The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.

H.P. Lovecraft

Subject, Dr Henry Isaacs
A112 test site
Nevada, USA
2001

He’d known something was off that morning, it was a Tuesday and when he’d awoken he could have sworn it had been a Sunday. The clock in his room had stopped and when he’d gone out to the Cafeteria for breakfast Harold hadn’t been there.
Something in the air. He told himself, something in the atmosphere, something not quite tangible. He’d sworn the milk in his coffee had been one mark away from being off and as if that hadn’t been enough the tram to the test labs had even been late. The 08:30 tram from the dormitories hadn’t arrived until 08:47 and that never happened, the system was automated, no human error, no excuse, until now.
“Good morning and welcome to the A112 test site transit system.” The automated voice in the tram started as it moved off.
He’d taken the transit system numerous time now, a benefit of staying at the facilities dormitories, and a requirement for essential staff.
The voice over the trams PA chimed in again. “The time now is 08:47am, the current topside temperature is 93°F with estimated highs of 105°F, this facility is maintained at a pleasant 68°F at all times.” What had followed had been technical jargon and generally unimportant information after he’d heard it repeated over the last several days. But he’d ridden the tram through the labyrinth of sectors of the facility, most of it underground, well out of sight and below the burning sands above. The journey had taken around 8 minutes, metal transit tunnels, sectors and projects he didn’t have clearance for, colossal machinery he couldn’t put names to, so many mysteries through his window.
“Now arriving at Sector C test labs and control facilities.” The voice finally announced as the tram came to a halt.
Which to him was the Anomalous Materials department, the name alone had been ominous enough without it all being shrouded in secrecy. With a gentle halt and a light hiss from underneath, the door finally slid open and he’d made his way past the security checkpoint and into the Anomalous Materials main foyer just beyond, nothing out the ordinary. Just through the door he saw Niles, one of the security team sat at the main desk with a slightly anxious looking member of the science team looking over his shoulder at the screen.
“Hey Dr Isaacs, I had a bunch of messages for you but we had a system crash about 20 minutes ago and I’m still trying to find my files. They were having some problems down in the test chamber but I think that’s all straightened out now, they told me to make sure you head down there as soon as you arrive.”
The system crash could have explained the delay on the trams, but not his clock, omens.
Through the main foyer, Isaacs then carried on toward the awaiting test chamber somewhere down there in the bowels of the facility. With every step closer to the test chamber, that interminable sense of dread he’d felt before percolated to the surface along with the questions he’d asked himself that no one else would answer. He’d known he’d been assigned there as a replacement, a replacement for someone that, as far he’d been able to discern, had been killed in a horrific accident. As to exactly what the accident was he didn’t know, but he assumed it had been somehow related to an analysis of “the sample”. What the science team was referring to as The Sample was just another mystery, a crystalline substance, an element not known to human science whos properties baffled everyone in the science team. As soon as Isaacs had observed the analysis results he’d been immediately struck by the question of where the stuff had originally come from. It seemed to have an extremely unusual atomic structure, one in fact that eluded the explanation of science. As far as they could tell, their previous analysis of the element indicated it had an extremely high mass number and an atomic number that should have indicated the substance was unstable, yet no radioactive decay had been observed on any level, the stuff literally defied the laws of nature.
Reaching the changing room he cleared his head before getting into his Hazardous Environment Suit, then with no time to waste he moved on to the test chamber. The mood down there had been tense, electric, it was the big day, and boy did they know it. Various members of the science team meandered about the place, last minute tests, systems checks and observations that might reveal any discrepancy in the apparatus before the test began. He’d finally found Harold in the control room overlooking the test chamber, eyes out on stalks, the guy looked as though he’d been up all night but you’d never have known with his sunny disposition. He’d been working on the project for a while, he’d apparently been there when the accident had happened before, but naturally he’d told Isaacs nothing about it, it was all on a need to know basis.
“Ah Henry, there you are.” He said as soon as Isaacs set foot through the door.
Two others from the team were sat at the control banks under the observation window, Hughs, a surly white haired man originally from Boston, and Gardner, a 40 something that eternally retained that subtle post grad look about him.
All three of them turned to look at Isaacs.
“Nice of you to finally join us Doctor.” Hughs said, his arms cross as he rested back in his seat.
“We’ve just sent the sample down to the test chamber.” But before he could say anymore, Gardner cut in, a clip board in hand.
“Indeed, we’ve boosted the mass spectrometer to 105%, a bit of a gamble, but we needed the extra resolution.”
“The administrator is very concerned that we get a conclusive analysis of todays sample, I gather they went to some lengths to get it.”
Hughs looked to him again, his look all too serious. “But they’re waiting for you Henry, down in the test chamber.”
He went on through the control room and through the analysis labs where one of the computer banks lining the wall had somehow overloaded? Exploded? We wasn’t sure which, but from the looks of it, the front panel had been blown open and two scientists stood there investigating it as if inspecting the damage from a car accident. They muttered between them about what the hell was going on with their equipment, how it was about to go critical, Isaacs already knew something wasn’t right about that morning, he just couldn’t see it properly yet.

Two others from the team that he couldn’t remember the name of met him in the airlock to the test chamber. They’d given him the final brief, mostly stuff he already knew but it didn’t hurt to hear it once more. They’d gone on in a kind of stressed calmness that they’ll be deviating from standard analysis procedures, but with good reason because this was the purest sample they’d seen yet even if it was potentially the most unstable. Of course they’d tried to clear it all up by ending the brief with the statement that everything would be fine if they follow standard insertion procedures, and that the event of a resonance cascade would be extremely unlikely. The whole thing did virtually nothing to reassure Isaacs that any of this was safe or even sensible but Henrikson had been waiting for him in the test chamber for the last 10 minutes so it was high time they started the experiment. The mass spectrometer, the primary piece of apparatus for the experiment sat in the middle of the chamber, a 30 meter high monster generating a deep rumbling from somewhere below but reached up and into the dark recesses of the ceiling that Isaacs couldn’t even see. He went in and joined Henrikson at the control panel, the blast door closing behind him and sealing the pair of them in, what ever happened from here on, they were in for the duration. The air inside was tangy with static electricity, Henrikson had been quiet, hadn’t said a lot other than basic pleasantries and the essentials concerning the experiment, unusual because he spoke a lot, usually more so when nervous but his thoughts were cut off when Harold’s voice came in over the PA.
A whining feedback came through the speakers and echoes through the chamber before Harold cleared his through. “Testing…testing, everything seems to be in order.”
Isaacs looked up to the observation window of the control room, the gloomy figure of who he thought was Hughs looking through at them.
“Alright you two, your suits should keep you comfortable through all this, the specimen will be delivered to you in a few minutes. If you could start the rotors, we can bring the spectrometer to 80% and hold it there until the carrier arrives.”
Henrikson flicked one of the LED back lit switches, the main rotor switch to initiate the spectrometers start up procedures. Within moments the whir of the rotors began to fill the air, a single high pitched note that turned into a polyphony of high and low tones all playing in unison reverberated about the place. Somewhere up high on the machine he could see the rotors turning inside their housing, faster then faster again as the noise grew. This played out for about a minute before Harold spoke again over the PA.
“Power to stage 1 emitters in 3, 2, 1.”
Then with that, a stream of photonic energy flowed between the orbiting emitters and into a central beam directed down below where the sample would eventually be inserted into for the analysis.
“I’m seeing predictable phase arrays.” Harold announced.
The orbiting emitters slowly built up momentum, their noise now becoming an indistinguishable polyphony of high and low hums around the chamber. When the stage 2 emitters activated, the air became a blanket of near white noise, the machine now rumbling like some giant red lining engine.
Hughs came over the PA again. “Henry we cannot predict how long the system can operate at this level, or how long the reading will take, but please work as quickly as you can.”
They’d carried on, the spectrometer slowly building up noise and energy as they brought the overhead capacitors to 105%, like Dr Gardner had said earlier, a bit of a gamble but they apparently needed the extra resolution in the readings.
Harold spoke over the PA again, his tone the tinniest bit uncertain. “Uh it’s probably not a problem…probably, but I’m showing a small discrepancy in… well no, it’s well within acceptable parameters, sustaining sequence.”
Everything looked fine from the readings Isaacs was looking at on his screen, but then he’d been struck by a terrible pang of dread, as if the events playing out, were barely in their control. An image, a thought had entered his mind of terrible uncertainty, an analogy to the very events playing out in front of him. He’d imagined what would happen if a miniature nuclear reactor could be sent back in time to the Victorian age, of how their analysis of the thing would play out. Removing the outer shielding of the device, they’d suddenly drop dead and no one would know why, radioactivity meant nothing to men of science in that era. And now he found himself looking at an unknown substance that eluded the current rules of science, that was about to be placed into a beam of intense energy, and the truth was, no one quite knew exactly what was going to happen.
“We’ve just been informed the sample should coming up to you at any moment.” Hughs said, snapping Isaacs out of it.
Looking over the the delivery system, the carrier arrived with the sample loaded onto it, the cage around it lowering.
“Standard insertion, for a non standard specimen.” Hughs said.
Isaacs placed his hand on the control stick, his palm slick with uneasy sweat. Easing it forward the motors whirred as the carrier began its transit along the small section of track leading into the spectrometer beam, its destination. His mind had then gone blank, he hadn’t even noticed Henrikson next to him there, it was just him, the sample, and that awful tension in his stomach.
It felt like an age as the sample carrier made its way along the track, but as soon as the sample entered the beam, all hell had broken loose. Along with a massive rumble like a broken wheel bearing came an unseen explosion from somewhere. Huge steams of what looked like green electricity had arced out from the beam to stretch across to every corner of the test chamber now lit up in this alien colour, the team in the control room all letting out a surprised yell that came through the PA system.
“Oh god!” Hughs shouted. “Shut it down! Shut it down! Someone get them out of there!” His shouting melded into the cacophony of overdriven whining and blisteringly loud explosions erupting from points unknown.
The electrical discharges grew more intense, the machine showing no signs of stopping or slowing down, its noise a deafening screech, a howl of death.
“It’s….It’s not shutting down!” Harold shouted.
Then with that, a massive discharge erupted from somewhere high on the machine. A green arm of electricity struck through the air to land directly at the control room window. Everyones screams had been cut off by the explosion that shattered the protective screen and by the looks of it, struck something inside the control room. The situation was completely out of control, the machine on a maniacal overdrive, arcs of deadly electricity exploding all over the chamber one after another. Beams of deadly light surged out and through the noise, their paths completely unpredictable. Isaacs looked to Henrikson who was indicating to something on the control desk, looking away he saw nothing before a discharge hit somewhere close, so close in fact he thought he’d actually been struck, but he was still alive. He’d noticed a light next to him, then suddenly the realisation he was wet, being sprayed by something. Suddenly Henrikson was gone, nothing, smoke and the acrid smell of burning, he could see something splattered about the controls, in the weird green light it looked like some near black fluid spattered about the place.
In the last moments he could remember, he’d seen himself at several locations around the test chamber. Teleported? Transported? He wasn’t sure, but the image of the test chamber falling down around him had been his last memory before a beam of energy came toward him, after that, black, nothing.

He wasn’t sure if it had been the smoke or the sirens that had finally roused him from his slumber. The once tangy electric in the air had been replaced by the acrid smell of electrical fires, the whining of the spectrometer now sirens reverberating about the chamber. Isaacs jumped to his feet after remembering what had happened, his heart in his throat, his stomach practically in knots like a sailors rope. The spectrometer in the centre of the chamber looked as though it’d caved in on itself, half sunk down into the ground as if it’d been sucked down a vacuum tube, broken pipes and shattered tubes hung down from above like some hellish bunting to celebrate the disaster. Now that the emergency lights had engaged, he could see the control panel in some degree of proper light. The spot where Henrikson had been stood had been completely awash in blood, he could see that now in the light, but no sign of him. He was gone, nothing, just the blood, and in that moment he could see just maybe a glimpse to what might have happened to the previous scientist, only this had turned out to be a far more catastrophic accident than before. The entrance to the test chamber looked as if it’d sustained a direct strike from whatever it was erupting from the spectrometer. The blast door was all bent to hell and forced open enough for Isaacs to make his way through and back into the airlock. Unfortunately, the disaster hadn’t been contained or in any way kept inside the test chamber. The corridors beyond the airlock had been plunged into chaos as well, the whole place seemed to be fire, smoke, explosions and death. Another of the science team was attempting CPR on a fallen security guard, fires burned further down the corridor, the sirens now louder, their bleating wails the facilities anguished voice echoing through the long chambers. It had been further down the corridor that Isaacs had been struck by a deep sense of dread, an existential dread, a type of fear he’d never felt before, the type of fear that permeated every aspect of reality, every aspect of himself. Something very bad had just happened, something they didn’t know how to control or even regulate in any way. But what was this all consuming fear?
Back up in the analysis room he found the two scientists he’d seen earlier, one of them now sat on the floor in front of the panel that had blown out before the experiment.
“I never thought I’d see a resonance cascade, let alone create one.” The one sat down said shaking his head.
Then the other turned to look at him as he approached. “Henry! You’re alive.”
“A resonance cascade? Is that what just happened?” He asked all too nervously.
“Indeed, but look, out phones are out and I can’t reach anyone else in the facility. You need to reach the surface and let someone know we’re stranded down here.”
It made perfect sense, and with everything else going on his Hazardous Environment Suit made him the favoured option, not to mention his brief back round as a military scientist. From where he was the best way to reach the surface would have been to go back through Sector C and through the administration offices, then through the bio engineering labs which connected to the surface. The control room door slid open, inside he’d seen massive arcs of electricity bursting in through the rooms observation window. The room itself was now a shattered ruin, half the control panels and various apparatus had been smashed across the floor. Someone jumped out at the other end, scrambling for the door he slammed his hands on the glass.
“Help! Hel..” Then with that a deafening charge, electrical energy burst once more through the observation window to land a direct strike on the man. Isaacs wasn’t sure who it had been, Harold, Hughs or Gardner, he couldn’t tell. One moment he was standing there, the next, he was gone, his body instantly vapourised in a red mist and the door sent flying in several pieces across the room. Who ever the scientist had been, there was nothing left of him, blood had been dashed across the wall, the floor, suddenly he saw how Henrikson had gone, quick and messy, and with a loud bang like the exclamation mark at the end of someones life.
There was no other way out from the test labs, he’d have to cross the deadly control room, and with that realisation, his action taking, military trained mind came to the fore. He’d just gone low, keeping his body low, he just kept running to the other side managing what the other hadn’t. An explosion went off behind as he leapt through the door but that hadn’t stopped him from running completely clear of the monster.

On his way back through the test labs all manor of chaos had been unleashed, he was outside the test chamber, but the situation was still very much completely out of control. Making his way through the corridors, explosions still erupted from all over, he couldn’t see how the events inside the test chamber could be having this effect on everything else. Fires provided some level of light even in the areas where even the emergency lighting had failed, screaming coming from somewhere in those flames, he could hear it, clear as day. But looking closely, he saw movement, strange movement, long limbs, as if the person had been stretched out, flailing around in the fiery abyss, their long arms reaching much further upward that what should have been normal. The movement eventually stopped, presumably the person, if it was still a person, had been horrifically burnt to death. Further on, he wasn’t sure if the elevator leading back up to the test labs was still operable but he’d pressed the button anyway, then nothing, or maybe a rumbling from somewhere above. Louder, then louder again.
Oh dear, He thought to himself as he realised the elevator must have been hurtling down the shaft. Within the next moment, a grey blur accompanied by several screams from inside hurtled downward straight past him. A massive smash as it hit the bottom, the glass on the door shattering, the elevator chassis presumably flattening at the bottom of the shaft crushing whoever had been inside. Sometimes, you just knew when there was no way someone survived, death was all around him. Climbing through the shattered glass of the door and into the shaft, nothing could be heard from below, there was a ladder leading both up and down in the shaft, a brief inspection down to the bottom revealed what he’d thought. Two people in the elevator, both had been crushed to a pulpy, bony mess as it impacted and stopped at the bottom. There had been no one to help so he’d then climbed all the way back up and into the upper corridors of the test labs. He’d eventually waded his way through the chaos to arrive back at the Sector C main foyer, the place was quieter, only distant sirens, but the power outage was still very much at large. The foyer had been mostly dark save for the emergency lights dotted about the place, but the lack of noise did nothing to ease his sense of climbing dread, that there was something, even if it were imperceptible in the air. It had come to his mind that something had been unleashed, somehow allowed into this world, a being or entity or something different entirely had been given passage into this world.
Following the corridor that exited Sector C he left the wailing of the sirens behind, but in that, something, it seemed had followed him. Sounds, gentle, like careful footsteps, like delicate movement around him. Behind there was nothing, nothing he could see, yet these subtle sounds moved around him. Some of them sounding like footsteps, others more like a movement he couldn’t quite place, yet visually, he was quite alone. It hadn’t been enough to alarm him, just enough to make him realise it was, weird, for a lack of a better word. But by the time he reached the end of the corridor to the opening, it had become increasingly unusual, or maybe impossible should have been a more appropriate word. He’d taken this route many times before, through the door he came to a junction where the corridor split off in five ways, directly ahead and up a small flight of steps there should have been a door, yet there wasn’t. Immediately confused he’d gone back to the junction just to check he was where he thought he was like a kid lost in the school corridors. He’d gone back to where the door should have been, but nothing, just a blank wall, nothing unusual about it, no signs of recent construction, it was completely normal except for the absence of the doorway that should have been there. His mind had been stuck in a loop of feedback for several minutes, going back to the junction then back to where the door should have been several times, he was indeed where he thought he was, yet the absence of the doorway was impossibly real. There was no other way around it, the door was, by some unreal means just gone, so he’d have to go another way.

The maintenance tunnels for the tram line had been able to take him to Sector D which was closely joined by the admin offices. On his way through the dark tunnels he’d heard the phantom sounds again, just as they were before, subtle and ethereal, going about whatever it was they were doing without realising he was even there. He’d wondered if he was really even hearing it or if was the product of his own mind, a side effect from the accident, he’d been all too close to it after all. He wasn’t even sure why or how he’d survived, yet here he was, or so he thought.
Through the tunnels, he split off at Sector D and headed toward the admin offices, yet even here, he encountered yet another oddity. Just before heading through the door leading into the offices, a doorway on the right of the corridor, one he’d never seen before. Again, he’d been this way many times before, yet he was completely sure there’d never been a doorway there. His immediate thought had been that the missing door back in Sector C had somehow been transported here, though impossible it kind of made sense. Intrigued, Isaacs went through, beyond was a mystery corridor, fairly unusual on his initial inspection, he just didn’t ever remember it being there. Following the unknown turns of the corridor, he quickly realised something was off about it. Although it was the same theme as the rest of the corridors in the area, some sections of it were far narrower than they usually would have been. Around another corner, he found the ceiling far lower than before, claustrophobic as if it were pressing down into him like a lid. This carried on over several corners, sections of it where the general geometry was off, wrong. The lights on the ceiling were placed, it seemed, at random points across the ceiling and the corridor itself was featureless, no form of decoration, chairs or anything to indicate it had ever encountered human activity, yet here it was. He followed to its end, and there was nothing, he’d half expected it to lead him to where the door should have been back in Sector C, but there was nothing. The corridor just stopped, a complete dead end, no turn offs or corners, no doors or any other way to go, it just stopped. It seemed impossible, yet he could see with such clarity its realness, feel the interminable dread rising in himself again. With no explanation for any of this he walked back through the impossible mystery corridor back to its entrance. Part of his mind expected the entrance to now be gone, and find himself trapped in there forever but it wasn’t, he walked back out and followed his path into the admin offices, he just couldn’t explain it.
Carrying on, the administration offices hadn’t been spared in the disaster. The place was running on the emergency lighting and he’d found several large smatterings of blood across the floor as if someone had been just zapped away in turned into a red mist, just as Henrikson had been. Further down another corridor he’d found the body of a scientist, face down and hemorrhaging blood across the polished floor, nothing ever spelt disaster like the sight of a dead body. He had to check but the scientist who turned out to be a woman had, as he expected expired. Not expecting so much carnage to have been unleashed so far from the Sector C test chamber, he saw in his mind, outside, for miles across Nevada, maybe across all of the U.S, destruction, the screams of the disaster blaring out across the whole country, maybe the whole world. The echoes of a resonance cascade, reality warping and bending in this nightmare that defied all logic, that went beyond human knowledge and comprehension to something he couldn’t explain or understand.
He’d found a member of the security team sat on the floor against the wall, his head raising up and turning as Isaacs came into view.
“Hey.” He said as he got up to approach Isaacs.
“By the looks of that H.E.V suit you’re wearing I’m guessing you’re from the Sector C science team?”
Isaacs had gone on to explain the situation to the man, as if it hadn’t been obvious enough a major disaster had occurred during the test, but he had to clarify, yes, the Sector C test labs was ground zero to the greatest scientific blunder of the last 100 years. But the guard knew as well as him in order to reach the surface he’d have to go through the bio engineering labs, and there was only one way through. The guard who’s lapel said his name was Lorik Adams, seemed uneasy, for a lack of a better term, at the idea of going through the bio-eng labs.
“You don’t want to go that way.” He’d said, a primal fear showing in his eyes all of a sudden.
That terror, that terrible reminder that something dreadfully bad had happened came up in Isaacs again as he replied. “Why?”
“I can’t quite put my finger on it, I’ll show you the way, but I’m not going all the way.”
He’d walked with Isaacs through the offices, his voice, his tone slowly tightening as they got closer.
“Why though?” Isaacs had asked. “Why couldn’t you make it to the end?”
“Look I don’t know, it sounds weird I know, but I just felt this, I don’t know, this terror, a type of fear so existential it was like nothing I’d ever felt. Make what you will of it, you call bullshit on it but…pfft” He said with a dismissive wave of the hand.
There hadn’t been anything unusual or immediately unsettling about the corridor he’d mentioned. Isaacs could see Lorik had been shaken by just having to return, his eyes wide, hands trembling, he knew when someone had been freaked out by something, he just couldn’t see it.
“I walked down,” Lorik explained now they were there. “Toward the door at the end, then I just couldn’t make it to the end, it felt like even if I had the nerve to carry on, something bad would’ve happened. Like whatever forces are at work here, didn’t want me going that way.”
“So you didn’t see anything weird down there?” Isaacs asked, just checking before he went.
“No.”
He’d gone on down the corridor toward the door at the end half expecting to be overcome by this unusually intense sense of terror Lorik had described. But half way and there’d been nothing, and it hadn’t actually been until he reached the door itself that something came to him. Not fear though, a sensation in his head, not pain, but a sensation from somewhere deep inside his brain, like nothing he’d ever felt before. Within mere moments the sensation, now also manifesting as something overlaying his vision, had become so vivid he hadn’t even looked back to Lorik before going through the door. Shapes and patterns that slowly came into focus, colours and lights on a spectrum usually invisible to humans. The patterns and forms focused into a clear image, something overlaying his vision, like the reality of what he was seeing, only now aspects of it usually invisible to him had been made perceptible. He’d been struck by the sense he was seeing some other dimension of reality, that humans weren’t normally capable of accessing these other layers of reality. He’d actually carried on walking down the next corridor, the footsteps and sounds he’d heard before came to him again. Only now they weren’t just sounds around him, instead he could see beings meandering around him. Ethereal entities, their footsteps light and visible to him in this transcended state, he’d been made aware that while he could now perceive them, they too could now perceive him also. These beings hadn’t paid a great deal of heed to him, he’d thought several of them paused and turned to look at him, but otherwise they’d just carried on to where ever they were going.

The sensation and higher perception began to pass with time, he’d wondered if it had been anything to do with the location. But walking back to he found the sense never returned to him so he wasn’t sure what had triggered it, but it had all felt so real, so profound.
Further through the office complex he came across a scientist slumped against the wall under an emergency light. The man was just sat there staring directly ahead at the wall, his features crimson in the light, eyes blank, expression unreadable. Muttering quiet words that Isaacs couldn’t make out he sat motionless, repeating some phrase over and over. Even by the time Isaacs became very close, the man remained inanimate, his eyes unmoving, his repetition of words unhindered. On closer inspection he could see the man, whos name tag said Dr Roberts, was completely unresponsive to outside stimuli. It were as if his mind had been burnt out, as if he’d simply gone mad, a route from where there was no way back. There seemed to be no helping the man so he’d been forced to just leave him and carry on, the sort of thing you’d only usually do in an emergency.
Making his way through the offices he hadn’t seen another soul, he wondered if everyone had befallen to the madness that appeared to have consumed Dr Roberts. Perhaps madness was destined for everyone, or maybe just some people, the people that weren’t annihilated in the initial disaster. But again, he’d then seen something that made him question his own sanity in one of the offices, made him question whether he was actually seeing it or seeing an illusion of some sort. An office that originally would have looked completely normal, except this one had been all mixed up. There was a desk that had been half fused into the wall, a chair melded into the ceiling, the florescent light was on the floor and an array of various apparatus, calculators, pens, note pads and the computer were somehow stuck to the ceiling. It were almost as if the room and its contents had been made from soft wax and someone had shaken the room then let it set. He’d taken a closer look, there was no way it’d been built like that, the desk was actually amalgamated into the wall, no signs of tampering, nothing to indicate humans had anything to do with it. The way it had all been done was so flawless, as if some reality warping force had made it so, as if it were supposed to be like it. Something was glowing in the corner, a small night light of luminescence that appeared to be emanating from some bizarre looking flora growing out of the floor. The plant itself didn’t appear to be analogous to any known flora on earth, not algae or fungal nor did it look like any marine variety of plant. The flesh of the plant itself was glowing a soft but vibrant green usually associated with radioactive materials, but the stalk terminated into a bulbous mass glowing a brighter and far whiter light than the rest. The thing had no foliage or anything that would appear to sponsor photosynthetic activity, and it was growing directly out of the floor. No hole or any organic matter for it to spawn from, it just grew straight out of the tiles. There was no other word for it, the organism was alien, in every sense of the word. He could have driven himself mad trying to figure out or somehow create an explanation for it so he’d taken a final look at it then just moved on, accepting it like the rest of the madness contained within that office.
He’d gone further but it hadn’t stopped there, as if the madness was spreading, he found yet another impossible anomaly. A corridor branching off to his right, again, it would have been a completely normal looking corridor, but this one was twisted. Round and into an increasingly tighter spiral it seemed to stretch off as far as his eyes would allow him to see. He’d looked away then back to the corridor, it was actually twisted into a spiral, somehow, impossible, it was like reality was being manipulated and reworked right in front of him. Staring down and into that interminable spiral, it just went on, smaller and smaller, the spiral pattern never ending, the corridor itself unending, was that what infinity looked like? He felt that he could see it, that it had no end, that if he attempted to walk it, he’d simply just keep walking until he dehydrated and died, an end never in sight, a death by infinity. It was all so maddeningly impossible he just couldn’t process it, he forced himself to just look away and carry on. But in those moments after, after seeing what he perceived as infinity, an unimaginable quantity, he sensed on some level, that maybe he’d just had a glimpse at what might have driven Dr Roberts mad, and that scared him.

Pressing onward, he reached the other side of the office complex and found the exit that lead through and into a part of the storage facility that connected the offices to the bio labs. Most of it had been above his clearance so he’d little idea of what they kept there but he didn’t have to stretch his imagination far to get an idea. Exiting the offices he entered through a series of far more industrial looking corridors before coming out to one of the massive storage units. Luckily he wouldn’t have to meander through the labyrinth of high shelving to reach his destination, instead his way forward lay 50 meters ahead at the far end in plain sight. Making his way across, it had been about half way that he felt the strange sensation in his head again, and sure enough, the visual overlay focused into his sight and what he supposed was some higher reality became perceptible to him once again. It had been at that point that his attention had been drawn toward a far corner of the unit, he turned his head, then realised the impossible had happened yet again. Looking in the direction, in spite of there being dozens of shelving units in front of him, he could actually see the corner that he’d become aware of. It were as if he was somehow able to see straight through the objects to his fore and look directly at what lay in the far corner. Moving past the impossibility of seeing through solid objects, he realised he was looking at some kind of natural habitat that had some how propagated in the corner. Although the corner he was looking at was probably nearly 100 meters away, it were as if it was very far, and very close to him at the same time. He realised he could see it in perfect detail, up close as if standing just right in front of it, and in that detail, he realised it was somehow related to the flora he’d seen in the office. That same faint green glow, the bulbs of light, except he wasn’t looking at a single plant, but an entire corner of the unit where these alien plants had grown into their own miniature habitat. He saw several different varieties of plant, each one looking as alien as its neighbour, each one with its own hue that coloured the air around it. This mini habitat had been populated by small creatures as well, vaguely insect like but like nothing from earth, then he saw the spectres of the more bipedal beings he’d seen before moving around what he now realised was it’s own miniature ecosystem. All these beings, large and small meandered through the flora, all going about their business, playing their own part in the ecosystem, the whole thing a living breathing life in its own right. The beauty of it stopped Isaacs for several minutes, even from the distance, he could hear it, smell it, the sense of another world, the beauty of something not from this earth, a utopia.

Isaacs had eventually carried on and into the bio labs, certainly not his department in science, and based on what he’d already found out in his time at the facility, he didn’t even want to know what they’d been doing here. Making his way through the dimly lit corridors and the sounds of the wailing alarms he’d quickly determined the bio labs hadn’t regained power. The place had seen a lot less damage than sector C but that hadn’t stopped people dying. At first it had been maddened splashes of blood across the floor and walls, just by the violent patterns of the blood he could see they had been delivered by an immensely powerful strike from whatever it was that had killed everyone else, flashbacks of the control room came to him again. Just a little further the dead bodies started showing up, some of them just laying there, others somehow dismembered, as if their limbs had been literally ripped from the body on impact.
The bio engineering team, or what was left of it had been holed up in a security room laden with portable lamps to supplement the emergency lighting. Two male and two female scientists appeared to be all that was left of the team, scared to their wits end they’d praised Isaacs on his arrival, the shock of everything had pushed them to the edge.
“No, you needn’t worry about reaching the surface.” One of them had said in reply to Isaacs explaining his objective.
“There are more important things a afoot than finding outside help.”
“That’s right.” One of the others butted in. “Never mind outside help, from what we’ve heard there are more pressing matters at hand. You’ve come this far, so there’s little reason for us to hold it back from you even if you don’t have the security clearance.”
Each one of them butted in one after another almost as if they felt the need to be part of the conversation, like they didn’t want to be left out.
“Things have been set in motion that, without imminent intervention, may not stop. You should head to the teleportation labs located in Sector G, with that suit you’re wearing you’ll do more good there.”
Teleportation labs? Isaacs hadn’t even known there’d been a division for such a thing. The scientist, Dr Howard, hadn’t gone into any detail but she’d revealed that yes, they’d developed a teleport allowing transit from one place to another. She hadn’t been part of the teleport development team but she had level omega clearance, meaning she pretty much would have had access to nearly what ever information she wanted. She hadn’t been inclined to reveal anymore than that to him and instead had insisted he begin making his way there.
“Just ahead in the main foyer, that’s where you’ll find surface access, Sector G’s just a short walk outside.” Another said before he left.
“Now get going, time’s running short.”

The elevator leading up to the foyer appeared to be stuck somewhere further up the shaft and after the elevator crash he’d seen back in Sector C, he decided to pry the door open and take the ladder up instead. Reaching the main foyer he saw daylight for the first time that day shining through the glass panes way up there on the ceiling. But after the initial relief of seeing daylight, he’d sworn that something was off about the sky, couldn’t put his finger on it, just something was ever so slightly off about the colour, the light. It hadn’t been until then that he realised just how cool all the underground sectors of the facility had stayed even without the air conditioning. Up in the main foyer, no air conditioning meant the temperature began to sore, the air inside had become stuffy, suffocating as if the oxygen was being sucked out and vented into a void outside. He’d gone through the exit and outside but he’d found no solace or any kind of refuge from the Nevada sun, relentless heat compared to the relatively controlled environment of the facility.
Staying in the shade by the entrance, he saw Sector G about 100 meters away over the open ground, but looking around, he’d realised why something had seemed off from inside. He’d stepped out and begun walking across, but it was all off, something just not right about it, about anything. For a start the ground was fraught with some kind of grass like vegetation that would never usually would have grown there in such abundance, then there were the flowers, many of them, all different colours, different types except they were growing from the same plant. The colour of the sky usually azure blue, seemed far greener in places, sections of it appearing as more of a reddish colour in other places as if pieces from another sky had been inserted, edited into the existing earth sky. The whole thing had reminded him of the mysterious corridor that shouldn’t have been there, everything was off about what he was seeing in the same way something was off about that corridor. All the pieces were there, it was just that they’d been placed there in such unusual, unnatural ways. As if a computer program had taken the assets of an environment, then procedurally generated similar landscapes based on its own interpretation of those vistas. There was no knowledge in what he saw, no natural development, nothing to indicate any of this had grown as things did on earth, rather it had been placed, made up, or maybe mixed up by what ever forces were at work here. Aside from its surreal quality, the whole thing was eerie, unsettling, yet another reminder of the disaster he’d helped create.
But for everything weird that was going on, the sun hadn’t lost its intensity. He’d found that as he made his way, as quickly as possible across the open ground toward Sector G up ahead.
Unlike a lot of the facility he’d passed through, Sector G appeared to still have, or somehow regain power after the disaster. He’d gone in through the main entrance to find the interior pleasantly controlled by the air conditioning and well lit in spite of the brightness from outside. The main foyer help desk had no directions for the teleportation labs, none of the directions indicating at anything that may have related to a teleportation lab, it was as if the place didn’t exist. But luckily before he’d completely given up he’d heard a rustle from somewhere afar which revealed itself to be a member of the science team. A small middle aged man, his look frazzled, knowing something had gone catastrophically wrong, yet he seemed relieved at Isaacs arrival.
“Good god, judging by your hazard suit I’m guessing you’re from Anomalous Materials, we all assumed everyone died in the accident.”
“Nearly everyone did, as far as I know it’s only me and a few others survived.” Isaacs replied.
The scientist had gone on to explain that he and the rest of the team had drawn straws to decide who should stay up at the main foyer in case anyone else arrived, and he’d been the one to get the short straw. The rest of them were down in the teleportation labs, the heart, the guts of Sector G, the unseen ulterior motive of the sector, what the place was really about. The man, Dr Morgan lead him through an unlikely series of corridors and two elevators before reaching what looked like a huge cargo lift descending down into what at first looked like a bottomless abyss. The lift sat on a track that ran down a steep shaft to the bottom, the thing gently humming as it began its click clacking descent down the track to the bottom. On the way down they’d discussed the accident, Isaacs miraculous survival and the aftermath before he’d attempted to explain the things he’d seen. Morgan hadn’t an answer to it, just like him, he couldn’t explain it even with his higher knowledge of the project and its constituent pieces. He’d held off from explaining too much about the teleportation project, telling Isaacs only that they did indeed have a working teleport, but nothing of how effective it was or what they’d actually achieved, although he guessed they must have achieved something otherwise there’d be no point in his being there. Soon enough though the bottom came into sight and the lift clunked to a stop at the bottom of its track, a huge sign on the wall said it all, TELEPORTATION LABS.

The labs in Sector G were down in the bowels of the whole place, the bottom, the deepest point of the A112 site. Isaacs had met with what remained of the teleportation team swiftly after leaving the elevator and he’d been surprised to find that they hadn’t lost anyone during the accident. Their team was 8 scientists who’d been working full time on the teleportation project, no replacements, and so far as he knew, no horrific accidents. Once the initial surprise of his arrival had passed, the feeling in the air had turned to one of a certain excited tenseness, for surely something groundbreaking lay ahead, or so Isaacs thought. Dr Ito, who Isaacs took to be the team leader had been the most instrumental in explaining their work and what they’d really been doing, his tone gaining an ever so slight urgency as he started. He’d walked Isaacs through to the lab proper, a large segmented room of computer banks and various machines chattering away and a supply depot at the other end, for their survey teams, Ito had said. At first it just washed over Isaacs until he went back over it then questioned it.
“Wait, supply depot for the survey teams? What exactly do you mean?”
“Just their supplies they need before heading off to the border world.” Ito had replied as if Isaacs already knew everything.
“Wait.” He replied, waving his hands and shaking his head slightly, needing clarification. “Whaddaya’ mean?”
“Sorry, I assume you haven’t been briefed then?”
“Briefed? No, there’s a disaster going on.”
If you hadn’t noticed, he felt like adding at the end.
“Sorry, with everything going on I tend to get a little ahead of myself.”
Dr Ito had then gone on to explain, the name “teleportation labs” wasn’t some kind of misleading title to a project yielding little or no results, quite the opposite. The team there had in fact developed a working teleport allowing objects and people to be instantaneously transported from one point in space to another. At first just at short distance, later across miles, all with no side effects, success. From there on Isaacs hadn’t any grasp on the technical specifications of how they’d done it, but Ito had explained how it had started with experimenting with the teleportation frequencies. They had experimented teleporting with various carrier waves then projected these waves in polyphonic unison hoping to gain further insight into the limits of this technology.
“But it had been when we started employing multi layered LFO’s to the frequency that we started getting some interesting readings.” He explained.
“We’d tweaked the frequencies until we started getting what we originally thought was a form of optical feedback, we’d reviewed our power outputs and frequency carriers then realised what we were seeing wasn’t any mere feedback, but the other end of the teleport, that somehow it had opened at an unknown destination. Even now we still don’t know how or why our teleport opened to somewhere else and even though likeliness of a quantum entanglement connection is extremely low, it’s the only explanation we have of this phenomenon.”
“So what’s at the other end? Where has it connected to?”
“That Dr Isaacs, has been the sole purpose of our research. We believe it to be some kind of border world, not on Earth obviously, it’s location has been something we’ve repeatedly failed to discover.”
“And you believe this to really be another world?” Isaacs asked, still not sure any of this was really happening.
“Oh no, we know it’s another world, you’ve seen the sample the last survey team brought back, you’ve seen the readings from it. It’s origin’s far from Earth, we’ve mounted numerous ventures to the other side by now, it’s another world alright.”
Suddenly everything that had been off about that sample made a crazy kind of sense to him now but he still couldn’t fully believe the sample had come from some other world out there across space somewhere. Dr Ito had then even gone on to show Isaacs photographic and video footage on one of their monitors that had been recorded by the previous survey teams on the border world. All the pictures and videos, aside from a slight graininess, had been remarkably clear and had given him a very vivid image of what the other side was like. From what he could see, the place looked not like the surface of a planet, but rather a series of floating islands in space, no discernible atmosphere, just a vast series of alien looking landscapes floating in a nebulous void. He could even see certain examples of the samples they’d brought back, the crystal like substance propagating from the ground like a natural formation. But outside of that, the place looked alien, weird, like nothing he’d seen, the shapes and angles of the rocks unusual, unnatural by Earth standards.
The footage had been enough to illustrate to him that what he was seeing wasn’t Earth, that they had in fact made it through to some other world, either that or all of this was some insanely elaborate hoax. But Dr Ito had insisted he stay focused on why he was there, the man had been merely showing him what he needed to see rather than showing off there grandiose achievements.
“You have the Mark 1 H.E.V suit, as far as we can tell, the last functioning one in fact, which is why I must ask this of you. We’ve lost contact with our survey teams on the other side ever since the experiment, before all this happened they planted a signalling beacon on the other side in hopes we would be able to track the border worlds location. Only we believe the beacon to have somehow given way to some unusual side effects, unexplainable anomalies, that certain aspects of the border world have somehow leaked through into our world. We need to shut it down.”
Isaacs felt his blood run cold before Dr Ito had even asked it, but he had to, he couldn’t say no at a time like this.
“Dr Isaacs, we’re asking you to go through to the border world, locate the beacon and shut it down, if possible make contact with one of our survey teams.”
His back round and military training along with the fact that he possessed an H.E.V suit made him the most suited of the lot of them to make the journey, but also because he was probably expendable in their eyes as well.

The teleportation device itself was a massive machine placed in the centre of a hall like rotunda. The air inside dry, and like the test chamber back in Sector C, had that same electric atmosphere. In it’s dormant state, the machine itself bared similarities to a giant metal spider with its legs pulled in close around its body. Four giant steel arms surrounded an elevated centre platform that would, in time probably serve as the portal gateway. So here he was, he was really going to make the jump through to the other side, he’d signed himself up for this insanity but surely it couldn’t have been anything more than what he’d already seen. He decided after thinking back to what he’d already seen that making expectations about what would come next was a bad idea.
I have no idea about what’s about to happen, and I have absolutely no idea what to expect, in fact, I’m not going to expect anything. He thought to himself as the startup procedure began.

The portal opening itself had been an effervescent orb on the central platform of the machine, once he jumped in, there’d been nothing. He’d had no sensation of anything, in fact the jump had been pretty uneventful actually. It hadn’t been until he arrived at the other end that he had any kind of sensation of anything at all. Then suddenly he was there, standing on a metal platform, an odd light in the air, surrounded by this strange, alien landscape. He’d arrived in a cave like structure with high rocky outcroppings, one end of the structure was completely open revealing the weird alien sky beyond. He’d seen the pictures and videos but nothing could have prepared him for the sheer sense of alienation the place brought about. It was completely unlike anything he could have conceived, the whole place was lit with a strangely relaxing purple blue light that appeared not to be coming from any single location in the sky. Plant life sprouted out from the rock, the same flora he’d seen back in the facility only here it seemed completely fitting, their bioluminescence giving the place a whimsical, almost fairytale like edge.
Looking around him he’d obviously arrived at the same location one of, or all of the previous teams had arrived at. Various containers, some open, some still closed sat laying around the place along with a variety of observational and testing equipment that had obviously been used for their analysis studies. The amount of boxes and equipment to move said boxes told him the previous teams had to have made a fairly significant amount of journeys through to get it all there. There were power loaders, pull carts and portable lights everywhere, who knew even how long it had taken them, made him question how long they’d actually been travelling through to there. But beyond the obvious signs of human activity, there wasn’t a single human to be seen, whoever had been working there was long gone, he was met by near silence, only a strange wailing from somewhere out beyond where he couldn’t yet see.
Exploring just outside the initial base camp, it didn’t take long before he came across that same orange crystalline substance growing out from the ground, then looking around, the place was awash in the stuff, just the sight of it took him right back to the test chamber. He kept walking until he arrived at what seemed like a cliff edge giving way to a spectacular vista of this most alien location. Then he could see it, a vast expanse of rocky islands floating in the void, different sizes and shapes but all just equally as alien. Strange creatures swam through the air in the distance, rocky debris obscuring the light in places, but right in front several hundred meters away was a floating island bigger than the rest. Its edges looked rocky and uneven but beyond that there must have been a level area because a huge towering structure stood well behind the edge of the formation. There was no confusing it, it was a building, a construct, built by someone or something and no mere natural formation. At the very top rested some smaller structure that struck him as being some kind of emblem or insignia of some kind, but as to exactly its nature he couldn’t tell from that distance. All of this slowly shifted around in the broad vista in front of him with the backdrop of a multi coloured nebula that appeared to surround everything as far as he could see. It looked as though they were floating in space, certainly not on the surface of any planet or large construct, and yet it only struck him then, there appeared to be no atmosphere. No atmosphere, and yet, he was breathing, he was alive, yet the view in front of him quite certainly told him he was in the void of space, there was gravity as well but it felt very slightly less than on Earth. It had been when he’d looked over the edge and downward that he saw the same nothingness below as well, his location was no exception, he was on one of these floating islands just like the rest.
After that had been when it came back again, that strange and now familiar feeling in his head, starting as if he’d finally been noticed by whatever force was at work in all this. The alternate vision came on stronger and far more vivid than it had been before. He’d quickly realised a new vista of reality had been opened up to him again, only here he was seeing far more than what he had done previously. Where previously he saw islands floating in space, he now saw an immense landscape of infinite shapes filling the gaps that completely changed the view in front of him. Infinite shapes and patterns extended into the nothingness to form this new reality, indescribable worlds contained inside every tiny space, beyond science, beyond analysis or any kind of understanding. Where previously he saw open space, he now saw solid ground, and the vision had been so clear he hadn’t even worried about stepping off the edge and into the void. His foot hadn’t fallen, he walked out onto this new landscape enabling him passage to all the other parts if he so wanted to explore them. Everything he could see around him melded into a single solid landscape, an alternate dimension of reality opened and accessible to him, seeing what was hidden in plain sight. As before, everything was very far away from him, and yet at the same time, it was very close to him, it was a part of him, and he a part of it. Nothing had told him, but he knew he was seeing what the previous teams hadn’t been able to perceive. He’d seen the pictures and videos, seen what they’d recorded, and what he was experiencing was that, but at the same time, it was also a whole lot more. In truth, the survey teams had no idea what was going on, what they were able to perceive was such a minuscule amount of the true reality, this places true nature eluded their instruments senses, and to them, if it couldn’t be measured, it didn’t exist.
It had been at that moment when he’d felt that presence again, the same as he’d felt, experienced back in the facility. A figure had materialised to his fore, but it hadn’t come as a surprise to him, its emergence hadn’t been one that instilled shock or terror. In fact he felt all very relaxed, probably more so than he did in normal life which to him was a sure fire sign he wasn’t in any ordinary place. The figure, the entity had felt familiar to him, he’d known it, experienced it before, it was responsible for this place, its creation. This world was not actually a part of space or reality as humans would know it, in fact, it was in a completely separate reality. A place where the laws of physics didn’t apply, time and space didn’t exist, where the very fundamentals of reality were completely different, maybe, or quite possibly far beyond human comprehension all together. He could see the figure to his fore was a mere manifestation of the force at work in all this, for a being of such magnitude, such infinity could never be contained by such a limited vessel as a body. But it wasn’t a single being, not something that could be quantified in numbers, it’s very nature something completely unlike anything humans knew. A conscious energy, permeating through all aspects of space and layers of reality, an intelligence that was everywhere and nowhere all at once, that saw and experienced everything, yet itself was unseen. Isaacs hadn’t known how this information had been imparted to him, it were as though it simply propagated in his mind, the raw information just inserted into his brain from a place unknown. After this he’d gained an additional insight, the conscious energy, which was the only way he knew how to describe it, spread throughout all aspects of time and space, through the infinite dimensions within our plane of reality. Its ethereal grasp reaching through reality with a goal, cataloguing and assimilating the data, information it encounters. It were as if it was trying to solve some equation far beyond the understanding of humans and their instruments, and just then, he could see the place he was in, was a kind of byproduct of this process, acting as proving ground or experimentation area toward a goal he couldn’t see.

He felt as though he was being separated, as if having an out of body experience, his mind was separated from his body, then beyond that, the core essence of his being separated from his mind. He’d realised at this point that without the interference of the mind he was able to attain a higher level of perception although at the same time, he was addressing reality in a completely new way as he was unable to actively think as he was able to before, the infinite observer.
Was this what happened when you died? Had he become one with reality?
In this new state he was able to connect with the energy in a way impossible before, it took him in, allowed him to see what it saw, to experience what it had experienced. Amid this melding process, he felt his awareness spread across its entire neural network, trillions of experiences happening all at once across a myriad of realities. He realised there was no singular him anymore, that what was previously referred to as He, was no longer in one place in time and space, but instead was everywhere, in all spaces all at once. Back in the facility, every event that had occurred on Earth in both past and present, even those that had yet to have happened. Earth, the solar system in every conceivable reality, every version of everyone throughout all the infinite universes forming our plane of reality. But his awareness had been brought to an even bigger scale, even in all the infinite amount of universes and their possibilities, they were contained within a single plane of reality, then he was made aware of numerous other planes of reality containing myriad universes. The plane of reality that we inhabit, was somehow analogous to a single channel on a TV set, and now from his new perspective, not only could he see channels 2 and 3, but an infinite amount of others. Some of them where time ran backwards, others where time and matter didn’t exist at all making them imperceptible to humans, their instruments and their limited comprehension of reality. He could see life in all forms, in all places, that he was part of that life, part of its every reality in all its infinite plains throughout time, space and matter. Myriad worlds existing inside a single atom, infinite realities existing inside a simple electron, worlds inside worlds inside worlds. An everlasting stream of realities on a spectrum of infinite scale, that the scale of reality had no limits, the hypothesis of the smallest particle simply didn’t exist in reality. This absurd revelation of scale all playing out in front of him, in all its terrifying reality, and his position inside of it had been revealed to him.

Up until that point his perception of time hadn’t existed so he’d had no clue as to how much time had passed subjectively. But after this terrifying revelation, his access to this higher dimension had then been simply cut off. Returning to his mind, then back into his body, he found himself amidst a black void of no place but feeling as though he were in motion. Opening his eyes he’d found himself somehow snapped back to Earth, back in the Teleportation Lab. The science team turned in shock to see him suddenly back by a means they obviously couldn’t comprehend. Their voices vague, their image blurry, his focus on reality a little shaky. The sense had reminded him of what it had been like standing in a loud bar for too long, then stepping out from that and into the quiet of nature, his senses overloaded, unable to appreciate the stillness of the natural world, as if he’d experienced an overdose of reality and now had been flung back into the lower realm of reality that he’d originated from.
The exact reason and question of how he’d returned without the portal seemed distant and insignificant to him as he came to terms with what he’d just experienced. Suddenly now, he was so finite, so insignificant, he’d seen everything, literally everything, yet he could tell nothing of it. That kind of knowledge couldn’t be worded, couldn’t be taught or learnt, it simply existed. The science team fussed around him, unresponsive, he’d sat there, unconcerned with what ever it was they were asking, talking and fretting about, in fact, how could that even have been important at this point?

There were no more barriers to cross, he’d seen the edge of infinite universes, experienced how beginnings and ends didn’t exist, experienced the infinite plains of reality. Yet he was a mere mortal man again, unable to see these realities hidden in plain sight, his eyes canceled, reality eluding him.