Event Horizon
Chapter one ( the sky has nothing new to say)
11:52 pm.
Nyliax is on the terrace. again. third night in a row, which she's choosing not to analyse.
The moon keeps hiding behind clouds.
She relates to that more than she'd like to admit.
Her notebook is open. blank page. the pen has been uncapped for forty minutes. nothing has happened.
She knows seventeen different theories about the universe and exactly zero things about what to do with her life, so this feels on brand.
She looks at the sky the way philosophers look at unanswerable questions.
Directly. without blinking. fully aware nothing will look back.
Nyliax (fl)
Pathetic (she says out loud)
And because she's the only one here and honesty costs nothing at midnight-
Nyliax (fl)
That's just you..nyliax
From a place that is absolutely not outside her body-
--
Or maybe just someone who's way too aware of her age.
Not scared-still..calculating-still. there's a difference and she knows both very well.
She runs through the options systematically:
1. auditory hallucination. possible. concerning.
2. someone nearby. she checks. no.
3. something she doesn't have a category for yet.
She files it under option three.
Nyliax (fl)
Okay so that was inside my skull
Nyliax (fl)
And you're not going to gaslight me about it?
Nyliax (fl)
Points for that i guess
most people would've led with "you're imagining things."
--
Would that have worked?
Nyliax (fl)
Absolutely not but people keep trying
Whoever this is- they're not panicking.
She finds that either deeply reassuring or deeply suspicious.
Nyliax (fl)
Caelum...like the constellation?
Nyliax (fl)
The small one, the one nobody points out.
Nyliax (fl)
Technically classified as a chisel astronomers in the 1750s really said
Nyliax (fl)
"what should we name this cluster of stars?" and chose a carpentry tool.
Caelum (ml)
You know your sky.
Nyliax (fl)
I know useless things about everything.
Nyliax (fl)
It's my primary personality trait and my biggest red flag.
Caelum (ml)
not your universe...
Nyliax puts her pen down.
Somewhere in her brain..the part that never fully shuts up, the part that got her through every exam and ruined every good night's sleep.. something goes very, very quiet.
Nyliax (fl)
You say that like it's a normal sentence
Caelum (ml)
I've had time to rehearse it.
Nyliax (fl)
How much time?
Nyliax (fl)
Eight months? you spent eight months preparing to make contact
Nyliax (fl)
And "not your universe" was the opener you landed on???
Caelum (ml)
I had several versions..this was the most accurate.
Nyliax (fl)
What were the other versions.
Nyliax (fl)
Okay.physicist.Not my universe. eight months.
Nyliax (fl)
explain use complete sentences. don't be vague.
Nyliax (fl)
I have a very low tolerance for vague.
Caelum (ml)
I was tracking a frequency.
certain kinds of minds produce signals
Caelum (ml)
The way stars produce light most are background noise..
[three seconds. she counts.]
Nyliax (fl)
You followed a signal across universes..and it turned out to be a nineteen year old on a terrace talking to herself at midnight.
Nyliax (fl)
how's that landing for you
Caelum (ml)
I'm still processing.
Nyliax (fl)
that's the most human thing a physicist from another universe has ever said to me.
Nyliax (fl)
Granted you're the only one but still.
Different from the others.
Caelum (ml)
I should tell you...
Caelum (ml)
I wasn't certain what the signal would be.
Caelum (ml)
I wasn't certain it would be a person at all.
Caelum (ml)
And i was- (pause) not prepared
Caelum (ml)
For the particular shape of what it turned out to be.
Nyliax (fl)
the particular shape.
Nyliax (fl)
Are you calling me a shape right now?
Caelum (ml)
That's not what i meant.
Nyliax (fl)
No i'm taking it "a particular shape" going on my tombstone.
Nyliax (fl)
She was distinct. she was a shape. she talked to strangers in her head.
Caelum (ml)
You deflect with humour when something unsettles you...
Nyliax (fl)
We're not doing that.
Nyliax (fl)
You don't get to read me that's not part of whatever this is.
Nyliax (fl)
I don't know yet.
Nyliax (fl)
I'm still in the option three phase of processing.
Nyliax (fl)
things i don't have a category for it's a very crowded folder you just got added.
Nyliax looks at it like it owes her an apology.
Caelum (ml)
The signal was louder tonight that's why i broke through now and not before.
Nyliax doesn't answer immediately
Caelum (ml)
I'm not asking about it.
Caelum (ml)
i'm just...stating a fact.
Nyliax (fl)
very considerate of you.
Nyliax (fl)
Does your universe have manners or did you develop those yourself
Caelum (ml)
I've never had a reason to use them before
That lands somewhere she wasn't expecting.
She turns the sentence over.
Nyliax (fl)
I have approximately forty-seven questions.
Caelum (ml)
I expected more.
Nyliax (fl)
I'm pacing myself it's called growth.
Nyliax (fl)
Not tonight..tonight i'm still deciding if you're real.
Nyliax (fl)
tomorrow depends on whether you're still there when i wake up most things aren't.
She hadn't meant to say that last part.
She waits for him to do something with it
analyse it, reflect it back, say something gentle and unbearable.
Caelum (ml)
I'll be there.
Her notebook is still open.
Nyliax (fl)
Goodnight caelum..from whatever universe this is.
Caelum (ml)
Goodnight nyliax.you're the most interesting thing i've found in eight months of looking.
Nyliax (fl)
that's either a compliment or a really low bar.
Like she'd forgotten she could.
chapter two (my brain is a hostile work environment)
Nyliax wakes up like a loading screen.slow. Resistant. Deeply inconvenienced by consciousness.
The headache is already there, waiting. it had clearly arrived early and helped itself to whatever was in the fridge.
She lies there. Stares at the ceiling. And because her brain has absolutely no chill —
It immediately goes there.
— the voice. Caelum. "Not your universe." "i'll be there." —
Okay. So. That was her brain. Obviously that was her brain. her brain, which reads too much and sleeps too little and has been running on chai and unresolved thoughts since approximately age fourteen — that brain. Made up A physicist. a calm, slightly unreadable, suspiciously well-mannered physicist who found her frequency across universes.
Classic coping mechanism honestly. very on brand. moving on.
She makes chai. Stands at the counter. Stares out the window.
Thinks about how the Imaginary physicist said "i'll be there" like it cost him nothing.
Stirs her chai.
Thinks about how he paused before the word "distinct."
stirs it more.
Thinks about how he said he'd never had a reason to use his manners before.
The chai is very stirred.
She goes back to her room. Sits cross-legged on the bed. Opens her laptop. Clips the mic to her collar. Presses record.
Nyliax (fl)
Okay. Hi.welcome back to the podcast nobody asked for. It Is noon I have a headache Today, we're going to talk about consciousness.
Nyliax (fl)
Specifically — is it real.
like. philosophically. IS it real.
Nyliax (fl)
Because Descartes said "i think therefore i am"
iconic. Fair. But also —
what if the thinking itself is the problem.
Nyliax (fl)
What if consciousness is just the universe's way of making matter
deeply inconvenient to itself. We're just rocks. That got too complicated. And started having feelings about it.
Nyliax (fl)
Anyway. Dimensions.
Nyliax (fl)
String theory — eleven dimensions — and i've been thinking about what that means for consciousness because if consciousness exists in four dimensions
and there are seven more we can't perceive — where does thought go.
Nyliax (fl)
Like when you have a thought, and it disappears where does it actually GO. does it cease. Or does it bleed into dimension five.
Nyliax (fl)
Is dimension five just a graveyard of everyone's lost thoughts. Is there a dimension that is just. MY lost thoughts because if so that dimension is UNWELL.
Nyliax (fl)
It's just me at 3am going "but WHY" about seventeen different things simultaneously —
— something is occurring to her. —
Nyliax (fl)
Wait.WAIT.okay so —
if thoughts bleed across dimensions —
theoretically —
a consciousness from another dimension could pick up the frequency of a thought from this one —
Nyliax (fl)
Which would mean —
Nyliax (fl)
Which would mean that last night wasn't —
— she stares at the wall. —
Nyliax (fl)
No. no no no...that's called confirmation bias nyliax.
Nyliax (fl)
You had a thought, you want it to be true, your brain is constructing a theory to justify it. This is not science. This is a feelings' problem dressed up in a lab coat.
Nyliax (fl)
You made him up. He is not real. He is a coping mechanism with good vocabulary. And you —
And then.
from somewhere that is absolutely not the mic, not the laptop, not anywhere in this room — a sound. small. quiet. unmistakable.
caelum.
laughing.
Caelum (ml)
A coping mechanism with good vocabulary.
Caelum (ml)
I've been called many things. that one's new.
Nyliax does not move. the mic is still recording. three seconds pass.
Nyliax (fl)
You were listening.
Caelum (ml)
You were broadcasting.
Nyliax (fl)
Into a microphone. to nobody.
Nyliax (fl)
caelum. you LAUGHED.
do physicists from other universes laugh.
Caelum (ml)
Apparently at nineteen year olds who call them coping mechanisms.
yes.
— something is happening in her chest. something that feels less like curiosity and more like .. the ground shifting. —
Nyliax (fl)
Like. actually real. not my brain.
Caelum (ml)
Not your brain.
Nyliax (fl)
I spent all morning convincing myself you weren't.
Caelum (ml)
I know. i heard.
Nyliax (fl)
You heard the part where i called you a coping mechanism.
Caelum (ml)
And the part where you stirred your chai for four minutes straight.
Nyliax (fl)
You could TELL that.
Caelum (ml)
The frequency changes when you're thinking hard about something.
it's —
— she looks at her chai. looks at the mic. looks at the wall where his voice seems to come from even though it doesn't come from anywhere external. it comes from inside. which somehow makes it worse. and better. but mostly worse. —
Nyliax (fl)
You're real. fine. i'm updating my position. i'm a rational person. evidence presented. position updated.
Caelum (ml)
Just like that.
Nyliax (fl)
Don't make it a thing. i'm choosing not to spiral about it.
Caelum (ml)
Is that working?
Nyliax (fl)
Spectacularly. yes. totally fine. zero spiraling happening.
Nyliax (fl)
The theory though.
the one i was building before you interrupted me with the crime of existing —
Nyliax (fl)
About thoughts bleeding across dimensions.
Caelum (ml)
What about it.
— she can almost feel him deciding something. —
Caelum (ml)
You were close enough that i stopped what i was doing to listen.
— nyliax stares at her laptop. at the paused recording. at forty-three minutes of herself talking to nobody. which apparently — this whole time — was somebody. —
Nyliax (fl)
How long have you been able to hear me.
Nyliax (fl)
Complete honesty. now.
Caelum (ml)
The signal — i could detect it for eight months.but it was faint. background frequency.
i couldn't make out content. until recently.
Nyliax (fl)
How recently is recently.
Caelum (ml)
...three weeks.
— three weeks. three weeks of podcasting to herself. three weeks of 3am terrace sitting. three weeks of talking out loud to nobody about consciousness and dimensions and the specific weight of existing in a body that won't cooperate. —
Nyliax (fl)
So you've heard —
Caelum (ml)
...most things.
Nyliax (fl)
Caelum. I need you to know that i'm not — whatever you heard —
that's not —
— she stops. she doesn't know how to finish that sentence. she tries four versions in her head. none of them are right. —
Caelum (ml)
I followed the signal because it was extraordinary. Not in spite of what it contained. Because of it.
— silence. the real kind. not uncomfortable. just full. —
Nyliax (fl)
I'm going to make more chai and pretend you didn't say it.
Nyliax (fl)
And then I'm going to come back and ask you about dimensions.
Nyliax (fl)
You keep saying that.
Caelum (ml)
I keep meaning it.
Nyliax gets up. goes to the kitchen. makes chai she doesn't need. stands at the counter.
and for the first time in a very long time —
She's smiling. not the performed kind. not the dry kind. The small, private, slightly terrified kind.The kind that means something.
— she doesn't tell him that. she doesn't have to. the frequency already knows. —
chapter three (they love being loved)
She comes back with the chai. Sits on the bed.
Doesn't say anything for a second.
Just. Exists in the comfortable quiet of someone who has accepted a fundamentally universe-altering situation and is choosing to be normal about it.
Nyliax (fl)
Okay i'm back.
Nyliax (fl)
You could feel that.
Caelum (ml)
The frequency gets quieter when you're not thinking hard about something. It's like —
Caelum (ml)
background static.
Caelum (ml)
Then you walked back in here and it sharpened.
Nyliax (fl)
So you can literally sense when i'm paying attention.
Nyliax (fl)
That's invasive.
Caelum (ml)
You're the one broadcasting.
Nyliax (fl)
I keep forgetting that's your answer to everything.
Opens her mouth to ask something —
her expression does something complicated.
Not quite a smile. not quite not a smile. the specific look of someone who is tired of a situation they created.
She puts the phone face down.
Caelum (ml)
Your frequency just changed.
Caelum (ml)
Differently this time.
Nyliax (fl)
You can drop it.
Caelum (ml)
I'm not doing anything.
Nyliax (fl)
You're noticing. which is basically doing something.
Nyliax (fl)
It's just a guy.
Nyliax (fl)
Don't do the silence thing.
Caelum (ml)
I'm not doing anything.
Nyliax (fl)
You went quiet in a very loud way caelum.
Nyliax (fl)
His name is rayan.
Nyliax (fl)
We talked for three weeks.
Nyliax (fl)
He said he loved me.
Caelum (ml)
Did you believe him?
Nyliax (fl)
For about four days then i figured it out.
Caelum (ml)
Figured what out
Nyliax (fl)
He didn't love me. None of them do, actually. They love being loved by me.
Nyliax (fl)
There's a difference. Loving someone means you see them. like actually see them — the inconvenient parts, the quiet parts, the parts that don't make sense. What they do is —
Nyliax (fl)
They see that i'm paying attention to them.
Nyliax (fl)
And they fall in love with that. With being perceived. With having someone who notices everything about them.
Nyliax (fl)
i'm not a person to them. I'm a mirror that talks back.
Nyliax (fl)
How many what.
Caelum (ml)
How many have said that to you.
Nyliax (fl)
Does it matter.
Nyliax (fl)
[doesn't answer immediately] enough to know the pattern.
Caelum (ml)
And you figured it out every time.
Nyliax (fl)
I always figure it out.That's actually the problem.
Nyliax (fl)
Seeing things clearly sounds like a superpower until you realise it just means you lose things faster than everyone else.
Nyliax (fl)
[sips chai] anyway. He wants to meet. And i'll probably go because i'm a known idiot.
Caelum (ml)
You're not going.
Caelum (ml)
You already figured him out.
Caelum (ml)
You said it yourself. you're not going.
Nyliax (fl)
You don't get to have opinions about my love life.
Caelum (ml)
It was an observation.
Nyliax (fl)
It was an opinion wearing an observation's coat.
Nyliax (fl)
Why do you even care who i meet. you're a physicist from another universe. You found me by accident. Why does any of this matter to you.
— a pause. the specific kind. where she can feel him on the other side of it. deciding. almost not saying it. saying it anyway. —
Caelum (ml)
I followed one frequency. Across eight months and two universes.
Caelum (ml)
[beat] i wasn't expecting competition.
Nyliax doesn't move.
her chai is cold. her phone buzzes again. she doesn't look at it.
she opens her mouth. closes it. opens it again.
nothing comes out.
no joke. no deflection. nothing.
for the first time since she clipped that mic to her collar —
nyliax has absolutely nothing to say.
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