, count as… being a survivor? Let’s just say it does and move on.  

I’m the only survivor and, at first, I didn’t know what to do with myself, but I remembered all these cool things the universe had, so I decided to go see them. I spent a couple of thousand Earth years exploring the universe, but I also saw a lot of weird and dangerous stuff. Like these cosmic horrors and monsters made of gas… I mean, I don’t like to use the word monster, but they were really mean so I’m calling them monsters. They were hurting a lot of people all over the universe and I figured I’d stop them.  

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been doing for the past several centuries. Having a good time with that. One interesting thing is that these monsters are really diverse, which usually meant I always had to reinvent my strategies when fighting them, which is really fun actually. Kept me strong all this time. There was this one bad guy, that was the size of your people’s moon and he was ugly. He looked like a neutron star and a gas giant had a child and then that child bred with a black hole and then that child had a deformed offspring with a comet. Did that make any sense… sorry, I’m getting off topic.  

But that’s why I came here to Earth, because… how did you people describe that monster that came here… like a…Jelly…Fish. Whatever that is. But it was one of the many monsters that I vowed to fight, so I came here to stop it before it exterminated your entire species. After an epic battle of my great cosmic powers and its slightly less epic gaseous power, I emerged the victor. And the last I counted, there are still 753,849,924 humans on earth left. So, I think I did a good job.  

Any questions? 

About T.J.E. Hostetter

T.J.E. Hostetter is a UND class of 2020 graduate. He hopes to pursue a career in creative writing and to write stories that inspire imagination, provoking joy, courage and hope. He is grateful for his years at UND and would like to thank his professors and friends who helped him get this far.