The sun had been acting strange lately. Scientists had been keeping a close eye on it, but they didn’t realize how serious things were until it was too late. On Monday morning, a massive solar flare erupted from the surface of the sun, hurling a billion-ton chunk of plasma directly at Earth. The magnetic field around our planet was no match for the force of the explosion, and within minutes, the surge of energy had reached Earth’s atmosphere.
The space station was orbiting about 350 miles above the surface when the flare hit. Within seconds, the electronics on board started to short out. The astronauts could only watch in horror as everything went dark. Then, in what seemed like an instant, there was a bright flash and a loud boom as something exploded on board the station. One of the astronauts – Carl – was thrown clear off into space. He could see the station spinning out of control before he lost consciousness from lack of oxygen…
When Carl woke up, he was lying face down in water. He tried to get up but his arms and legs were so heavy that he couldn’t move them. With great effort, he turned his head to look around him. He was surrounded by darkness and all he could hear was the sound of waves crashing against rocks somewhere nearby. Suddenly panic set in as he realized that he was floating adrift in outer space! He knew that even if he could somehow manage to swim back to shore, hypothermia would kill him long before he made it there.
Then everything went blank again as Carl passed out from exhaustion…
When he woke up for a second time, Carl found himself being dragged through shallow water onto a beach by two strangers who were frantically calling for help on their cell phones. Paramedics arrived soon after and took him to the hospital where doctors determined that he only suffered minor injuries from his fall – most likely because he landed in water instead of hitting solid ground head first! As for what happened to the space station and his fellow astronauts? No one knows for sure…
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