Page 8 of Where Light Cannot Follow

"You asked what part of the city we're in. But that's not the most helpful question." He delivers this like I'm supposed to extract meaning from his cryptic nonsense.

"What is the most important question, then?"

"Where are you? That is the question to ask.”

"I'm in New York City."

"Are you?" The snow around him has stopped mid-fall, suspended in front of his raised brow—a held breath, tiny spots of light in a world swallowed by darkness.

I stare at the frozen flakes, my breath catching. Snow doesn’t pause in mid-air. Physics doesn’t take coffee breaks. Yet there they hang, dozens of crystalline fragments defying gravity with the casual indifference of a magic trick I didn’t ask to witness.

The man follows my gaze and smiles as though he watches natural laws violate themselves every morning. As if cities regularly suspend their weather patterns for dramatic effect.

I tear my gaze away from the still snow, focusing instead on his face, on something concrete, measurable. I can handle a conversation with a delusional street philosopher. I cannot handle a world where fundamental laws have been rescinded without notice.

"Fine then.” I straighten my shoulders, adjusting my coat with deliberate precision. If I maintain proper posture, proper diction, perhaps logic will follow. “Where am I?”

His eyes hold a glimmer that could be humor if humor had teeth. "You prefer simply stated facts, yes?"

"Yes. Ornate speech wastes time. And time is the most valuable resource." The certainty of my position wavers, though. There's something fundamentally wrong about this entire scenario. Something that makes my skin crawl.

The man's eyes catch the light, honey-gold from certain angles, holding depths like ancient tree rings, concentric circles of witnessed lifetimes. My watch grows heavy on my wrist. Too heavy. A faint ringing builds in my ears, a climbing whine that carries the promise of something terrible about to fall, as if the world itself is holding its breath for impact.

“Very well, then. You're dead."

The words strike like a verdict, final and immovable.

I open my mouth to argue, but nothing comes out. The hands of my watch face glint in the dim light. Locked at 8:03, no matter how many times I’ve tapped the glass. My pulse should hammer, demanding proof of life, but when I press two fingers to my throat, I feel nothing.

No. Impossible.

I’m standing. I’m breathing. My coat is on my shoulders, my shoes on my feet. These are facts. I can manage facts.

But through the gaps in my mind, something flickers. Headlights—too bright, too fast—splintering the sleet. The sickening tilt of the pavement. The weightless moment when my body was no longer mine. A horn blaring. Impact.

The memory shoves through me with the blunt force of a train, and my chest seizes, the impact happening again, real as the collision itself. My thoughts fracture into useless shards. Watch is frozen. Sound is gone. Snow is hanging mid-air. Physics doesn’t stop. Time doesn’t stop.

Yet it has.

My breath shortens. In. Out. Too shallow. Too fast. Logic is a slipping rope, every argument sliding out of my grasp. I drag my hand through my hair, tugging hard, trying to force myself awake, back into order, back into anything that makes sense.

But the watch still reads 8:03. And those headlights burn through my memory with the intensity of overloaded circuits, shorting out every rational process I've spent decades perfecting.

5

DANTE

I've allocated enough time to this absurdity. I straighten my coat, square my shoulders, and begin walking. If this city has malfunctioned, I'll navigate my way to functional sectors through systematic exploration.

The watch is broken, that much is clear. Probably stopped from the impact when I fell even though it looks perfect. Simple mechanical failure. Everything else can be explained through logical analysis once I reach familiar territory.

I walk three blocks north, my footsteps swallowed by the unnatural silence. The buildings remain hollow shells, but I maintain my pace. Movement equals progress. Progress equals solutions.

When I turn the corner onto what should be Fifth Avenue, there he is again. Standing beneath another streetlight, curls glowing gold. The only color in the stark expanse.

“Nice evening,” he says, as if we haven’t spoken already.

I don't respond. Coincidence. Manhattan isn't that large when you strip away the crowds. I continue walking.