I huff a breath of sticky morning air as I step outside the NASA research center. With my sister Hope beside me, I feel at ease as I look across the wide spacecraft runaway. The land is flat and plain and covered in synthetic surfaces, but it is beautiful. For a split moment, time is linear and directional. Soon, Hope and I will smash it into Einstein's proof.

Unmanned cameras go wild behind holographic barriers and glaring security guards. They emit human shouts that blend together into a messy earache. We smile at the cameras shoved into our face. I skip closer to one of the lenses and blow a kiss. Something for the history books to enjoy.

"Addy, stop messing around!" Hope says, yanking me by my spacesuit close to her. "Do you really expect the science community to take us seriously if you're flirting with the cameras?"

I laugh as we stride down the long runway. "It doesn't really matter. We're going to be famous."

Hope snorts. "Yeah, if the calculations and engineering are correct."

We take an elevator fifty feet to the shuttle's loading platform and shoot to the top within a second. It's technology developed like this that will fire me, not my sister or anyone else, into space and back faster than the speed of light.

The elevator releases us onto the loading deck. A reporter's voice sounds from the camera in front of us on the deck. "Hope and Addy, any last words before the Twin Paradox mission begins?"

"We feel confident, but nerves always run high on launch days," Hope says. "This is the last time we're going to see each other for a year, at least in respect to her travelling in space. Time dilation fascinated us ever since our first high school physics class."

I nod. "We'll without a doubt prove time dilation, and that's what terrifies me. All our training and practice won't prepare us for the truth of the Twin Paradox actually occurring. When I come back to Earth... I'll be twenty years younger than my sister. I'm going to miss a whole chunk of our life in the name of science, Einstein, and NASA.."

With a final wave to the cameras below, I hug my sister goodbye and climb into the shuttle. I buckle myself into my high-tech seat as a triple-walled capsule closes around me. My stomach churns, but as long as I can resist the shuttle's acceleration and make it to a constant velocity, I can live the next year of time normally. For everyone else on Earth, so many more years will pass.

The electronic system counts backwards from ten, and the sedatives in my closed cabin rush into my bloodstream. I feel myself fall deeper and deeper into sleep, a sleep that feels vaster and greater than the great infinity called space I'll travel while asleep.

☢ ☢ ☢ ☢ ☢

I gasp awake in my chair, jamming my shoulders against my cushioned seat belts. I gulp a few breaths of air and wonder for a split second where the hell I am. Then I realize the answer is space, and I can never truly return home. My choices are scratched permanently into time.

I check my wrist gauge of time on the shuttle, expecting a 100 or 200 out of my 365. Instead I scream at my watch, "What?"

The numbers.. t-the numbers. Even my own thoughts stutter and reject what I'm seeing. I blink a dozen times and smack the gauge, but the number stays the same.

It says 1000. I spent more than double the amount of time in space I should have.

"This can't be right," I spit. The technology must have broken in the take-off. There must be a logical explanation for it. Mission are all about facts, logic, and reason. The gauge has to be wrong--

The gauge flashes and begins to beep, signalling the release of more sedatives. The second round of the drugs are supposed to take me back to Earth, but will they?

I feel my eyelids droop, and I can't resist the force. I can't stop time or rewind. I can't answer my questions. I can't know if I will wake up again. All I know is the dark blanket of sleep and space will silence my thoughts using sleep.

☢ ☢ ☢ ☢ ☢

I roll my eyes open, rubbing them. I look down slowly at the belts strapped across me, and I check my wrist gauge out of instinct...I read the number. 1001.

Everything floods back to me in a tsunami wave of fear and confusion. I jab open my seat belts and verify the digits on the gauge are blinking. Flashing numbers means it's safe for me to exit the capsule. It's time for me to face what await me.

I'm smart enough to think before I pull open the doors. I twist on my space helmet and secure a tank of air on my suit. My hands shake as I do so, but my training kicks in like clockwork. Clockwork. Even in my anxious state I manage to make world's absolute worst pun.

The humor relaxes me and turns into daring wanderlust. It's the spark of a true, curious scientist. I need to get out there and see what happened to me.

I rip open the doors to my capsule and depressurize the locked doors of the shuttle. Gravity tells me the ship landed at angle, so I climb up to the portal sideways on the ladder. The adrenaline pulsing in my ears fuels the physical challenge. I wrap my glove around the hatch and pop the door open.

I pull myself to sit on the edge of the hatch, exposing myself to Earth. I scan the entire horizon in pure shock. The area is an expansive desert. The familiar runway is barely intact, and NASA's buildings are crumbling piles of rubble. I squint in the distance. A wobbling flag post supports the tattered remnant of a U.S. flag.

☢ ☢ ☢ ☢ ☢

hi, guys! thanks so much for reading this little short story. since i have a twin sister and am currently taking high school physics, i thought it'd be cool to write about the twin paradox. basically, time goes slower the faster you travel... how mind-bending is that?

anyway, i dedicate this to my twin sister @jamietastic . and if you like what you read above, go check out my profile to read Enhancement, a story about a dystopia with a structured society masking a secret project with secret intents.

thanks again for participating in SciKick events! we read all of your submissions and enjoy each one. stay tuned for even more -->