The Step After

Chapter Two

With the meticulous passion of a dog interrogating an anthill, Elias set out to find the thread and follow it.

He concentrated on recreating the sensation that had consumed him, deliberately inducing that blasphemous moment when the ground wasn't where it should be.

The data, as expected, was patently absurd. It showed brief moments where his brain waves flatlined, dipping into nothingness before resuming their normal patterns. It was as if his mind had left his body to fend for itself, however briefly.

Dylan, the usual Voice of Reason, dismissed it with a wave of his hand, his thick unibrow furrowing as he leaned over the data. "Elias, you're reading too much into this."

But Elias couldn't shake the unease. The equipment shouldn't have registered anything at all during those moments of brain inactivity, yet there it was—flatlining, then continuing as if nothing had happened. It was as though his brain had momentarily stepped out, leaving everything else behind.

"What if every time we feel that lurch, we're skipping over something?" Elias murmured, more to himself than to Dylan. "The universe could be resetting itself, deciding what should come next."

Dylan's eyes narrowed, his gaze scrutinizing Elias with equal parts concern, skepticism, and something bordering on contempt, as if Elias had just suggested something foolishly impossible. Oh well.

That evening, in his apartment, the missed step came again, and Elias found himself in a world that seemed to have taken a wrong turn somewhere. The sofa in his living room had transformed into a garish shade of green, the kind of green that defied nature's palette. A photograph on the wall captured a smiling Elias in a place he was certain he had never been, yet there he was, grinning with a certainty that unnerved him.

Elias sank onto the green sofa—his green sofa, he supposed, though it felt alien to him—and stared at the photograph.

"Was that me?"