The Real World (Five - Seeing isn't Believing)

Nathan Carver turned.

A forensics tech in a reflective vest stood just beyond the blackened shuttle doorway, one gloved hand half-extended in a gesture that was part warning, part futility. Another officer, young and jittery from too much coffee, had already blown past whatever caution she had offered. He grabbed the door handle with the simple confidence of a man who believed force was an answer to every question.

The institutional silence of the hallway made the soft click of the latch sound like a breaking bone. The officer pulled. The hinges groaned, metal under stress. Stone fragments skittered at the threshold.

And then… nothing.

No scorch marks. No debris. No damage. The doorway opened directly into the Shuttle Department. Fluorescent lights buzzed with their familiar irritation over desks that were untouched, their normalcy somehow an accusation. The floor was wet from the sprinklers, but it bore no trace of the explosion that should have been there. No blackened concrete, no signs of stress, fire, or pressure wave. Just a city office with safety posters on the wall, as if the universe had decided catastrophe was simply too much trouble.

The young officer stepped back, a man who'd just walked into the wrong reality.

"What the hell…" The words were a wisp of sound, a question with no answer.

Krantz arrived beside Nathan, staring into the room. His jaw went slack. "I thought this place would be wrecked."

"Me too," Nathan said, eyes narrowing. The certainty in his own voice surprised him. But the evidence was simply not there, and explaining this would be like trying to describe a dream to a skeptic.

They stepped forward together, two men at the edge of the improbable.

Even from the hall, Nathan could see the hard line where two very different conditions met. This side, scarred and wet. The other, just wet. The doorframe itself was still warped with heat, a testament. But crossing the threshold was like stepping into a building that had never seen a wisp of smoke.

Nathan pulled out his phone and snapped a photo, wondering what good it would do. He leaned into the doorway but did not cross. The fluorescent lights hummed, steady and sure. Under an air vent, a red chair squeaked, a sound so mundane it felt like a mockery.

He did not cross. Not yet. A gut feeling—twenty years of police work—told him that stepping through might change something he was not ready to change.

"Another access point?" he asked the tech.

She shook her head slowly, her expression grim; she had clearly already checked. "Only this door. Blueprints say that wall is structural. No way through without tools. But it doesn't make sense." She frowned as she peered into the Shuttle Department. "Blast pattern around the door indicates that the explosion seems to come from this room out into the hallway. But the door is still intact, mostly. Should be damage in there somewhere."

Nathan stepped back. He looked at the charred stone and soaked floor of the hallway, a trail of ancient debris mocking every law of physics he knew. Then he looked through the door again. Modern office. Intact. Two truths, existing in the same space.

He felt a chill that had nothing to do with the wet air. It was the vertigo of a worldview starting to crumble.

"You ever see anything like this?" Krantz asked beside him. He tried for casual, but his voice was thin, a man whistling past a graveyard that had just appeared out of nowhere.

"No," Nathan said, the word flatter than he intended. "But I've seen people try to fake worse."

"You think this is fake?"

"It could be." He paused. "I just don't know how."

The room beyond smelled of drywall dust and stale coffee—clean, harmless. Nathan left it behind, his boots squeaking on the wet floor as he headed for the Comm Center. The deeper he went, the quieter it got. No sirens, no radios, just the low hum of servers and filtered air.

Krantz peeled off to talk to a building supervisor. Nathan continued alone. He preferred it that way. He needed to think, and clarity was becoming a precious commodity.

The door to the surveillance room was propped open with a rubber wedge. A wall sign read: "Communications Center—Restricted Access." He pushed the door and stepped inside.

Fluorescent lights glared off three rows of desks mounted with monitors. Some showed camera feeds in flickering loops; others were frozen. A metal desk sat off-center, cluttered with cords and abandoned coffee cups.

A man sat behind a console on the front row. He had a broad frame, dark skin, and the kind of posture that had been forged by thirty years of office work, a slump in his shoulders, but not in that defeated way Nathan usually associated with office types. His bald scalp caught the light as he leaned back, his focus absolute as he watched a paused camera feed.

"Earl Fowley?" Nathan asked.

The man turned. His baritone voice commanded the small space. "That's me. You the detective?"

"Carver." He held up his badge, the gesture feeling strangely formal. "Assistant Manager?"

"Of everything in this building that doesn't carry a weapon, yes," Earl said. His tone was calm, but a hard edge beneath it hinted at a control that was threatening to slip. "You here about Ethan?"

"The door. But yeah—he's part of it." Nathan paused. "You know him?"

"I hired him," Earl said, swiveling back to the monitors. "Six years. Comm Controller. Punctual, quiet. I like him." He paused, a note of respect in his voice. "Got that military edge. Doesn't chit-chat, never caused a problem."

"And Pettinger?"

Earl let out a dry sound, not quite a laugh. "Steve's a different story. Talks twice as much, works half as hard. Spends more time in the break room than at his desk. Knows just enough to stay employed. Good at covering his ass."

Nathan nodded. Office politics he understood. Physics-defying doorways, not so much. "That tracks. We need the footage pull. I understand you have it?"

Earl tapped a key. One of the central monitors jumped. "Hallway camera, facing the shuttle door. Independent feed. The file looks like it got corrupted halfway through. That's the weird part."

"Show me."

Earl leaned back, giving Nathan a look that said, Even when you see it, you won't believe it. He tapped a key.

The monitor blinked. A static hallway view. Grey carpet, dim lights. The timestamp read: 12:30:24 PM. "Just before," Earl said. "Run it."

The hall was empty. Then the Comm Center door opened. Ethan Kai stepped out. Nathan leaned in, studying the man's movements. No rush. Hands in his pockets. He looked like a man leaving for a smoke break.

12:30:31. Ethan paused. 12:30:34. He stepped forward. And vanished.

No cut. No glitch. One frame, he was there—solid, real. The next, gone. Empty air. A faint shimmer, like heat off summer pavement, rippled where his torso had been. It was wrong. Fundamentally wrong. Nathan's stomach clenched.

"Framerate?" he asked, his voice tight.

"Thirty per second," Earl said. "Real-time. No dropped frames. But that's where I think it's corrupted."

12:30:36. The door hung open. Two seconds felt like an hour. Then, gently, it swung shut. The camera kept rolling, recording an empty, silent hallway. For one full minute.

Then. 12:31:37 PM.

The shuttle door blew open. Stone and smoke vomited into the hall, hurled by a force that had no business in an office building. Scorched masonry clattered across the floor. The lens fogged with dust.

Through it, Ethan came leaping out.

He hit the ground in a trained dive, bounced off the far wall, and scrambled to his feet. Fire and orange light danced in the jagged opening behind him, a window into some other, burning world.

12:31:41. Ethan lunged for the door. He grabbed the handle with both hands and yanked it shut, muscles straining. The door closed. The light vanished. The fire. The chaos. All of it. Gone. Just a scorched hallway and a closed door.

Ethan dropped to the ground, back to the wall, wrapping his arms around his knees. He tried to make himself smaller, as if hoping reality might forget he existed.

12:31:47. Sprinklers kicked in. 12:31:52. Alarms blared, finally catching up. 12:32:10. Pettinger burst into frame, slipped on the wet floor, his face a mask of confusion.

The playback froze. The room was silent, save for the hum of electronics.

Nathan stood motionless. He looked at Ethan Kai slumped on the screen, water pooling around him. Hallucinations did not leave debris.

He tapped his pen once against his notebook. The small sound felt huge. "You pulled this straight from your system?"

"Yeah," Earl replied, folding his arms. Defensive. "Local server. Isolated drive. It's a raw feed."

Nathan nodded slowly, his mind racing down impossible avenues. Trust evidence over intuition, they taught you. What do you do when the evidence is impossible?

"You've been here a long time, Earl. I don't doubt your equipment. But you're still a civilian."

Earl arched a brow. "Meaning what?"

"Meaning we rule out nothing. Data corruption, remote interference, internal tampering." Nathan paused. "This footage is too clean. Doctored videos usually try too hard. This one isn't trying at all." And that, he realized, was what truly scared him.

Earl did not argue. He just gave a slow nod. "I can't explain it. Ethan was the best we had. It's why I didn't recommend him for promotion. Hated the thought of losing him to management."

"That's kind of a dick move on your part," Nathan said. Earl frowned at that but offered no defense. "But I don't care about that, not yet anyway. I'll need a pull on all of this. Bit-level analysis. Metadata, file integrity, ghost frames. I want confirmation that nothing has been touched."

"You'll get everything," Earl said, his voice sincere. "And a full chain of custody. I know how to log it."

"I'm sure you do," Nathan said, and meant it. "But once this leaves here, it's out of your hands. Probably out of mine, too."

He pulled out his phone and took a photo of the paused screen, then of the file directory. Digital breadcrumbs. They might lead somewhere, or they might just document his path into a maze with no exit.

"Can you prep a clean export and a server mirror for me?"

Earl nodded. "I'll get it started."

Nathan took one last look at the frame. In one door, out another. A minute between. No way to get from the Comm Center to the Shuttle Department without crossing the hallway. What happened in that minute? Reality had stopped playing by the rules, and the only proof was a digital record from a system that might have already corrupted once. He could not trust it. Not fully.

He closed his notebook, his thumb marking the page. This was already beyond forensics, beyond the comfortable territory of motive and evidence. Who could he even ask about this? And who would believe him?

He looked back at Earl, trying to find something solid in a situation that felt like smoke. "Was Kai carrying anything unusual today? Bags, equipment?"

Earl's brow furrowed as he sorted through memories that were now evidence in a court of law. "Nothing out of the ordinary. Lunch. His book reader—carries that thing everywhere." He gave a small sigh, the kind a supervisor makes when they have learned to pick their battles. "Personal electronics aren't technically allowed, but he was just reading. I can't fault a man for that."

"Book reader," Nathan repeated. The detail felt like it should mean something.

"Yeah. One of those big hardback-style ones. Always in it on his breaks. Never affected his work, though." Earl's voice held a simple, professional respect. "You think that's relevant?"

Nathan's eyes were locked on the monitor, on the frame where Ethan Kai bloomed out of digital flames. His pen tapped once against his notebook. A sharp, final sound.

"Get me that reader," he said, his voice flat. He flicked his fingers toward a tech in the hall, a practiced gesture for evidence gloves. Small details mattered.

Earl stood, his joints creaking in protest. He walked to Ethan's station, his steps deliberate. Everything he touched was now evidence, fragments of a life to be judged by strangers.

The book reader rested where Ethan had left it. Earl picked it up carefully, as if handling a sacred object, and brought it to Nathan.

Nathan, his hands now sterile in latex, took the device. It had a surprising heft. He was not much of a reader himself—not of fiction, anyway. His world was law books and police manuals, texts grounded in a reality that, until today, had felt solid.

The device was in a faux leather case, worn to look like an old book. A piece of new technology pretending to be old. In a case that mocked technology, the irony was not lost on him.

He opened it. The E-Ink screen was crisp, a color device that showed its colors like old print, and somehow lifeless. The Eye of the World. The title on the cover of the book meant nothing to him. Though he did appreciate the artwork of the armored man on a horse riding alongside a smaller woman also on a horse. Some kind of fantasy, then. He thought.

Curiosity, a dangerous impulse in his line of work, got the better of him. His gloved finger found the power button and pressed. What greeted him was not a page of a book. It was chaos. The words on the screen were a jumbled mess, letters scattered like spilled seeds. Worse, they were moving. They crawled across the display like insects, rearranging themselves into meaningless strings before dissolving again.

"It's broken," he told Earl, but the word felt small, inadequate. Broken meant it had stopped working. This felt like the device had some sort of dementia now. It had forgotten how to work.

Earl leaned in, his face a mask of disbelief. He had clearly seen enough impossible things for one day. He tapped the screen with a single finger, a hopeful gesture.

The letters wiggled away from his touch, scattering like startled minnows before their restless dance began anew.

"I've never seen a Kindle do that," Earl said, his voice hollow. Decades of managing electronics, of troubleshooting complex failures, and none of it mattered here. Nathan could see that this was beyond his experience. This was beyond anyone's.

He thanked Earl and went back into the hallway, using the same door Ethan had. He hesitated, half-expecting the world to shimmer, but it was just a door. It opened into a hall that was behaving itself.

To his left, the scorched doorway was a hive of activity. Investigators swarmed it, their confusion palpable. They were trained to process evidence, not impossibility. They took pictures, bagged fragments, and tagged everything. They followed procedure, a desperate ritual to impose order on something that had none.

He had a uniform take the reader. He could not have said why it felt important, but in cases like this, sometimes the oddest details carried the most weight. Right now, everything felt simultaneously significant and meaningless.

The air smelled of wet ash and ozone. The forensics team was packing up, boxing every scrap from the scene. They moved with methodical efficiency, containing the chaos by wrapping it in procedure.

He signed off on his initial report with Krantz and requested digital forensics from HQ. Paperwork. Rituals. The comforting lie of bureaucracy that promised an explanation for everything, if you just filled out the right forms.

By the time he left the building, the rain had slackened. The sky was a flat, pewter gray. Yellow tape sagged with moisture, a flimsy barrier around a scene that was no longer a normal crime. The fire trucks were gone, and their absence made the silence feel deeper, the mystery more profound.

He slid into his truck and sat, staring at the building through the rain-streaked windshield. The engine groaned to life, a predictable complaint. He pulled out onto the road, leaving the place where the impossible had happened and headed to the man at the center of it.

In one door. Out another. One minute. No connection.

He played the footage in his head as he made his way back to police headquarters. They would have Ethan in holding by now. Frame by frame in Nathan's mind. Ethan's casual step. The shimmer of bending air. The disappearance. The blast from a different door, no way to get from one door to the other without crossing the hall.

Nathan had seen men break. He had seen trauma and hallucination. This was not that. Ethan Kai had not acted like a man in shock. He had acted like someone who had been somewhere else—somewhere that burned—and had just managed to get back.

The question was simple.

Back from where?

The rain started again, drumming hard against the glass. Nathan drove through the gray afternoon, the impossible evidence a lead weight in his gut. His training had not prepared him for this.

Behind him, the building receded, but the questions it held followed him, and the answers, he suspected, would be as solid as ghosts.