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There's a story that my mom used
to tell me when I was a kid.

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She held me up to a telescope
to show me the stars. I've

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been born under an open sky two
years prior. It was only fair that

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space and I got better acquainted.
She showed me constellations like Ursa Major Origa,

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and Orion, and the Moon.
Of course, finally she set the

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telescope to one specific point, Jupiter. Then I started screaming. I went

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from warm and cuddley to a panicked
hell, screaming mini beast at the drop

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of a hat. Mom never figured
out why, and for many years neither

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did I. It's like you saw
the Boogeyman, she says whenever she tells

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the story. Well, maybe he
just didn't understand what he was looking at,

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or that mystery can be scary.
My dad jokingly says that this telescope

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was the cause for my interest in
geology. Better to look down than up,

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he figured. I never thought of
it that way, but he had

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a point. Personally, I think
I've always liked to understand the fundamental puzzle

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pieces that make this world live and
breathe. That's what geology is to me,

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an understanding of our home, like
knowing the foundations of your house.

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So yeah, I'm a geologist.
I got my degree at AMSU, got

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a master's degree in Norway, and
got an entry level job at a government

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agency in western Virginia. By twenty
thirteen, I was well on my way

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to earthquake proofing my life and personal
economy. Things were pretty sweet, but

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there were a few caveats. First, I was desperately lonely, and second,

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I hadn't used the telescope since that
faithful day when I was two years

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old. But that changed in March
twenty thirteen, I just turned twenty four.

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I kind of started dating this girl
Lynn. We'd only been out twice,

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but I had a good feeling about
the third date. She was an

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intensely outdoorsy kinds of person. She
had all kinds of breathing fabric clothes,

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super hid your whatever water flasks,
and she tracked everything about her life and

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her ergonomic hyperdigital buzzword watch with the
accompanying monthly subscription app. It was all

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a bit much, and I couldn't
keep up with her in any sense of

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the word, but somehow tolerated me, and that was all that mattered.

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We'd been hiking all day. Lynn
had been hinting at a surprise at the

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end of the road. It was
already getting too dark to turn around,

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so I figured we might be sharing
a tent. She hadn't told me to

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bring my own. As we got
to the top of a hill, I

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realized I'd been an idiot. There
was a camp of six other people,

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men and women, all variations of
Lynn Eagert sporty people with a violently upbeat

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vibe. Lynn turned to me with
the biggest smile. Surprise, she laughed,

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we got a stargazing party. Yeah, I'd misread the entire date thing.

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I was supposed to bring my own
tent, but Lynn figured that was

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implied. Apparently you should always bring
a tent when hiking. I hate unwritten

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rules. In that moment, I
was just a bitter man, coming to

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the realization that we had vastly different
ideas of what that date was going to

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look like. Still, I had
a good time. We had hot dogs

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and s'mores, and a friends had
put up telescopes to play with. There

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was supposed to be a meteor passing
by, and they all wanted to see

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it. Honestly, I think it
was just an excuse to get out of

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town for a while. One of
Lynn's friends had brought a bottle of schnaps,

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not much, but enough to play
some never Ever Ever and have a

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good laugh or two. By the
time the meteor came around, we'd almost

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forgotten about it. Hell, I'd
almost forgotten about Lynn. We all got

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up and took turns with the telescopes. It was sort of mad in a

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way, all of us standing on
that hill looking up at the clear sky,

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no light pollution, no passing cars, just a bunch of people and

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the stars. Then it was my
turn. Looking at it through the telescope

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makes it seem more real in a
way. You can see details that you

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otherwise can't. It reminds you that
the stars aren't just a pretty picture.

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They're real things in a very real
space. I followed the meteor for a

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few seconds, ooing and ring with
the rest of them. Then it passed

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in front of Jupiter. Something in
me stopped. It felt like my soul

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dropped anchor, locking my neck in
place. Ever since that day, when

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I was a kid, I hadn't
seen the planet up close, not like

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that, not since there was a
rumble. At first, I thought it

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was some kind of motor error in
the telescope tripod. Then it happened again.

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I took my hands off the telescope, but quickly realized I couldn't look

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away. My neck was cramping,
my throat closing. I couldn't blink,

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I couldn't scream, And the rumble
grew stronger. It got faster, turning

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into a vibration or a note.
There was a middle note, a high

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note, finally a low note.
Three repeating sounds bouncing against the inside of

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my cranium like an expanding echo.
My eyes, searching desperately for a way

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to blink, finally locked onto something. There among the swirling storms of Jupiter's

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surface, I could see pots of
red, some large, some small,

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and once so large it was impossible
to miss. Now I know what it

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is. In theory, I've heard
about the storms of Jupiter. It's a

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gas giant. But what I looked
at then, and there were no storms,

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They were eyes, every storm,
every spot red eyes. I finally

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understood the rumbling, the feeling that
bore through me middle, high, low.

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It wasn't just spasms. They were
syllables. The more I listened,

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the clearer they got, like fine
tuning a radio, and in that one

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perfect moment, as everything aligned,
I heard it. I heard Jupiter.

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I felt it not less a voice, but a movement, a trembling bass,

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like standing next to a silent with
deafening song, and it said I

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see you. For the other stargazers, it looked like I had a seizure.

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Lynn later described how it took one
look through the telescope and immediately started

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shaking. She offered to get my
coat, which I left by the campfire.

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When I finally pride myself loose from
the telescope, all I could do

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was froth at the mouth and screeched
the same three tones over and over.

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But they didn't understand. How could
they middle, high, low, I

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see you. I was only out
for a couple of minutes. The circle

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of friends looked down at me,
trying to figure out how bad the damages

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were. They'd fetched their first aid
kits and Lynn's satellite phone prior to waking

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me up. They've been arguing whether
to call someone. They could also follow

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the blue tape on the trees,
which would lead to a ranger station.

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Luckily I woke up just in time
to stop them. I'm fine, I

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gasped, Really, I don't know
what the hell that was. That's epilepsy.

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One of them said, my cousin
has it. No, that's blood

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sugar. Another said guaranteed. Someone
said something about chakras. Another started talking

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about the liver and pushing me to
eat their special Minnesota sunflower seeds. What

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a wild night. The next day, I headed straight home. I said

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goodbye to Lynn Moon insisted that I
kept her updated. I crashed in my

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bed, head first, leaving my
hiking gear strewn across the hallway. Even

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though I'd gotten a good night's sleep, my mind needed to recover. My

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hands wouldn't stop shaking, and my
eyes felt warm. I would get bouts

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of strange jaw muscles sending these fiery
signals up my spine to poke me like

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an infected wound. I slept for
fourteen hours straight, this long, dreamless

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sleep i'd turning off a light and
waking up with no idea what planet you're

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on? Waking up felt like starting
a machine. Something in me moved and

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I looked straight up to the ceiling. Without thinking, I said it aloud,

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I see you. I tried to
chalk it all up to stress and

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fatigue I'd been hiking all day and
topped it off with booze. Not a

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great combination. I spent a few
hours just locking up stuff about Jupiter to

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try and explain what I'd seen.
I read about the storms, the composition

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of dust and gas, the invisible
rings, the moons. It was all

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there. Jupiter is no mystery to
us. But what I'd seen were no

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storms. It felt like I'd seen
through them, spotting something beneath, something

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deep and profound, like breaking through
the ice of a dark lake only to

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see something shimmering at the bottom.
I was at a cross roads, try

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and ignore it or confront it.
What else could I do? I decided

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to ignore it for a few days. It worked. There was the occasional

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shiver when I heard an uncomfortable tune
or the frequency of a machine or motor.

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There was this one noise that I
kept hearing from my fridge that gave

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me pause. At one point,
I just stood there, head pressed against

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it, listening traces of that mysterious
rumble looking to grasp me. Lynn and

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I kept in touch. She was
worried about me, asking me to get

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checked out. I couldn't be bothered
at first, but she made me promise.

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I thought about telling her I'd gone
without actually going, but she was

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so sincere. I couldn't bring myself
to lie, no matter how convenient.

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The doctor couldn't find anything wrong with
me, not physically at least. I

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kept getting distracted by all the hums
I imagined, hearing that frequency in a

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little bit of everything, directly translating
to spotty words. In the back of

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my mind. I could hear see
coming off a computer screen, you,

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from the rumbling pipes in the bathroom, just spots of recognition, sending flakes

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of ice up my spine as a
constant reminder that I was, in fact,

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nowhere near okay. It all came
to a breaking point one evening when

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I was making dinner. I was
alternating between frying chicken and entering messages from

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Lynn. When I got into what
I can only explain as a groove.

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There was a hum coming from the
kitchen fan, which resonated exactly with one

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of the frequencies. It was calling
to me over and over, you,

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you, you, you, you. I have no idea how long I

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stood there. My mind just sinked
to this rhythm. At some point I

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realized I was coughing, nod in
my head to the alarm from the smoke

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detect to going off. My chicken
was burned. I ended up pouring myself

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a bowl of powdered tomato soup,
and even then, as I stirred it

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with my spoon, I imagined the
storms on Jupiter, the red swells hiding

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an unfathomable chaos. I watched it
spin around and around and around again,

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And the longer I looked, I
could feel the eye coming closer. My

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hands cramped, locking the plate in
my hands. I could feel a rumble

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boiling in my stomach, like a
volcano about to erupt. Three familiar notes

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translating to an immediate, marrow curdling
screech. I see you. I threw

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the plates across the room. It
shattered, and the red droplets spread across

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my egg white wall, swirling dots, dancing like distant Jupiter storms. The

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hum in me faded into a steady
stream of whispers, whispers that eagerly reminded

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that I was unquestionably scene. For
the next few nights, it just got

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worse. I prayed for a dreamless
sleep, but it wouldn't come. Instead,

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I kept finding myself carried off into
the void, coming face to face

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with an eye the size of countenance, chemical storms that could strip the skin

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from bones, leaving only thoughts and
screams behind, knife edged ruby mountain ranges

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circling an endless black iris. No
matter how much I kicked, twisted,

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or turned, it sucked me in, pulling me into an eternal stomach churning

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free fall. I would wake up
drenched in sweat, completely off balance.

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I'd fall out of bed and flop
around on the floor, as if gravity

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still eluded me. It had taken
me a few seconds to realize nothing had

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happened, and maybe, if I
was lucky, i'd gotten half an hour

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of sleep. I gave up.
I told Lynn all about it, begging

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for help. She came over within
the hour, drove me to the hospital.

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All that hell, I don't remember
filling out a single form. She

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made sure they called my emergency contact
and updated the doctor and what had been

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going on. She was unstoppable.
I tried not to look and listen too

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much, and my mind was reeling
from a lack of sleep. I have

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vague recollections of hallways and blurred faces. By then, I could feel the

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rumbling everywhere, every allegrical outlet,
every fluorescent light. I could feel it

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in the texture of my rubber souls
dragging across the white linonium floor. It

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wasn't letting up. The only clear
memory I have is off staring into the

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eyes of a doctor as I had
a moment of clarity. He looked at

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me like i'd slapped him. Good. He said, then your eyes are

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working. Ah, yeah, what
you can see me? Right? He

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took down a few notes and checked
my eyes, You said, so just

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now. They kept me overnight for
observation. My mom came by with some

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supplies and words of encouragement. She
stroked my head and made sure I always

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had a glass of water on hand. Whenever my fever like rants and seizures

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would start, she was there to
calm me down well to the best of

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her ability. At that point,
I was so far gone that I couldn't

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even explain it to her. It
was just this constant assault on my senses,

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like my brain was swollen with voices. Then at some point it stopped.

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I remember it clearly. Mom had
opened a window overlooking the parking lot,

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and I had a clear view of
the night distant stars making their way

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across the sky. After shivering constantly
for days, the relaxation I experienced was

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indescribable. Euphoric. This warm,
enveloping feeling spread all throughout my body,

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like becoming a comfort blanket. Mom
stroked my hair. You always liked that,

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she said. Remember I used to
sleep with the window open. I

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don't remember that. No stuffed animals
or nightlights, just an open window.

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Anything else and we'd get a nasty
tantrum. She sat with me for a

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while before she got up to use
the restroom. When she got to the

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door, she turned back to me. You know, the night when you

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were born. We never thought you'd
make it, She said. It was

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all a mess. The car broke
down. Your dad thought we could cut

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through a field to make it to
the hospital on foot. I know,

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I sighed, I was born in
a field. The paramedics found us.

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She continued. If it hadn't been
for the bright night and the stars,

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they never would have. It saved
your life. I looked out the window.

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There was something strangely comforting about that
vast darkness. Now that it didn't

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fry my nerves like a dark sea, we can imagine the waves we thought

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you wouldn't make it, but as
soon as we heard them, we knew

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you'd be okay. A primal thought
swam to the front of my mind,

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a vague feeling of people around me, being naked and cold in an open

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field, hands grasping me, A
voice fire above whispering, don't worry,

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kid, A breath that lasts for
a lifetime. I see you. The

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00:21:10,480 --> 00:21:15,680
next morning, I was discharged,
my nerves had calmed, and I'd gotten

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a prescription for seizure medication. I
was rolled out of the main entrance where

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00:21:21,240 --> 00:21:25,960
Lynn met up with us. It
wasn't the kind of introduction I'd planned on

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doing that day, but that time
was as good as any. Mom had

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a promise to take me home,
and Lynn was happy to help. We

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00:21:36,160 --> 00:21:41,440
started the drive, and I immediately
felt something strange, a tinge of something

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00:21:41,559 --> 00:21:48,640
cold, like a snowflake hitting an
open wound. Do we need to stop?

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00:21:48,119 --> 00:21:56,720
She asked? Are you okay?
No, just wait. As I

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00:21:56,720 --> 00:22:04,400
looked around, the feeling shifted,
and at once specific point, it disappeared.

216
00:22:07,119 --> 00:22:12,240
It just disappeared. I followed the
direction with my finger, pointing at

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00:22:12,279 --> 00:22:19,400
something in the distance. Can we
go there? I asked? Right there

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00:22:19,920 --> 00:22:30,599
that way the highway, Sure,
yeah, to where no clue? Lynn

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00:22:30,680 --> 00:22:37,160
pondered it for a second, then
nodded, highway it is. We followed

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00:22:37,160 --> 00:22:42,000
it for hours and turned the day
into a road trip. We crossed the

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state line into West Virginia somewhere in
the afternoon, and Lynn didn't seem to

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mind. She made an adventure out
of it. Between my spontaneous bouts of

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nausea and confusion, I enjoyed her
company, not to mention the snack she

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00:23:00,559 --> 00:23:06,039
got us. As the sky starts
to darken, I figured she'd have us

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00:23:06,079 --> 00:23:11,640
turn around or look for a motel, but no, she kept going.

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00:23:12,039 --> 00:23:18,079
I could feel the point in the
distance shift faster and faster. We were

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00:23:18,119 --> 00:23:25,119
getting closer. There was something there, something that made the shaking fade and

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clarity return, a piece of me
settling back to where it ought to be.

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We ended up going down a long
gravel road. Every twist and turn

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came suddenly, forcing us to crawl
at a snail's pace. Lynn didn't seem

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to mind, though. She put
on some John Denver and had her own

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little sing along. You don't have
to do this, I said, We

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could be here all night. That's
okay, she smiled. You sure a

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fourth day is a fourth day.
I'm sure you've had better. I've had

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00:24:03,799 --> 00:24:08,839
worse. As the gravel road turned
to dirt and came to a stop,

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I could feel we were getting close. I tried to explain it, but

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I couldn't find the words. It
was like a spot of nothing growing bigger

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if I could just get there.
I had this aching feeling that everything would,

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00:24:26,799 --> 00:24:33,000
in one way or another turn out. Okay. Lynn stopped to get

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00:24:33,000 --> 00:24:41,200
a hiking pack, and that was
that. Off we went. We wandered

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through the wild forest. There were
no trails, no leads. It was

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just us and a vague sense of
direction. Lynd didn't seem to mind.

243
00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:56,799
She had both a compass, satellite
phone, and all kinds of tools.

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00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:07,880
Two hours of dark nothing, and
suddenly light. It was almost midnight by

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00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:12,519
then. A starlit sky opened.
As we stepped on to the top of

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a sort of ridge overlooking a lake. I could see almost all the way

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00:25:18,240 --> 00:25:25,400
around it from there. In the
distance, I spotted a few boats fishermen.

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00:25:26,119 --> 00:25:32,359
It was all quiet. No matter
what direction I looked, it was

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all just quiet. I looked at
Lynne and laughed. I was so relieved

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00:25:40,960 --> 00:25:45,240
that I couldn't express it, like
a muscle knot untying itself, or a

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00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:51,839
massive headache just melting away like pudding, a soothing balm on my soul.

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I gave her a big hug and
she returned it in kind. But I

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00:25:57,799 --> 00:26:03,279
don't know why, But this is
it, I smiled, This is the

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00:26:03,319 --> 00:26:08,359
spot. I think we're in a
Greenberry County. That's someplace special to you.

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00:26:10,559 --> 00:26:17,039
Never been here before? Well?
Then I sat down and took in

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00:26:17,039 --> 00:26:22,599
the scene. No humming, no
whispers, no cold creeping down my spine,

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just the silent night and distant lights
from stars and fishermen. You want

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00:26:29,559 --> 00:26:36,039
some soup, then asked, I
gotta from us. When did you got

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00:26:36,079 --> 00:26:41,240
it in my pack? She smiled, want some? Yeah, I nodded

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00:26:41,880 --> 00:26:48,000
that'd be great. She poured me
a cop and handed it over. My

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eyes drifted upwards, something red moving
across the sky. I shook my head

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and turned away. My pulse started
beating, and I dropped my cup of

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00:27:00,240 --> 00:27:04,799
soup. I tapped the side of
my head as if trying to realign an

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antenna. Lynn but a hand on
my shoulder. Are you okay? The

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red in the sky, the red
eye, I could feel it. I

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00:27:18,880 --> 00:27:23,079
scrunched my face as hard as I
could, telling myself it was all going

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00:27:23,160 --> 00:27:30,039
to pass, telling myself it was
over. I'd won and this was just

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00:27:30,160 --> 00:27:38,880
an aftershock. Then Lynn spoke up, Is that a plane? She saw

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00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:45,319
it too. I looked back at
Lynne, seeing a red gleam in her

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eyes, a reflection of what loomed
overhead. The joy faded from her.

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I could feel it too. Something
was wrong. A reflex in me made

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00:28:00,319 --> 00:28:06,680
me look up, a stupid,
inane, little reflex, a rid swirl

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00:28:06,920 --> 00:28:12,400
in the distant sky, a sailing
star long out of reach. My breath

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00:28:12,440 --> 00:28:18,799
grew shallow as I realized I couldn't
look away. Everything else faded as my

275
00:28:18,960 --> 00:28:26,839
sight was slowly swallowed by that distant
vision. Lynn Lynn, I called out,

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00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:33,039
waving my hands behind me, don't
let it take. I felt a

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00:28:33,079 --> 00:28:38,880
fingers brush against mine as the rumbling
began. But this time it was different.

278
00:28:41,359 --> 00:28:45,960
It was a pulse, a pulse
so powerful that my left ear drum

279
00:28:47,079 --> 00:28:52,880
immediately burst, leaving me screaming like
a child on the ground. It burned

280
00:28:52,920 --> 00:28:57,119
me to my core, wrapping itself
around my spine and squeezing, forcing these

281
00:28:57,160 --> 00:29:04,039
guitaral sounds up through my sphagus somewhere
far away. I could feel in shaking

282
00:29:04,039 --> 00:29:08,400
me, but all I could focus
on was that red dot in the sky.

283
00:29:11,279 --> 00:29:17,119
It resonated with me with my every
pulse, It pulsed back our duet,

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00:29:17,960 --> 00:29:22,279
our signal. I choked my lungs, spitting up the syllables like a

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00:29:22,359 --> 00:29:33,000
hiccup. I see you. It
grew faster and faster, turning from three

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00:29:33,039 --> 00:29:38,599
syllables to two, and gradually just
a sound. I see you, I

287
00:29:38,759 --> 00:29:47,359
see you, are you, are
you, Until finally all that remained was

288
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:56,039
a single word, the name,
the signal, the thing Ao Ao Ao,

289
00:29:57,559 --> 00:30:02,200
And with every beat in my heart, the thing in the sky started

290
00:30:02,240 --> 00:30:07,720
to turn. I could hear Lynn
in the distance, as though through a

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00:30:07,799 --> 00:30:12,839
pane of thick glass. I heard
a worry screaming, fumbling to connect a

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00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:18,880
satellite phone, only to be met
with a pulsing static. She tried dragging

293
00:30:18,920 --> 00:30:26,079
me away, but was shocked with
a burst of static electricity. Every hair

294
00:30:26,079 --> 00:30:30,680
in my body stood at attention,
reaching for the stars, letting every breeze

295
00:30:30,720 --> 00:30:37,279
cut right through me. The red
thing grew bigger. That's something, a

296
00:30:37,400 --> 00:30:45,039
dust particle of the infinite heading our
way. It was a matter of minutes

297
00:30:47,200 --> 00:30:49,680
Using a rope from a pack,
Lynn managed to get a lasso hold of

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00:30:49,759 --> 00:30:56,200
my legs. She dragged me away, but it was too late. It

299
00:30:56,319 --> 00:31:03,720
was like my nightmares, something distant
and red, growing bigger, swallowing everything.

300
00:31:04,240 --> 00:31:12,880
Ao ao ao. In the moment
of impact, something burst inside me.

301
00:31:15,160 --> 00:31:18,799
I coughed up something black and viscous. Perhaps it was the connection that

302
00:31:18,839 --> 00:31:23,119
tied me to this thing to begin
with. Maybe it marked me at birth

303
00:31:23,240 --> 00:31:29,759
to demand a favor somewhere down the
line. Maybe this was all something cashing

304
00:31:29,799 --> 00:31:34,279
in on my life. The sky
burned my retinas, but only for a

305
00:31:34,319 --> 00:31:41,160
heartbeat. In nothing but a moment, the sky went from burning red to

306
00:31:41,359 --> 00:31:48,839
nothing. The ground shock. There
was steam, and so much cold air

307
00:31:48,000 --> 00:31:52,960
was pushed out that Lynn was knocked
off her feet. The red thing was

308
00:31:53,079 --> 00:31:57,759
shaped like a wedge. It came
down at an angle roughly the size of

309
00:31:57,759 --> 00:32:02,359
a school bus. It tore into
the lake, cutting up a wound in

310
00:32:02,400 --> 00:32:08,039
the earth itself, effectively cracking a
hole in the ground, revealing some sort

311
00:32:08,079 --> 00:32:15,200
of cave system underneath. In a
matter of minutes, the entire lake was

312
00:32:15,279 --> 00:32:21,960
laid bare. All water drained into
the caves beneath. What little remained of

313
00:32:21,960 --> 00:32:30,319
the red thing turned to ash red
swirling ash. Lynne propped me up against

314
00:32:30,319 --> 00:32:35,759
the tree. My head was ringing
like a bell. My vision slowly returned

315
00:32:36,079 --> 00:32:40,599
as the pulse subsided the black,
viscous bob. I coughed up, quickly

316
00:32:40,680 --> 00:32:46,319
dried up into a powder, turning
into flakes of metal. I tried to

317
00:32:46,359 --> 00:32:52,799
talk, but couldn't form the words. I couldn't hear myself. I was

318
00:32:52,839 --> 00:32:58,079
so disoriented that my body couldn't understand
whether I was breathing or not, making

319
00:32:58,079 --> 00:33:05,119
me light headed. Leaning against the
tree, I forced myself up. I

320
00:33:05,240 --> 00:33:13,319
had to see the aftermath. An
entire lake drained in seconds. I could

321
00:33:13,359 --> 00:33:16,440
only see little parts of the fishermen's
boats, some of which had been blown

322
00:33:16,480 --> 00:33:22,759
into the surrounding trees. There was
no way they would have survived, much

323
00:33:22,880 --> 00:33:28,839
less the remaining fish flopping around in
the mud. I turned to Lynn,

324
00:33:29,279 --> 00:33:34,799
try my best to speak. My
body recognized all the physical sensations of speak,

325
00:33:35,480 --> 00:33:39,359
but couldn't form the words. Using
my fingers, I gave the numbers,

326
00:33:40,039 --> 00:33:45,880
pointed to a satellite phone. We
had to call God, damn everyone,

327
00:33:45,960 --> 00:33:51,839
the Army Corps, NOAA, the
EPA, the Division of Natural Resources.

328
00:33:52,960 --> 00:33:57,720
Hell. I had to call my
boss at the USGS. Everyone.

329
00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:09,639
We needed everyone, so we called
them one by one, and that was

330
00:34:09,719 --> 00:34:15,639
that. For me. At least, things were finally peaceful. I couldn't

331
00:34:15,679 --> 00:34:21,679
feel it anymore. Maybe I'd served
my purpose and paid my debt in a

332
00:34:21,719 --> 00:34:27,159
way. Over time, my ear
drums would heal. Turns out I had

333
00:34:27,199 --> 00:34:35,719
a fractured rib and two throat ulcers. Still I could overcome it. The

334
00:34:35,760 --> 00:34:44,159
whole situation was just absurd. There
are reports of a small geological event without

335
00:34:44,199 --> 00:34:50,840
anyone mentioning the god damn meteor that
changed course to hit us Coincidentally, there

336
00:34:50,880 --> 00:34:58,440
were also reports of escaped convicts.
Residents were asked to stay inside. Despite

337
00:34:58,519 --> 00:35:02,400
having called literally everyone when I could
think of, I wasn't allowed anywhere near

338
00:35:02,440 --> 00:35:09,280
the site. I got no updates, no deep briefing, nothing. The

339
00:35:09,360 --> 00:35:14,960
only thing I got was one of
the corporate landowners telling me I'd been trouble

340
00:35:15,119 --> 00:35:21,480
enough. That line alone tells me
they know something I don't, and it

341
00:35:21,519 --> 00:35:27,320
bothers me still. But there are
only so many brick walls you can beat

342
00:35:27,360 --> 00:35:34,360
your head against. At some point
you get too dumb to care. That's

343
00:35:34,480 --> 00:35:38,199
where I'm at now. The past
few years, I've been able to look

344
00:35:38,320 --> 00:35:44,079
up into the sky without a twitch
of a care. I've looked at Jupiter

345
00:35:44,239 --> 00:35:47,519
countless times, and I can't even
imagine what I used to see anymore.

346
00:35:50,280 --> 00:35:57,239
I know there's something there, but
it's like a filter. Something in my

347
00:35:57,280 --> 00:36:04,960
mind. Can't look past it anymore. And Lynn, well, it was

348
00:36:05,000 --> 00:36:09,039
her idea to write this down.
She thinks there are people out there who

349
00:36:09,159 --> 00:36:15,960
might have seen something about this other
perspectives. We know for a fact there

350
00:36:15,039 --> 00:36:20,000
was a cover up at the local
news station, and someone must have been

351
00:36:20,039 --> 00:36:25,599
down at the lake. For me, the only thing that still remains is

352
00:36:25,639 --> 00:36:34,280
that word, that strange sound meaning
nothing and everything, like something out of

353
00:36:34,280 --> 00:36:39,239
a dead language, begging to return. I can say it a hundred times,

354
00:36:40,239 --> 00:36:45,760
but there's no point anymore. It
feels like it has burned me out.

355
00:36:45,800 --> 00:36:52,400
There's nothing left to make it sound
true AO, just a noise.

356
00:36:54,480 --> 00:36:59,400
I hope someone out there can make
use of the truth, get some kind

357
00:36:59,400 --> 00:37:04,320
of closure. As Lena and I
are expecting our second daughter any day now,

358
00:37:05,119 --> 00:37:07,440
I feel like this chapter needs to
be closed once and for all.

359
00:37:09,199 --> 00:37:14,880
And no, she won't be born
under the stars