Nate DuFort

I could still see them, though, in my periphery,

and could hear the faint tinkling of chimes.

Focusing on the stones, I tried to hum and tune it out, but even they were becoming peculiar.

A water-smooth bit of quartz rolled a few inches, and smaller gray stones shifted, joined by another, and another.

Soon the stones were all shifting and changing to form something, a face.

313 grinned up at me with a smile made of gravel, and I heard the whispers of her voice.

I kicked the stones, startling Sam a bit, and looked up at the pink sky.

Her voice was all threats and promises of pain, but I tried my best to ignore them as the sun came up.

The flames receded into the woods, the sound of chimes going with them, and then Silent Sam and I began walking.

We passed through the veil, neither of us flinching since we were both used to it.

Sam watched me, though, used to folks falling over from the wave of vertigo that went with crossing it.

He nodded, and we continued down the gravel road.

I knew where I was going and only needed him for protection and to help if I was hallucinating.

The labs were half a mile within the first wall, the wall that used to mark the border of the sector.

I wasn't sure why it expanded and didn't know if anyone knew.

The anomalous activity inside the sector was the subject of more scientific interest than anything else in history until it expanded again.

We thought it was stable after the first two times it expanded in pretty close succession, but after ten years, it jumped a third time.

That jump halted most of the research, but not all.

Lives were lost, but people are still convinced that Lambda Sector holds miracles.

I didn't know, especially now as 313 messed with my mind, trying to find ways for me to cause my death.