Gale flipped to the first page of the book while Rachel looked over his shoulder. Both imrsed themselves in the cryptic diary….
Personal Journal of Dr. █████████
Project ██████ Research Division
Entry 1, December 12, 1991
The cold has beco unbearable. Its been three months since our last supply drop, and the generator fails more often than it runs. The research team grows restless. Spotlight provides resources but demands results we cannot yet deliver. The barrier between dinsions remains theoretical, despite our calculations suggesting otherwise.
Today, sothing impossible occurred.
A man appeared at our shelter's entrance. Just appeared, as if stepping through the blizzard itself, though our periter sensors detected no approach. His clothing seed primitive yet complex. He wore furs and leathers adorned with markings I could not decipher.
The security team nearly shot him on sight. They had thought that walking through Arctic-like conditions without proper equipnt would be suicide and categorized it as a… hostile entity, they called it. Yet he stood there, unaffected by the cold.
"I seek shelter," he said, as if this explained everything.
Sothing about him disturbed on a fundantal level. His eyes seed to stare through us as if studying an animal. When he looked at our equipnt, his expression revealed not wonder but dismissal, as though examining crude stone tools. Despite my misgivings, Petrova offered him shelter. What choice did we have? To turn him away would be murder, even if his arrival defied rational explanation.
He calls himself Hathie. No first na offered. When asked his profession, he rely smiled and said, "Observer."
I cannot shake the feeling we have invited sothing terrible into our midst. The others do not seem to notice, but during the rare tis he sleeps, I swear the shadows in his room move of their own accord.
Entry 7, December 24, 1991
An incident today that defies explanation and threatens everything.
Hathie broke into the restricted laboratory that housed our rudintary portal frawork. How he bypassed the biotric locks remains unclear. Two of Spotlight's security operatives confronted him. What happened next, I witnessed through security monitors, and still cannot fully comprehend.
He killed them both without touching them. They simply... stopped. One mont standing, the next collapsing with their heads gone and blood spraying everywhere.
Most disturbing was not the deaths, but what followed. Director ████ arrived within minutes. Instead of ordering for Hathie's arrest or termination, he apologized to him. I could not hear their exchange, but ████ body language displayed deference, perhaps even fear. The cleaning crew cleaned up soon after being yelled at by the Director.
Later, I asked ████ directly about the incident. His response chills still: "There are forces beyond any faction. When they walk among us, we accommodate them."
Hathie now has unrestricted access to all facilities. No one questions this arrangent.
Entry 12, January 3, 1992
I fear for ███ sanity. The young physicist began extensive conversations with Hathie three days ago regarding theoretical particle states. Initially, these seed professional exchanges. ███ even claid Hathie offered insights that might advance our work by decades.
Last night, the screaming began.
It started at 3:00 AM precisely. ███ quarters erupted with screams at the top of his lungs with a volu that should've broken his throat and voice. Security found him standing upright in bed, eyes open yet unseeing, screaming about "the absence between stars" and "eyes that consu light."
By morning, ███ had no recollection of the episode. When questioned, he appeared genuinely confused by our concern.
Tonight, it happened again. ███ rembered nothing upon waking.
Most disturbing: during both episodes, surveillance caras showed Hathie sitting in the common area, smiling slightly as if listening to distant music only he could hear.
When I suggested separating ███ and Hathie, Director ████ overruled imdiately. "The conversations will continue," he said. "They're providing valuable knowledge."
What knowledge, and for whom, he would not specify.
Entry 18, January 17, 1992
I can no longer reconcile my scientific understanding with what I witness daily.
Yesterday, Hathie took a standard light bulb from storage. Before our eyes, he altered its molecular structure, and the glass stretched into a tube on its own. The physical impossibility of this act caused Petrova to vomit. Hathie seed amused by our reactions.
He summoned ██████, Spotlight's logistics personnel, and instructed him to etch specific patterns into the glass tube's surface. When ██████ asked about tools, Hathie produced a needle-like implent from his pocket.
For six days, ██████ has worked without sleep. When his hands shake too violently to continue, Hathie touches his shoulder, and the tremors cease. No food, minimal water, yet ██████ continues. I’ve attempted to intervene twice; both tis, Hathie rely looked at , and I found myself unable to speak, my purpose forgotten.
During a rare break, I asked Hathie about the tube's purpose. His response was both cryptic and condescending.
"Your civilisation stumbles toward doorways without understanding thresholds," he said. "You lack even basic usage of essence. It is the minimum energy form my people employed when we defended the stars."
Defended from what, he would not say.
Examination of the partially completed tube reveals markings consistent with our theoretical models for cross-dinsional portals, but far more refined. Hathie has, in a week, advanced our research beyond what decades might have accomplished.
Director ████ has ordered all of Hathie's activities docunted but not interrupted. "He's giving us exactly what we've sought," Director ████ said. When I expressed concerns about unknown technology, ████ dismissed with five words that continue to haunt :
"We take what they offer."
Entry 24, February 2, 1992
I question my sanity. The incident occurred three nights ago, but I’ve been unable to record it until now. My hand still shakes as I write.
I encountered Hathie alone in the eastern corridor, standing motionless, facing the wall. Assuming he was examining sothing, I approached. He gave no acknowledgent of my presence.
As I drew closer, I noticed his shadow. It spread across the wall not in accordance with our lighting, but as if cast by so unseen source. And within that darkness were eyes. Not one or two, but millions, blinking in irregular patterns, all focused outward.
I made so sound, a small whimper. Hathie turned. The shadow shifted normally along with his motion. The eyes vanished as well. His face showed mild surprise as if catching a child peeking at an adult conversation.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
"Forget what you think you saw," he whispered.
I’ve had nightmares every night since. In each, those eyes find again, watching from every shadow in my quarters. I wake everyday catching myself screaming.
Is this what happened to ███? Did he glimpse sothing human minds cannot process?
I’ve requested transfer back to the mainland facility. Director ████ denied it without explanation.
God help .
Entry 31, February 11, 1992
I write this in haste. My perception of reality has fractured beyond repair. Logic and scientific principles no longer apply to what I see.
This morning, alarms sounded throughout the facility. External sensors detected multiple approaching signatures. Humans. Director ████ identified them as "The Baker Family," apparently hostile forces against Spotlight in ways never explained to research personnel.
Hathie, upon hearing this, smiled for the first ti I can recall. I believe it was not a smile of amusent, but more of anticipation.
He walked calmly outside into the blizzard. Through the observation windows, I watched as he raised one hand toward the attackers, still invisible in the snowstorm.
What followed defies description, yet I must try. The world... inverted. The white snow beca black, the dark sky, white. Colours reversed throughout my field of vision, as if reality itself had been negated.
From Hathie's shadow erged tendrils of pure darkness, spreading across the snow. And the eyes. It was no longer millions but billions. They opened everywhere: in the sky, on the ground, on the facility walls. Each pupil contracted when focusing on specifically, acknowledging my observation.
The attackers scread.
The other researchers turned away, covering their eyes. I could not. Sothing compelled to witness, even as blood began to stream from my eyes, even as my optic nerves burned with input no evolution prepared them to process.
Hathie turned back toward the facility, his face serene. He looked directly at through the window and nodded once. Maybe it was acknowledgnt, perhaps even approval. And then, in the blink of an eye, the world snapped back to normal colours.
The attackers were gone. Only piles of flesh and splats of blood scattered throughout the snow remained where they had existed.
Director ████ and the Spotlight operatives bowed to Hathie as he reentered the facility. Not from respect, I now understand, but worship.
I know now what we harboured. Not a man. Sothing older. Sothing that existed when the stars were young.
He ca to the ss hall after. Sat beside as if nothing had occurred. When I asked what he was, he rely said: "A future father, hoping to pave a better path for his future son."
Then he placed his hand on mine, and knowledge poured into .
Images of worlds dying, of beings like him fighting entities that devoured reality itself, of a desperate plan to seed the younger dinsions with defenders.
This will be my final entry. Tomorrow, Hathie leaves us. Leaving behind the etched glass tube.
Director ████ has ordered all records of his presence archived under the designation "Hathie."
The director volunteered to go into the first portal conjured by the glass tube. They know I know too much now. I suspect I was volunteered to close loose ends due to my opinions throughout the couple of months.
To whoever finds this journal: He is still out there. Watching from the in between.
Gale turned the final page of the journal and stopped. Behind the last entry, paperclipped to the back, were several photos. His hand shook as he pulled out the first image. It was a blurry shot that looked like it was taken in panic.
The figure stood in snow as wind blew against the snow covered clearing by the cabin. Despite the poor quality, Gale recognized the face right away. Sa blue eyes, black hair, jaw, and cheeks.
Dad.
He forgot how long it had been since he last saw his face. The last ti Gale saw his face was just a couple of years ago, but he hadn't changed at all. Still that sa young adult looking face.
The fur clothing was exactly what his dad wore when they travelled across the northern wilderness. The sa pattern on the fur that Gale had touched with his small fingers when he got cold. The sa hood his father put on Gale's head during strong winds.
He flipped through the pages, finding more notes dated from the 1990s. So of them had rough prints of the research scenery. So with people and so with none. In another instance, one of them had dad again.
"Gale?" Rachel nudged him beside. "What's going on with you?"
Gale didn't reply, leaning on her shoulder instead.
"Wanna tell what you're looking at?" Rachel asked.
Gale gripped the folder. "My dad."
Rachel leaned forward to take a closer look, but Gale stopped her by leaning firr on her shoulder. She smiled and turned her gaze at the folder by his hands. "Your dad was here? In this facility?"
"In 1991," Gale said. "Looking exactly like he did when I was twelve."
Rachel reached for the photo. "Are you sure it's him? This image is pretty blurry."
"I'd know him anywhere," Gale said as his voice trembled.
"Didn't you say he was a survivalist?" Rachel asked.
"Stay low, blend in, survive. What a joke. He knew what this place was. He knew what was coming. He didn't tell anything." Gale gripped the folder even tighter. He continued, almost into a yell, "They dragged all over the world 'teaching to survive,' then dumped in that shithole orphanage where Shawn and his friends used as a punching bag. Every. Fucking. Day."
"Gale. I'm sorry…" Rachel put a hand on her back, rubbing it.
"I really don't know why. Maybe so I could learn how to take a hit? So I could cry myself to sleep every night wondering why I wasn't good enough for them to stay?" Gale turned his head to Rachel. "Five years in that place… and then I see them doing this- whatever the fuck this was!"
"Calm down and let's think this through. I know you're upset. " Rachel ward up the air around them.
"Upset?" Gale yelled. "They abandoned !"
Rachel took the journal gently. "We don't know the whole story."
"I know enough," Gale whispered. "I was abandoned."
Rachel flipped through the journal pages. "This says your father was protecting sothing. Maybe protecting you?"
"Bullshit." Gale shoved the photos back into the folder.
"Gale," Rachel said softly. "He called himself 'a future father' in this journal. Whatever he was doing here... it might have been for you."
Gale saw her soft smile, her hand still rubbing his back. It was always Rachel who gave him comfort. Maybe she was right, and even if she wasn't, she didn't deserve him shouting at her.
"Sorry, I just…" Gale took her arm on his back and squeezed it softly. "It's a lot."
"I know," Rachel said. "It's ok."
"Hey!" Ollie interrupted. "You two done over there? We need to move."
Rachel's head snapped to Ollie. "We found sothing personal. Is it ok to take it?"
Ollie jogged over, carrying equipnt. "Take as much shit as you can. Anything you can sell. Put it into your fancy box thing."
He gestured his head toward the other side of the do. The twins were stuffing gadgets into duffel bags that seed to have co out of nowhere.
"Found three more of these babies," Ollie smirked as he held up four more identical glass tubes to the one he examined earlier. "Kyle and Clyde found so dust containnt units that'll work with our systems back ho. We hit the jackpot."
Gale pulled out his Storage Box RS28, selecting an empty slot for the folder. The interface blinked, acknowledging the new item.
[Item Added: Hathie Docunts]
[Available Slots: 19/28]
"Let's go," Ollie said, heading to the exit. "Before any more of those disgusting rotting zombies co."
The group moved quickly through the corridors, weapons ready. When they reached the junction where they'd split earlier, Clyde stopped.
"Hold up. Movent at three o'clock."
A zombie stumbled from the shadows. Its lab coat was torn up, na tag still pinned to the chest: DR. PETROVA.
Kyle raised his gun, but Rachel stepped forward first. A ball of fire ford in her palm, then shot toward the zombie. The creature caught fire, turning to ash within seconds.
"Nice," Kyle said. "Don't need to waste a bullet."
They continued toward the exit, killing two more zombies along the way. One jumped at Ollie from a side room, but Gale's Weber cut through its neck before it reached him.
"Thanks," Ollie stepped over the body.
Gale nodded.
When they finally reached the cabin's basent, Kyle checked his watch. "Made good ti. Four hours down there total."
"Four hours?" Rachel asked. "Felt shorter than that."
"Fun makes ti short, right Kyle?" Clyde said with a grin.
"Too short. If only I had more duffle bags," Kyle said also with a grin.
They climbed the stairs, entering the cabin. Ollie pushed open the door. Five guns imdiately pointed at his face.
Gale stepped up behind him, looking at the scene. At least 10 people stood in the basent, wearing tactical gear. Each of them had a silver lion embroidered at the top of their jacket sleeves.
In the centre stood a thin east asian man with chinese facial features, wire-rimd glasses, wearing a loose charcoal tang suit despite the weather. He had a long, thin scar running from his right eye to his chin. It looked like soone had tried to cut his face in half.
"Let guess," Ollie sighed, putting his hands up. "You're Needle."
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