The realization hit like cold water. I let go - or whatever my mind was doing to hold it - and the tray continued its slide, clattering gently against the seat.
No one else seemed to notice.
I sat back, heart pounding, and stared out at the blue curve of Earth.
That night, in my quarters, I couldn't sleep. The images of the shimmer folding in on itself replayed endlessly. My skin still tingled where the hum had passed through me.
I got up and crossed to the viewport.
Earth hung there, luminous in the darkness, the thin blue line of its atmosphere glowing faintly in the sun's edge light.
And then… it froze.
Not completely - the lights of the cities still shone, but the clouds stopped moving. The rotation halted.
Like someone had hit pause on a planet.
The breath caught in my throat. I looked down at my hands, and the hair on my arms stood up again.
This time, I knew without a doubt.
It was me.
The first thing that struck me wasn't the silence — space is always silent.
It was the absence of motion.
No gentle curl of cloud over the Pacific.
No faint creep of the day-night line.
Not even the distant satellites crawling across the sky.
Earth simply… hung there. A perfect, impossible stillness.
I pressed my palm flat against the viewport, as if touch could confirm what my eyes swore was true.
"This isn't real," I whispered.
My breath fogged the glass. I watched it fade far too slowly, as if the air itself had thickened around me.
Behind me, in the cramped corner sink, a drop of water fell from the tap.
It hung in the air. Mid-drop.
Caught between tap and basin, a perfect sphere glistening in the low light.
I backed away, my stomach tightening.
This was no glitch in my vision. The room was caught in the same impossible pause.
A thousand thoughts tried to shove themselves forward — from basic physics to the implications for orbital mechanics — but only one word made it past my lips:
"…Oh."
I could still move. Still breathe. Still think.
Which meant I wasn't frozen.
I took a step toward the floating drop of water, half-expecting it to pop like a soap bubble at my approach. Instead, it hung there, so still that I could see my reflection in its surface — a pale, wide-eyed man staring back.
Very carefully, I reached out and touched it.
The sphere quivered.
And then the world slammed back into motion.
The drop fell into the basin with a faint plink. Clouds resumed their crawl. The planet turned. Somewhere in the corridor outside, footsteps echoed again.
I stumbled back, clutching the sink edge.
Chapter 8 – An Unwanted Witness
The door chime rang.
I froze — for different reasons this time.
"Open," I called, forcing my voice to sound casual.
The door slid back, and Lex stepped inside.
Her gaze swept the small room in a quick, clinical scan before settling on me.
"You just did it again," she said.
I tried to play dumb. "Did what?"
She took a step closer. "Stop pretending, Nico. I felt it. Everyone felt it — a hiccup in reality. It lasted three seconds."
My throat tightened. "And you came straight here?"
"You were the epicentre."
Lex leaned against the wall, arms folded.
"I don't know what happened to you down there in the lab," she said, "but if the station board catches wind of it, you'll be locked in a containment cell before you can explain."
"And you?" I asked.
"I'm not the board."
Her tone made it sound like both a promise and a warning.
"So what do you want?" I asked.
"To keep you alive long enough to figure out how to control it," she said. Then, after a beat: "And to make sure you don't accidentally tear a hole in the universe."
I laughed nervously. "That's… oddly specific."
She didn't laugh back.
That night, Lex didn't leave. She pulled up a chair by the viewport and told me to try it again.
"I'm not a trained magician," I said.
"Neither was anyone the first time," she replied.
It took an hour of focus — trying to remember the exact feeling before the pause, the strange pressure in the air — but eventually, the shimmer came again.
strange pressure in the air — but eventually, the shimmer came again.
The lights outside slowed. Then stopped.
Lex stood up, moving through the stillness with the same freedom I had.
"You can bring other people into it," she said softly, almost impressed.
I didn't ask what that meant for the laws of physics. I was too busy wondering what exactly I'd become.