Time Zero

The stairs were steep—brutally real, not just some optical trick or dreamlike illusion. Hem stared at them, unwilling to accept the climb ahead. In his mind, he imagined being caught by the Ghars—a shadowy, merciless authority whose sole purpose was to strip meaning from people's routines and extract data from their most personal habits. They didn’t build lives; they broke them. With the stroke of a digital pen, they could erase a person’s existence and reprogram it from scratch.

He refused to imagine more. He clung instead to the version of life he preferred: blue skies, greys and greens smeared across open landscapes, thick fragrant air heavy with the scent of old trees. Trees to lean against, to read under, to love beside. Maybe share a quiet whisky with someone dear, or a laugh with mates after a long day.

But what unnerved him most wasn’t the Ghars. It was the entry point to Salles Junction—a place that signalled transition, a checkpoint between states of being. And this was the year 2101. Nothing worked like it once had.

Take music, for instance. Instruments weren’t just tools for melody anymore. They were devices—coded signals for decoding the social chaos. A single tone might mean your neighbour was about to break in, steal your lunch, and murder your partner—with no explanation and no consequences. An operatic crescendo, on the other hand, might announce the end of a war and the start of a fragile peace. Sounds had meaning now—dangerous, ambiguous meaning.

Getting through Salles wasn’t simple. Not without Interceptive Thought Harmony—ITH, a personal cognitive signature, monitored and mined by the DigiCouncil. When young Officer Margri stopped Hem at the gate and asked for his ITH, Hem froze. Should he comply and submit his mind’s archive? Or should he hold out, resist, and hope the system didn’t flag him for non-cooperation?

Margri wasn’t one for tolerance. "I need your ITH, sir," he repeated, voice clipped, almost robotic.

Andre—Hem’s lover—stood beside him and stroked his chest gently. “Just release the data,” Andre whispered. “Let them see it. Then we move forward.”

Hem hesitated. “I would have saved some of our ITH, darling,” he said quietly. “But you wouldn’t let me. Why?”

“Because you’re still living by the old clock,” Andre replied, his tone tender but firm. “Didn’t you notice?”

“No,” Hem muttered.

“Yes,” Andre said. “But you’re trying to be honest in a world where honesty is out of sync.”

Hem blinked behind his glasses, overwhelmed. “I’m confused,” he said. He looked like a man slowly being peeled away from reality—layer by layer.

Andre tried to calm him. “We’ll still see them. The others. This isn’t the end.”

But Hem couldn’t shake the feeling that he was somehow outside the accepted time-zone—a misfit in a world governed by synchronised existence. Maybe that was why he was denied access to Salles Junction. Maybe he didn’t belong anymore.

“Tell me something,” he said, eyes narrowed. “Am I the only one feeling like this? Out of place? Like I’ve been forgotten?”

“Why do you say that?” Andre asked.

“I just had a flashback,” Hem said. “I was at a desk. I was shuffling papers, trying to find something. Answers. And I was writing… with a pen.”

“A pen?” Andre smiled, surprised. “That’s strange.”

“Yeah. I was writing—on actual paper. And there was a man standing beside me, watching me. He told me not to plagiarise.”

Andre laughed. “Oh my God. I had the same vision the other day. That’s school. That’s your examiner, making sure you’re not cheating.”

Hem stared at him. “What the hell? What does it mean? Should I be worried? Is this the end of us?”

“No, no, don’t worry,” Andre said, trying to soothe him. “It’s not the end. Do you remember Evolution Day?”

Hem squinted. “Yeesss…”

“Well, they told us back then that the calendar had become unreliable. Too many inconsistencies. They had to re-jig everything. Physical time-tempers, mental anchors… They said we wouldn’t feel it when the shift happened. But that year was madness, remember?”

“I remember where I was when they announced it,” Andre continued. “Everyone does.”

“I don’t,” Hem said. “I don’t remember anything about it.”

“What? You don’t remember 16th April?”

“Everyone remembers that date,” Andre insisted. “It changed everything.”

“Not much has changed,” Hem muttered. The more Andre tried to reassure him, the more Hem felt like slipping. The edges of his thoughts blurred.

“I remember now,” Hem said suddenly. “But weren’t we told not to remember?”

Andre led him to a quiet bench near the park rails. The noise of the city softened there, fading into background static.

“I need you to promise me something,” Andre said. “Don’t tell anyone what I’m about to say.”

Hem felt the blood drain from his veins. His body went cold, as if preparing for something irreversible.

Andre pointed upwards. “It’s there—right above your head. But don’t look.”

Hem’s instincts screamed. He wanted to glance up, but held back.

“Close your eyes,” Andre said. “I need you to listen.”

So Hem shut them. Not because he wanted to, but because he’d been told to. It felt like surrendering to some deeper manipulation—like betraying himself.

Andre leaned in close, lips almost brushing his ear. He whispered something. Hem couldn’t make out the words.

He opened his eyes—and the world had changed.

Green fields stretched out before him. It was Dakota—clear as day. He recognised it instantly. The Enchanted Highway. The giant sculptures. The childhood toys. The dust. His mother’s voice, calling from a distance.

“Heeemmm! Come on! Don’t make us wait!” she called.

He ran towards the sound. But the ground beneath him shifted like a treadmill. The more he ran, the further away his family seemed. His mother froze mid-call, her hair caught in a silent breeze, her features ageing as he approached—more lines, more sadness. His father was in the background, puffing a pipe like a child with a toy. His sisters were ghostlike—faces blurred.

But his mother—she was crystal clear.

He tried to run, but the dream changed. The trampoline feeling underfoot vanished, and he stopped. Something deep inside told him to stay still. To watch.

A smile crept across his face. It didn’t matter anymore. What lay before him wasn’t illusion. It was truth—the vast, rolling folds of time and memory.

He didn’t blink.

In that fraction of a second, he was asked to bear the weight of the universe. Everything felt impossibly real. His fingertips grew damp with some unknown current. The blue above him stretched, pulling at his eyes. His legs trembled.

The horizon split open. The ground turned into glowing orbs, circling, grinding against one another like tectonic plates of energy. He felt like he was falling—but he wasn’t.

He didn’t need to look left or right. He was the eye now, and the world had become his vision.

For the first—and perhaps the last—time, it all made sense.

This was the real zone. Not a dream. Not memory. Not even the future. Just truth.

He touched his knee, or what should have been his knee. It wasn’t flesh anymore. Just raw sensation, thick air, heat. A transient pulse of something greater.

He didn’t try to understand it. Couldn’t analyse it. Somewhere, he knew his body still sat next to Andre, in the park, beneath the eye of the DigiCouncil. But here, this place… this was for seeing.

And he was ready.