God, I was the happiest man alive when I got accepted for that job. I don’t think that kind of feeling can be matched, to be perfectly honest. 

 

It was 1997, only two years ago. I remember it as clear as day. I had just started breakfast for myself, bacon and eggs over a brand new skillet I’d bought somewhere in London. 

 

I had just finished cooking breakfast, and I had gotten out another package of bacon due to hunger. Just as I was ripping open the package, I heard a ring at the doorbell. I threw the bacon aside and sprinted to the door, already anticipating what it was: the letter of acceptance into the detective division of the police force. 

 

I remember getting to the door so fast, in fact, that I was even able to wave goodbye to the mailman who had delivered my letter. And as soon as I had gotten back inside and ripped it open, I saw it. In bold black letters: the word “Accepted” in the top-left corner of the page. 

 

Anyways, that day has long since passed. As of now, I find myself comfortably situated in the seat of my bus on a nice spring morning, entertaining myself by watching an old man across from me try not to fall asleep. 

 

By the time I got to my stop, I noticed that the man’s tiredness had won the battle. I intentionally bumped him with my suitcase as I left, waking him up. Nobody deserves to miss their stop, not even a lazy old man. 

 

It wasn’t long after I stepped off the bus that I was greeted by the irritating voice of good ‘ol Henry Marrens. 

 

“It’s such a nice morning, isn’t it Charlie?”

 

“I could gather that much,” I responded, probably a bit more grumpily than usual. 

 

He paid it no mind. “Sarah’s already brewed your coffee at the station, by the way. Nice one, isn’t she?” 

 

“I’m sure she is. Would you mind giving me a moment? I’d like to enjoy the nice weather in peace before I get back to work.” 

 

Henry split off from me without complaint, leaving me to the weather I aimed to enjoy. It really was a splendid day. 

 

By the time I got to the police station, I was fully in a good mood. At this point, even my bothersome co-detective Henry couldn’t ruin it. I pushed open the door, which revealed my usual coworkers, in more of a frenzy than I was used to. Sarah was pushing between panicked people to get to me, coffee in one hand and a folder full of documents in another. 

 

“Charlie. There’s been a new… occurrence. You’ll need to see it to believe it.” She didn’t bother greeting me, just pushing the cup of coffee onto me and continuing to speak. “It happened at the Jennings Hotel a few towns east.” 

 

Still keeping up my good mood, and with a desire to share it, I said, “Well, it surely can’t be something too much to worry about, can it?” I took a sip of my coffee. “I think I can probably handle it just fine.” 

 

“No, it’s not your average murder,” she replied, ignoring my attempt for friendliness. Now she was frantically sifting through the many documents in her folder, making a mess on some poor bloke’s desk. “Look at this.” 

 

She unclipped a piece of paper from the rest and pushed it into my face. After backing up a bit to get a better look, I saw a document filled with text and a picture of a middle-aged man dead on the ground. Upon closer inspection, a bullet hole was visible in the center of the man’s head. 

 

“It looks like a bullet hole?” I pointed to the obvious, hoping for Sarah to give me more information. 

 

She continued talking without hesitation. “Yes, but there was no gun or gunpowder in the room at the time of death, before or after. Not even a trace. Some are theorizing it being a sniper’s doing, so they’re desperately trying to keep the information from the press.” 

 

“A sniper? In Marksburg?” 

 

“Exactly. It’ll be hell should the public find out about a sniper loose here in Marksburg. That’s why we’re needed at the scene. Even if we can’t disprove the idea that it’s a sniper, we need to at least figure out more details at the scene of death. Or at least a motive.” 

 

“Alright then. I’ll head there now.” 

 

“Actually, I’m coming with you. Henry, too.” 

 

It wasn’t that I disliked being a detective; I loved it, in fact. But in almost every situation, I would much rather do investigating alone than with someone else. Henry was my co-detective, yes, but I’d never really asked him to be. Still, it seemed that I wouldn’t be doing this alone anyways. 

 

“Ah… alright. Sounds splendid,” I finally said. My annoyance was audible. Sarah, again, paid it no mind. 

 

Not long after, I left the station towards the taxi, Sarah and Henry not far behind. The three of us entered, and Sarah slammed the door behind her. 

 

God, if I knew then what I would be getting myself into. 

 

#  #  #

 

The ride was smooth but slow, and a couple of other police cars surrounded the hotel. Among them I recognised my seldom-seen work buddy, Oscar, hunched over in the front of his police car. I felt a rush of relief seeing him; as much as I liked my job, Oscar was the only person I worked with that I truly enjoyed being around. Not to mention, I rarely saw him. 

 

After getting out of the taxi and striding right past Henry and Sarah, I gave a small knock on Oscar’s car door. He flinched, and I adjusted my bowler hat while he turned around to see me, a big smile on my face. 

 

As he rolled down his window, I spoke. “Nice day today, isn’t it?” 

 

“I could gather that much.” he replied with a smile. “Glad to see you on the case.” 

 

“And I’m glad to be here.” 

 

“Be careful in there, alright? And don’t let Henry bother you too much.” 

 

“I’ll try,” I sighed. “Trying to get these nutters off my back will probably be harder than solving the case, I bet.” 

 

“At least Sarah’s a looker though, eh?” Oscar grinned. 

 

I rolled my eyes. “Be glad that you’re safe in that car of yours, or I’d hit you.” 

 

Oscar chuckled at my threat. I turned around to leave, chuckling a bit myself. 

 

Stepping over caution tape, I entered the hotel, now quite a ways behind Henry and Sarah. After arriving at the room in question, I noticed my coworkers had already gotten onto the job. 

 

The hotel room didn’t look much like a crime scene. That was, aside from the detectives, forensics equipment, dead body and blood. The late owner had obviously taken good time in keeping it clean. A white porcelain vase lay smashed on the ground next to the dead man. 

 

“The body’s fresh,” Sarah said without looking at me. “Henry already gave it a good look-over.” 

 

I highly doubted this, especially due to the fact that they had only gotten to the room a minute before me, at best. I was again reminded of how much I despised working with other people. Taking matters into my own hands and ignoring Sarah’s words, I investigated the body anyway. 

 

The victim was on the older side, likely in his fifties. His clothes were untouched save for a few specks of blood. His eyes were wide, likely due to a sharp pain before death. It didn’t look like it was instant. 

 

Examining the bullet wound, two things stood out to me. One was that the wound was in the perfect center of his head. I pulled out my tape ruler- the wound was exactly 6.88 centimeters from either side of his forehead. A coincidence, maybe, but it stood out to me nonetheless. 

 

The second thing that stood out to me was that the bullet wound was oddly small; not small enough to fall out of the range of bullet sizes, most likely, but small enough to look off. I wrote these things down on my notepad, the distinguishable feeling of something being... wrong… apparent in the man’s wound. But I couldn’t place what it was. 

 

Just in that moment, Sarah called my name. 

 

“Charlie?” 

 

“Yes?” I came to her. She had her gaze fixed on a spot in the wall by the floor. I quickly recognised it to be a hole caused by a bullet. 

 

“I think we found the exiting hole of the bullet. Looks like we do have a sniper on our hands.” 

 

“Can we be sure?” I said, looking out of the small windows of the room with wariness. 

 

“That’s the only real explanation I can think of. I mean, it ties together, right? Sniper who has something out for this poor bloke shoots him, bullet travels through his head and out of this portion of the wall.” 

 

I then recalled the odd shape of the wound and the pinpointed accuracy, but the thought was pushed back by a wave of annoyance. 

 

“But where’s the entrance hole?” I said, annoyed at her overlooking such an important detail. Now, Henry had stopped what he was doing and joined me and Sarah to look at the bullet hole. “If there was a sniper outside, he would have to have shot the bullet from outside, right? So where’s that bullet hole?” 

 

“Well,” Henry started, putting a finger at the hole and drawing it towards him, “retracing its path, we can tell it was going roughly this way…” he got up, moving his finger along an invisible path in the air as Sarah and I watched. 

 

Now stopping his movements, with his finger frozen in the air above the body, he said, “Charlie, Sarah, can you tell roughly how tall this man is? Or at least, from his feet to the bullet wound.” 

 

I whipped out my measuring tape again as Henry continued. “Since I’m above the victim’s body, he had to have been standing somewhere around here. And if I traced the path right, then the bullet had to have been where my finger is when it entered the man’s forehead.” 

 

“171.6 centimeters from his feet to the bullet wound,” I said. 

 

“Now measure the height from the ground to my finger,” said Henry. 

 

As I measured, I could see Sarah’s face growing more and more intrigued. When the tape measure reached Henry’s finger, I read it and announced, “172.9 centimeters.” 

 

“Then we’re getting somewhere,” Henry said. “We now know that the bullet was right here when it entered the victim’s brain.” He pointed to his still finger with his free one. “And if we continue retracing this path between here and the exit hole in the wall…” 

 

He moved his finger as he walked, higher and higher, until he tapped a spot on the wall with it. And when he lifted his finger, there was no hole. 

 

“What in the hell…?” Sarah exclaimed. Now, even I was getting confused. Henry was a klutz sometimes, but he wasn’t a stupid detective. Surely he couldn’t have been that wrong…? Henry’s triumphant look was wiped away, and he looked between his finger, the body, and the exit hole with bewilderment. 

 

“The entrance hole should be exactly where my finger is! Or at least nearby!” Henry looked around the spot on the wall with confusion. 

 

Sarah suddenly gasped with realization. She frantically made her way back towards the exit hole and pointed at it. Henry and I followed. 

 

“What if what we think is where the bullet left the room- the exit hole- what if that’s actually the entrance hole? What if someone inside the hotel was the shooter?” 

 

“What-” Henry started. 

 

“Hear me out!” Sarah interrupted. “It’s the only logical explanation for there not being an entrance hole! We know for a fact that the shooter couldn’t have been outside, since there’s no entrance hole outside. But if the shooter was inside the hotel, in a room, shooting the victim through one of their walls- somehow, I don’t know, then it’s entirely possible that the bullet slowed down enough not to leave an exit hole through the victim’s room! The exit hole could literally be the exit hole through the victim’s head!” Now Sarah got up, her finger tracing the same path that Henry traced. 

 

“Henry, the path you traced wasn’t a retracing of the bullet in reverse. It was a perfect recreation of the path the bullet took, starting from the hole in the bottom of the wall!” Henry and I were at a complete loss. “And after it passed through the victim’s head, it slowed down a bit- Henry, can you mark where you thought your entrance hole should be?” 

 

Henry pulled out a marker and put an X over where he predicted his entrance hole to be. Sarah traced her invisible path towards Henry’s X. 

 

“If it slowed down, then it wouldn’t leave an exit hole in the wall here. Instead, it would fall a bit and leave a mark in the wall instead of a hole.” She put her finger on Henry’s X he marked, and then slid it down the wall until it reached a tiny dent in the wall. 

 

“There’s our answer.” 

 

“Well then we just need to find the bullet, don’t we?” Henry asked. 

 

“Exactly. And once we find that, we can find our perpetrator.” 

 

The three of us frantically looked everywhere the bullet could have possibly landed, in almost every corner of the room, but, we found no bullet. All I could find under Henry’s X was a few dropped coins and a spoon. 

 

Checking around the body for any sign of the bullet, I caught a glance at the victim’s face. It was still imprinted with the last feeling he felt before he died- fear. And then I realized, his wide eyes weren’t wide from a pain before death, they were focused on something. Standing over him, I moved my face closer and further from his until I found his eyes focused on my face. They were full of a desperate and terrible fear, one that I couldn’t explain. I measured the distance between his face and mine, and then stood myself his place, right around where we thought he might have been standing at the time of death. I measured that distance in front of me, and then looked at the spot I marked. It was just in front of the wall, in front of Henry’s X and above the dent in the wall. 

 

This invisible spot, I soon noticed, was an epicenter. When I concentrated my eyes on the spot, everything else in the room seemed different. And then I realised- everything else in the room had moved away from that invisible point in the air just a little bit. The sparse chairs centered around the small dinner table were all moved just a bit, and the bowls on the table were nudged. The books stacked on a wall had been moved away from that point, and when I looked closer, I saw that the dust that had covered them had been disturbed. 

 

It appeared almost as if there was a… shockwave. A shockwave that had blown everything in the room away, just a bit. Whatever caused it had to have been far, far stronger than a regular gunshot. And that shockwave had occurred right in the invisible spot I had my eyes on. 

 

Looking back at the victim’s body, I noticed the shirt, on the front of his body, had been pressed into him, while in the back, it was loose. The shooter hadn’t been in another room in the hotel- the shooter was in the room with the victim when it happened! 

 

“Henry, Sarah. I’ve figured it out.” 

 

They turned towards me. 

 

“None of our theories were right. The shooter wasn’t outside the hotel or in another room. He was right here, where I’m looking right now.” I extended my measuring tape out to the spot I was concentrated on. 

 

Henry was incredulous. “But how in the bloody hell could that be possible? There’s no way he could have gotten in and out so fast, much less shoot unnoticed from that spot you’re talking about anyway.” 

 

“And what about the mark in the wall? That could only be caused by a bullet!” Sarah added. 

 

“But he wasn’t unnoticed. The victim’s eyes were concentrated on him in the moment before death, and, look-” I pointed to the victim’s hands. “One is open, like it could have been holding something, and the other is clenched. He had tried to defend himself against the shooter before the kill. Not to mention, the gunshot wound is way too perfectly aimed to be shot from the outside.” 

 

I pointed to the spoon on the floor, under the dent in the wall. “Henry, pass me that spoon.” 

 

He obliged and I held the spoon in my hand. “Let’s rewind from the victim’s perspective. He notices the shooter while standing right around here.” I motioned to where I was standing, just by the body. “Spoon in hand, he panics and tosses it at the shooter. He either misses or the shooter dodges, and the spoon impacts the wall, leaving a dent.” I walked over to the dent in the wall while flipping and turning the spoon. Eventually, I find its correct alignment and match it to the dent. It fits perfectly. 

 

Sarah and Henry are shocked, but attentive. I continue. 

 

“The victim’s futile efforts give the attacker a chance to shoot. The weapon fires a small bullet through the center of the victim’s forehead and through the wall, leaving the hole that we see now.” I then motioned to the hole in the wall by the floor. “The blast from the weapon, which we can now infer is unusually powerful, pushes everything in the room back a little, along with knocking the victim into the position he is in now.” 

 

I now turned around to face the hole. I had already been prepared to finish my little speech with something witty, along the lines of “with this kind of information, it seems like we may be touching the surface of something major,” and, who could blame me? An assassination of a seemingly innocent man inside of his own cramped hotel room, using a weapon both small enough to fit in a man’s hands, and with enough power to cause a small shockwave? This was something more mysterious than I was used to- of course it was the surface of something major. 

 

But, I had no idea up until that moment how major it truly was. 

 

And, apparently, this mystery stretched way, way deeper than I thought. 

 

When I turned around to face the hole, still in the man’s previous footsteps, I saw something terrifying. 

 

The hole was the first of many. Now finally aligned to see its true, exact path, I saw that the hole stretched through not only the wall I was trained on, but the walls in the next room over, and another room, and another, and another, like a tunnel that didn’t end. And it stretched farther and farther, deeper and deeper into the ground. The bullet hadn’t stopped. The bullet never will stop. 

 

Sarah and Henry noticed my sinking expression and stood next to me to get the same view I had. Upon seeing the sight, their already worried expressions sunk further. 

 

Suddenly, Henry and Sarah broke off from me and sprinted to the door. I followed them into the hall, down the stairs, and out of the hotel. They ran across the street and turned to face the hotel. 

 

“What in the bloody hell are you two thinking?! What was that about?!” I wheezed once they had stopped. Neither was looking at me, instead focused intently on the hotel. 

 

“If that bullet- no, that… thing, really traveled all the way through the hotel and into the ground, the damages could be much worse than we imagined…” Sarah uttered. 

 

And right at that moment, I heard the unmissable sound of a police siren. From down the street, police cars and ambulances were whizzing by us and the hotel, in the direction we saw the bullet go. One policeman pulled over in his car and walked over to us, urgency in his stride. 

 

“Are you three with the station?” 

 

“We are,” Henry answered. 

 

“Then you will probably want to head back there for the day. There’s been a gas leak and explosion in a building down the street. Apparently something punctured it, we have no idea how.” 

 

Sarah let out a dry sob. I was stunned beyond the point of thinking. This wasn’t anything like a simple murder case. This was something beyond that. Beyond us, even. No expression in my face, I made my way to a police car, Henry and Sarah just behind, and we drove back to the station. 

 

#  #  #

 

Even at home, the sense of defeat was ripe. I was regularly known by my friends and peers as a master detective. Every case I took on resulted in a success for me, and I thrived on that wave of happiness. By no means was I regularly unhappy, of course, but I loved the feeling so much. Not just the feeling of success, but the knowledge that I had helped. I’d made my community just a bit safer. 

 

But, not this time. This was my failure. The poor man who had been shot wouldn’t find his killer, and it seemed that I wouldn’t either. 

 

Actually, that part was a lie. I’d failed once before, only about a year and a half ago. And remembering this, I pulled out some of the old papers from my desk. 

 

I gave the case files a good, long look. Come to think of it, that case was pretty similar to this one. It read: 

 

THE THEMENS MURDERS

RICHARD THEMENS HAS BEEN SUSPECTED OF THE ASSAULT AND EVENTUAL MURDER OF FIVE YOUNG WOMEN AND TWO MEN. HIS CURRENT LOCATION IS UNKNOWN. 

MARITAL STATUS: DIVORCED

APPEARANCE/HERITAGE: ENGLISH, GERMAN DESCENT

AGE: 39 

OCCUPATION: WORKS AT A SUBSTATION OF CERN IN THE TERRAK LABORATORY 

HIS APARTMENT HAS NOT YET BEEN INVESTIGATED. 

 

And underneath that, I wrote a few of my notes. 

 

Look for possible motives? 

• Failed marriage as a motive? 

Early life? 

 

In my relatively short time as a detective, I was quite successful. Except for this one case. The Themens case. 

 

Similar to today’s case, which had been dubbed as the Hansen case after the name of the hotel, it appeared very simple on the surface. But, also like the Hansen case, it turned out to be much stranger than originally thought. 

 

Henry was out sick around this time, and I had explored Richard Themens’ apartment alone. I had to know two things: if he really was the murderer, and where he was. Without a hitch, I found traces of poorly-cleaned blood on some of his clothes, and several fingerprints of missing people in his car. And on top of that, I had even found a possible motive; upon doing some digging, I found signs, and eventually confirmation of Themens receiving child abuse early in his life. All was going well. At that point, I only had to find his location. Easy, right? Just go to his work, find information, and track him down. 

 

Richard Themens worked at a CERN laboratory, researching particle accelerators. Specifically, his facility researched the effects smashing particles into each other had on spacetime. Stuff I wasn’t really interested in. 

 

It turned out that, at Themens’ job, something had gone down. All the power was out, and upon entering the facility, I heard sirens blaring. 

 

To my surprise, nobody else but me was in the facility at the time. The lack of human sounds was even more deafening than the red alarms blaring overhead. At that point, I had pulled out my gun and was ready to defend myself. 

 

What had caught my attention as I traversed deeper into the dead and crumbling facility was a bloodied fingerprint on the wall. I pulled out Richard Themens’ fingerprint for reference- perfect match. He was nearby, and, somehow, he was a part of this incident. 

 

Then, I heard a voice. It was male, and just a bit higher than my own. It was coming from a hallway to my left. I sprinted down the hall towards the source of the noise, trigger finger ready, until I saw a blinding flash of crimson light. I turned the corner to see… nothing. Nothing but a cluttered, empty room, full of scientific equipment and a viewport into a seemingly nonfunctional particle accelerator. 

 

I shouted, “Hey! Whoever’s here, come out!” in the hopes of getting a response, but I found nothing. I searched the supply closets, every nearby hall, but found nothing. And not long after, I was prompted to leave by geiger counters mounted on the walls all simultaneously clicking to life. I went home that night without any answers as to where Themens went, or how he disappeared. 

 

And that first ever failure put perspective into my work as a detective. In the end, it was probably a good thing that I failed- I had built up plenty of ego as a detective up until then, and a failure was most likely in my best interest. 

 

But now, the Themens case held a different meaning in my head. Not just in the sense that it was my first of now two failed cases, but I had a sneaking suspicion that the Themens case and the Hansen case were undoubtedly connected somehow. But as to how, I wouldn’t find out until much later. 

 

#  #  #

 

The next day, to my disappointment, was not nearly as nice as the previous one. It was cloudy and overcast, and there was a tension in the sky that looked as if it would break at any moment, turning it from dark to rainy. 

 

Other detectives continued to investigate the Hansen hotel for more clues, attempting to solve the problems that Henry, Sarah and I had discovered. The station that morning was just as busy as before, if not more so, fueled by the new mysteries of the Hansen case. 

 

Henry, like usual, had found his way over to me with astonishing speed. In the hopes of avoiding him, I briskly walked to my post at the station. He began to speak, yammering on about new information uncovered at the Hansen hotel. I wasn’t in the mood for it. 

 

“Henry, would you kindly shut it for once? I know all that. All of it. I’m not an ignorant detective.” 

 

“You sure you’ve heard all of it?” 

 

This poke at my pride sent a sharp breath up my nose. “I-” 

 

And I was quickly interrupted by a woman I didn’t recognise calling my name, a telephone in her hand. I pushed past Henry to get to her. 

 

“Charlie. It’s Oscar. You’ll want to see it.” 

 

#  #  #

 

Not an hour later I found myself at the Hawkins cemetery, looking over the body of Oscar. Blood pooled beneath him, and he was lying face-down in it. He had been killed, a bloody hole in the top of his head. And just like before, a hole was nearby, a perfect circle in the marble floor of the cemetery entrance. 

 

Who knew how far that goddamned hole went. 

 

A tear of mine fell down by Oscar’s body. Whatever had gotten that poor man at the Hansen hotel had gotten Oscar, and he was gone forever. This wasn’t the kind of thing that could be caught by the authorities, or put into cuffs. It was a force, something beyond what a detective or a policeman could handle...

 

A bundle of flowers by Oscar’s corpse caught my attention. 

 

...But by god would I try to handle it. 

 

Setting aside my grief, I tried my hardest to put my mindset into that of a detective. I wiped my tears and sniffed back my sadness, and I got a better look at the flowers. 

 

They had been spilled over the same concrete floor Oscar was on, but marks were apparent on the stems. Marks from a hand. A hand had been holding the flowers- Oscar. He was visiting someone at the cemetery. A memory came to me, of him sitting at a pub with me, a bit too much to drink. He’d mentioned the unfortunate death of his dad in a throwaway sentence- the kind of detail any usual person would forget in a state of intoxication. 

 

Now, I just had to find the tombstone. 

 

I wandered around the cemetery, weaving between the graves, until I came across an angular-shaped tombstone. It had the name Arnold Williams on it- Oscar’s dad. I read the epitaph. 

 

THOUGH KILLED BY A KILLER

HIS MEMORIES ARE UNDYING

WE WILL MISS HIM

 

#  #  #

 

Hours of painstaking searching through newspapers gave me no clues as to who the killer of Arnold Willams was. After looking through yet another article, I threw it aside onto the massive pile of newspapers I had reviewed. No luck. The sweet grasp of sleep was calling me now, and I used all of my willpower to keep me awake. 

 

Until, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the news articles I had posted about the Themens case and his victims. Could it be? 

 

I sluggishly pushed myself up from my chair and walked over to the article to get a closer look. I began to feel the dreading feeling that I had overlooked something I should have thought of hours ago… 

 

And it was true- among the list of Richard Themens’ victims, was the face and name of Arnold Williams. 

 

And at that very moment, my telephone began to ring. It was Sarah. I picked it up. 

 

“Charlie, I’m sorry about Oscar. Also, the autopsy reports came through. Not sure if Henry already told you, but they found that the body was radioactive, along with a lot of stuff at the crime scene. Do you have any leads?”

 

The events that took place at the Terrak laboratory those years ago flashed in my mind. Everything was coming together… 

 

#  #  #

 

I met Henry and Sarah back at the station, having shared with them the events at the cemetery and my suspicions about Themens, along with the story of his disappearance. 

 

“So you’re saying Themens is alive?” Henry queried in disbelief. 

 

“I’m… not sure. Themens is involved in this, somehow.” I replied, silently praying for them to believe me. 

 

“I’m not perfectly following you…” Sarah started, “but I’d be willing to help you to solve this. What’s your plan?” 

 

It was hard to make my sigh of relief silent. “Firstly, I’ll need the both of you to stay completely, and I mean completely quiet about this. I’ve no interest in losing my job, and I doubt either of you have any either. There’s no way in hell I’d get anyone else but you two to side with me on this.” 

 

“What could it-” Henry started, before I interrupted him. 

 

“We need to go back to the Terrak laboratory. I feel like… I feel like we’re going to find some answers there. Something. There’s so many things going on that I don’t understand, and I think going there will help us understand it.” 

 

Henry, Sarah and I all looked between each other, until Henry spoke. 

 

“I believe you. I think that’s our only real option.” 

 

I grinned a big smile. “Brilliant. And one last thing- I’ll need one of you to steal a geiger counter from the station. If radiation is something we can expect, we won’t want to be exposing ourselves to too much of it.” 

 

Sarah’s face turned dark again. “I do hope you realize that stealing from the station marks our division from it. We won’t be able to turn back. We’ll be rogue.” 

 

Confidence filled my voice. “If that’s what it takes to solve this, so be it.” 

 

#  #  #

 

Since the first time I came to the Terrak laboratory, it had only gotten less hospitable. A sick, chemical must filled the dim corridors, lit only by our flashlights and the fading light from behind the dark clouds that covered the sky. Henry, I noticed, was beginning to have his second thoughts. 

 

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” he said. 

 

“Sarah, do you have the geiger counter on?” I asked, ignoring Henry’s comment. 

 

“Yes, and I turned on Henry’s as well. Good move, taking two,” she nodded to Henry. 

 

Henry accepted the compliment with a feeble nod, holding the flashlight yet tighter. 

 

The background radiation of the facility was much higher than it was outside, that being proven by the geiger counters’ occasional clicks. As we passed through cramped, decrepit corridors, I secretly wished I could understand the many warning signs posted on the doors. 

 

At some point, I noticed a familiar hallway. We were approaching the place where I had seen that eerie red light that year or two ago. 

 

“We’re getting close,” I informed them. 

 

And once we arrived, I took in the environment. Unlike other places in the facility, which had the occasional sign of plant life, this room was exactly how I left it so long ago. Lifeless. The broken window into the particle accelerator was still the same, and buttons on the seemingly endless control panels still glowed a faint light. 

 

“It looks like this area is still getting powered somehow,” Henry managed, echoing my own thoughts. 

 

Memories of my previous visit came to mind once more. “Watch the geiger counters,” I warned. 

 

Suddenly, the room sprung to life. Fluorescent lights emitted a hum above, bathing the room in a bluish-white light. A large screen nearby began its noisy start-up sequence, startling the three of us. After we had calmed down, Sarah spoke. 

 

“What exactly are we looking for here?” 

 

“Anything,” I replied. “Anything that might give us answers. This room was the last place I heard Themens before he… vanished. There has to be something here.” 

 

And we split up, digging around the room for evidence and sifting through countless documents and files. I was stationed on the large screen, poking around the interface which was far more advanced than I was used to, hoping to discover something. 

 

And eventually, I found a folder under Themens’ account, buried in an egregious number of other folders. It was titled: 

 

Outerthem encounters

 

This, especially contrasted against the fruitless discoveries I had made thus far, intrigued me. I dug deeper. 

 

Upon clicking on the folder, a series of video files met my eyes. They were labeled as “encounters,” numbering from one to seven. I opened the first video. 

 

On the screen was the enlarged and excited face of Richard Themens. After taking a breath, he began to speak. 

 

“Today, I made an exciting discovery. I plan on keeping this a secret from the rest of the team for two major reasons: one, I do not think that they will believe me. And two… well, I think that this discovery was meant for me alone.” 

 

From his voice alone, it was impossible to imagine that he was a killer. However, hearing it was only made more haunting from the knowledge that it was the last thing some people heard before dying. Now, Henry and Sarah had left their tasks and were watching the video with me. 

 

“The particle accelerator behind me has recently undergone an upgrade. It has far more power than before, and many of my colleagues have enjoyed the new findings it has revealed. It’s incredible, the things one can discover with the power of science. Anyway, I digress. While analyzing some of the waveforms from the latest test, I noticed an odd pattern in one of them. It was a mostly uniform sine wave, with a portion of it altered in a mysterious fashion. It would form troughs, and then peaks, and then more peaks, and then a few troughs, all in a seemingly random pattern. And it didn’t take me long to realize that it was not in fact random. Because that sine wave had encoded in it a message in binary. Peaks for ones, and troughs for zeroes. And when I translated that binary into English, it formed the sentence ‘are you there?’” He then pushed a piece of paper towards the camera, on it a series of sine waves, along with notes of his written in messy handwriting. When it no longer occupied the screen, Themens’ face was filled with glee. He spoke one final time: 

 

“I’ll be pursuing this further.” 

 

And then the video ended. 

 

“Play the next one,” Sarah said, her mouth open in shock. I obliged. The face of Richard Themens appeared on screen once more. 

 

“By using the same particles and setup from last time, I attempted sending a message. After convincing my colleagues to let me man the accelerator, I used it to encode a response, also in binary, smashing electrons for a ‘one,’ and smashing protons for a ‘zero.’ I only replied with the word ‘yes.’ And the following day, after getting the waveform readings from a test, I found the same broken sine wave. This time, after decoding it, it was a longer message. Much longer. It detailed that the… thing contacting me was a force, or a species, that lived in a dimension higher than ours. And by using our particle accelerators, and by testing our own laws of physics to their brink, we were leaking messages into the 4th dimension, just through the sheer effect on spacetime that the accelerators had. It was something that I could hardly believe by just seeing it. And their message finished with just the words, ‘we see you.’ By the description they gave, I’ve decided to name them ‘the Outerthem.’ I plan on continuing our conversation.” 

 

Without a word from any of us, I began the next video. And then the next. We only watched in utter silence, baffled by the sheer enormity of it all. But, by session #5, something changed in Themens. I played the video. 

 

This time, he was much more unkempt. He began the tape with a manic smile on his face. 

 

“The Outerthem have revealed to me something very, very important. They told me that they know who I am. They see me. They see everyone. They’re on a higher plane of existence, farther than we can comprehend.” He pulled a piece of paper from off his desk, held it up, and pointed at it frantically. “Imagine that there was a bunch of beings that lived on a flat plane, like this piece of paper.” He now put the paper back on his desk and began insanely scribbling on the paper, a few moments of the video only containing the sounds of his writing. When he showed the paper to the screen again, there were crude drawings of creatures on it, along with a misshapen house containing one of them. “They can go about doing what they like, moving around in their two-dimensional world, going in and out of their two-dimensional houses, whatever they want. But if someone from our world were to come across that two-dimensional plane of existence, we could interrupt that without them even noticing us. We could-” he snatched a pen from behind the camera, and stabbed it through one of the creatures. “We could interact with them however we so choose. We could kill them. We’re outside of the two-dimensional world. We’re gods to them.” He took a break from his insane ranting, sitting himself comfortably down in his seat. He stared off somewhere behind the camera for a moment, before staring at it again. 

 

“What if you were one of those 2d creatures, and someone from a higher dimension asked you if you wanted to visit the 3d world? That’s the situation I find myself in. They know about my killings. They’ve seen me do them, just how any human would be able to watch a 2d world go by. They want me. And they’re offering me their weapons.” He picked up the pen he used to stab the creature with. “This pen could kill any of these 2d creatures with ease. I just-” He stabbed two more of them, leaving only one left. “I just use my 3d weapon. And it seems as if I’m about to get the ‘pen’ of the Outerthem. It’s a gun. It’s called the Arrikale. They know my desire to kill, and they want me to fuel this desire with their weapon. They only want one thing in return; but I’ll talk about that in the next session.” He turned off the camera without any further word. 

 

Before opening the final file, I looked down at my hand and noticed that it was shaking. And I looked at Henry and Sarah, and I noticed they were shaking, too. I opened the sixth and final session. 

 

Now, Richard Themens looked worse than ever. His hair was completely unkempt, and his lab coat was crumpled in places. His eyes were imprinted with tiredness, but an inhuman vitality kept them open and alive. 

 

“It’s happening today. I’m leaving this world. All of our worlds. I’m coming with the Outerthem. And it’s perfect, honestly. I’m being hunted by the police, and I’ll have my flawless getaway. The Outerthem agreed to protect my secret by killing anyone I wished, and anyone who tried to pursue me, in return for me giving them our-” 

 

Suddenly, the geiger counters being held by Sarah and Henry clicked to life. The clicking sped up exponentially, until it was just a loud hissing coming from them. And the old geiger counters on the wall did the same, turning the room from silent to deafening. Sarah and Henry ran, but I lingered in front of the screen for a moment longer. I could only make out a few words: 

 

“With the Arrikale, I’ll be a god. And to anyone who pissed me off, you’d better bow to me while you can.” 

 

Finally, I sprinted out of the room after my partners. Even after leaving the room, the sound of hissing geiger counters was audible from all over the facility. At every corner, and in every room, they were all activating at once. It could only mean one thing: 

 

The Arrikale was coming. 

 

I was still alone in the halls. There was no sign of Sarah or Henry, and pure terror fueled my escape. All I could hear was that goddamned clicking. After turning a corner, I saw Sarah calling for me, a panicked look on her face. When I got to her, she said “Charlie! We need to hide! Henry’s already hidden himself in the-” 

 

Suddenly, there was a boom. It rocked my body, and sent a deafening shockwave along the halls. The sound was unearthly, and my ears tried to reject its noise. Sarah’s already panicked face became one of utter horror, mangled by pure fear, making me want to look away. But the shock forced me to watch her. 

 

“It got him,” she sobbed. “Themens- the Outerthem- got Henry.” She finally sprinted back down the hall, away from the shockwave, holding my hand with gripping force. I couldn’t process it. 

 

We hid inside a dark room, filled with equipment that I had no chance of recognizing. The sounds of the geiger counters were still audible, and Sarah had shut hers off. We sat in a corner, staying as quiet as death, as the sounds slowly started to fade. After what felt like hours of just… waiting… Sarah spoke the words both of us were thinking. 

 

“You can’t run from it, you can’t hide from it. It will hunt you down from a dimension we can’t even see, much less experience, and disappear as fast as it kills you. And after the bullet rips through your brain, it’ll keep travelling for- kilometers, god knows how far. It’s the Arrikale. And as long as Themens wants your life, he’ll get it.” 

 

She said all this while staring blankly forward, a tear rolling down her cheek. She finally looked at me. 

 

“Charlie… I’m scared. I don’t want to see that… thing. I don’t want to die.” 

 

Suddenly, the geiger counters in the facility roared to life again. Sarah quietly turned hers on, only giving off the occasional click. 

 

“It’s not nearby…” she whispered. 

 

And, by listening closely, the clicking was audible from only one side of the hall at a time. I heard the geiger counters activate down the right side of the hall, then slowly get quieter, reducing to only a couple clicks, and then get louder again. The noise got louder in our hall, slowly bringing to life the geiger counters on the left side of the hall. It sounded like the noise a monster made, roaming the halls. 

 

“It’s looking for us,” she whispered again. 

 

We stared through the open door in our dark room, watching the invisible noise travel across the hallway. Sarah’s geiger counter, which was placed on the ground in between us, slowly quickened in its clicking. Something was coming. 

 

Sarah closed her eyes and pressed herself up against the wall, gripping my hand. I gripped it in return, closing my eyes as well. The noise got louder and louder, the clicking faster and faster, until it suddenly stopped. All of the clicking stopped, even in the hall. We waited a few moments, slowly opening our eyes, until I saw it. 

 

It was the barrel of an exotic-looking gun, floating in the air between realities. It’s shiny silvery-white surface gleamed, reflecting everything around it. The barrel was impossibly long, stretching halfway across the room. The Arrikale adjusted its aim between my eyes, and fired.