#everystarstorm

Frame adjusts, shaky. The corner of a face is revealed, a tuft of auburn hair sticking out from the edges of the turquoise Lycra hood, light glinting off tinted goggle lenses. 

Dr. Madeline Fenton: This is my first attempt entering the Ghost Zone. I have—

A mechanical clatter as the frame shifts downward. A black, gloved hand tugs at a line which is clipped onto a metal belt. Shot moves uneasily backward, follows the faintly glowing line to a large, rolling spool at the back of the room.  

Dr. Madeline Fenton: —tethered myself to the lab. (Pause). While I don’t plan to go much further than the portal doors during this initial journey, precaution dictates that I should be able to easily return back to the human realm.

Screen shifts to portal. 

Dr. Madeline Fenton: Wish me luck. 

Camera jostles as it nears the portal. Feed fuzzes with static. Bright, glowing green cuts between lines of white noise. 

Dr. Madeline Fenton: (Echoing) Whoa. 

Feed clears, frame panning across an endless, inhuman expanse. Tendrils of glowing green wash over floating structures of deep purple. Dismembered windows and doors bob through the darkness. Twisting staircases cut through the emptiness; in the distance, expansive islands of rock and stone sport unnatural, gravity-defying buildings, nonsensically cobbled together. Lines of train tracks run across nothing, making sharp, ninety-degree turns up, down, and sideways.   

Dr. Madeline Fenton: This is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. (Stunned silence). 

Dr. Madeline Fenton: (Abrupt) The atmosphere is breathable—as initial studies suggested. Gravity is substantially altered from our own. It’s like (pause) being underwater almost. 

At the edge of the frame, a hand turns over and back—sweeps through the air.   

Whirr. Whirr. 

Camera shifts downward, zooming in on an endless spiral, more of the same, no rhyme, no reason, no orientation to the landscape. There’s a distant chuff and clatter—a piercing whistle.

Feed cuts out. 

Camera clicks on. REC. 05’ 14’ 04’ 17:24:34.

Landscape has changed. Frame focuses on black boots settled on the first steps of a descending purple staircase. Green mist ripples over the shoes.  

Dr. Madeline Fenton: (Excited). It’s been a couple of days since my first trip into the Ghost Zone. I found it quite successful; I obtained several samples to study, and there’s no end to what I feel I can learn from even that much. 

Camera shakes as boots start clomping down the steps. Frame lifts to reveal a hexagonal rift in the darkness above, a spooling white line of light running between it and somewhere just below the camera. 

Dr. Madeline Fenton: However, I barely ventured past the portal entrance during this first expedition. Clearly, there is so much more to be discovered in this realm, and I can’t rest until I’ve plunged more of its secrets. I might be the very first person to ever have seen any of this.  

Camera shifts back downward, continues to jostle as the footsteps descend further. 

Dr. Madeline Fenton: (Quiet). Perhaps it would be beneficial to begin construction on a vehicle that might enable us to travel with fewer limits and restrictions. 

Feed cuts out. 

Camera clicks on. REC. 07’ 22’ 04’ 20:20:33.      

Frame is centered on what appears to be a subway entrance—enclosed stairs descend into darkness, purple stone walls glinting with the promise of emerald light somewhere below. A silver railing splits the staircase in half. 

Surrounding the entrance, there is nothing, just empty black space and rolling green mists.

Silence. Lines of static ripple through the feed. The quiet sound of breathing can be heard on the other side of the camera. There is shuffling as the frame draws closer to the entryway. 

Whirr. Whirr. 

Shot zooms in on the darkness. The faintest sound of lapping water can be heard.   

Dr. Madeline Fenton: This is Ghost Zone Expedition, number ten. (Panting). 

Dr. Madeline Fenton: (Continues). I discovered this entryway on my last trip into the Ghost Zone, but didn’t have enough tether to descend. While it’s difficult and time-consuming to manufacture the line that keeps me anchored to the human world, I have managed to add just enough that I can now enter my first enclosure in this dimension. 

Footsteps scuff the top of the stairs, the toes of the boots edging into the downward frame. There’s a beat of hesitation.

Dr. Madeline Fenton: I suspect this liminal space may be related to the occasional sounds I hear—something that could so easily be a train. There is certainly enough evidence of some kind of railway system here, though this whole, nonsensical realm hasn’t proven itself to follow any kind of reason, so perhaps I’m wrong. Regardless, I am eager to learn more about spaces such as these. Are they gateways between dimensions? Are they habitats? I’ve yet to encounter any of the specters that herald from this dimension—might it be that they dwell inside these smaller spaces? I haven’t come unprepared for the possibility.     

As the camera jostles, footsteps descending down the stairs—whirring, whirring, as the lens attempts to find something to focus on in the darkness—the glint of a chrome barrel can be seen in the bottom right corner of the frame.

The stairs make a sharp turn; the camera follows. An arched tunnel stretches on seemingly endlessly. Clear waters lap gently at the bottom stair, lavender tiles visible beneath the shushing waves, lines of circular green lights, like those at the bottom of a hotel pool, run the length of the flooded passageway. The metal railing that divides the stairs, splits the tunnel as well, one long, silver bar, reflecting emerald light.

The camera shudders. A splash as boots break the surface of the shallow waters.

Dr. Madeline Fenton: (Whispered). Where does it…go? 

Footsteps shush and splash as the shot starts to move down the tunnel. The camera pans to take in the arched walls—whirr, whirr—warbling lines of green light shifting across the stone surface. The frame turns back down the tunnel. The sound of labored breathing. 

Gradually, at the end of the passageway, another set of stairs. They stretch further down.

Hard, slapping footsteps as the camera shot approaches. The drip and splash of water striking the tiled steps as boots lift onto the stairs. The camera pans backward, through the long tunnel, eerily lit. A beat. The shot shifts forward, frame bumping down the stairs. A few lines of static briefly break the picture. 

The glow from behind fades. The frame is dark. Nothing but the sound of breathing, smacking footsteps, the REC, the numbers across the bottom. These flicker between 07’ 22’ 04 20:45:05 and 00’ 00’ 00’ 99:99:99. 

Dr. Madeline Fenton: (Broken by whitenoise). I—and—can’t—but might—if—I do.

The frame clears on a large room, high ceilings, tiled from top to bottom in small, lavender squares. Shallow waters cover the floor, tall, rectangular mirrors, the size of doors, evenly spaced up the walls. They reflect dozens of the same picture as footsteps splash—the turquoise jumpsuit, the hunched posture, a backpack, a blaster in one hand, a camera in another. Behind, a trailing tail of glowing white tether. 

The image shifts, distorts, warbles, as the camera approaches a mirror. More static fuzzes at the edges of the frame. 

Dr. Madeline Fenton: I think these might be…

The words echo, a gloved hand reaching out to touch the reflection of a gloved hand. A click, the sound of a catch. The mirror creaks, swings inward, like a doorway, into darkness, a tight corridor stretching onward.

The splashing is replaced with the thud of reverberating footfalls as the camera moves into the dim corridor. An occasional drip. A grunt. 

Dr. Madeline Fenton: This is…tight.

The camera shudders. Jostles. The numbers on the bottom of the recording jump, skip, read 07’ 29’ 04 23:55:00. A soft, green light flickers on at the end of the corridor, a domed fixture, half lit, like one of the bulbs is burnt out. It illuminates a small, square cutout in the wall, just big enough to crawl through. There’s nothing else.

The frame fuzzes with static. Goes completely white. The image jumps to the end of the hallway. Huffing breaths. 

Whirr whirr. 

Camera sweeps over the small cutout, the darkness beyond. 

Dr. Madeline Fenton: …won’t be able to fit with the backpack, but I can grab it on my way back. 

The shot lowers. Muffled, shuffling noises, another grunt as the shot starts to move awkwardly through the cramped space in halting starts and stops. A sudden, jerking standstill. 

Dr. Madeline Fenton: (Muttered). Damn it.

The camera twists, clatters, stills where it's set down, focused on the faintly glowing wall. Gloved hands at the edges of the frame release the taut tether from where it was clipped on the belt with a snap.

Dr. Madeline Fenton: I won't go much further. I just want to see what's at the end...

The frame shudders, pushes onward. Scuffling noises. More static. Numbers flicker and skip forward and back. This continues for a minute. Two.

A sudden shout. A skidding, clambering sound. Frame jostles, flips around, catches the edge of the jumpsuited silhouette, slipping down an impossibly smooth, marbled ramp, glowing green reflecting off red goggles.

Camera clatters to a stop, frame sideways. At the edge of the shot, near the high ceilings, the mouth of the cramped corridor is visible—the steep embankment sliding down from it.

There's the thud of impact. A boot comes into frame, a moan. 

Whirr, whirr.

The camera focuses between the boot, and the landscape beyond. A massive, echoey room. High ceilings, slick, lavender walls reflecting warbling green light from somewhere unseen. Indiscriminate cutouts in unnecessary shapes—little triangular corridors, round, never-ending holes in the floor—stretch further into the unending structure.

A noise, scraping. A gentle, shushing whisper. The vaguest shape of a word, echoing off the walls.

Human.

The boot shifts rapidly out of frame. A gasp.

Static. Whitenoise.