It’s weird how silence can feel so deafening. I could hear every small sound in the apartment—the creak of the floorboards, the distant hum of a car passing by, the soft buzz of my equipment running in the background. Parang ang ingay ng mundo, yet all I could focus on was the glaring absence of results.
Another failed run.
I stared at the screen in front of me, trying to make sense of the flat lines and unchanging numbers. My lab setup looked impressive, at least on the outside—wires, sensors, data loggers, all of them connected to a homemade particle accelerator that I’d painstakingly built over the course of weeks. Pero wala pa rin. Each time I ran the experiment, hoping for a glimpse of some anomaly, the readings were frustratingly normal. No spikes. No fluctuations. No indication na may kakaiba.
“Damn it,” I muttered, leaning back in my chair, my head throbbing from hours of staring at the screen. I rubbed my eyes and tried to ignore the growing frustration in my chest. “Ano ba, bakit wala? There’s something here, I know it…”
I glanced at my notes scattered across the desk, equations and hypotheses scribbled in my messy handwriting. Ang dami kong pinag-aralan, all the theories about particle interactions and quantum fields, and I still couldn’t figure out what I was missing. Everything should be working—lahat ng ginawa ko, based on established principles. Pero wala talaga. The instruments weren't picking up anything out of the ordinary.
But I knew something was happening. I could feel it.
Every time I ran the experiment, it was like there was a presence just beyond the edge of my awareness, something I couldn’t explain. It was maddening. My equipment couldn’t detect it, and yet, parang nararamdaman ko na may nangyayari. The air would shift ever so slightly, like the room was holding its breath. Every now and then, I’d catch a flicker of movement out of the corner of my eye—just for a second, but enough to make my pulse race.
And yet… nothing. No hard data to back up the feeling.
“Aelion, you’re going crazy,” I whispered to myself, standing up and pacing around the room. My feet felt heavy, like every step was sinking into the floor. “This is what happens when you dive too deep into speculative ideas. Parang si Marco lang, he’d laugh his ass off if he knew what I was doing.”
I stopped in front of my small whiteboard, staring at the equations I had scribbled there. They were elegant, neat. The numbers lined up perfectly, each piece falling into place like a puzzle. But maybe that was the problem. Everything was too clean, too structured. The theories I was working with—string theory, M-theory, quantum physics—lahat based sa assumptions na stable and predictable ang universe.
But what if it wasn’t?
I stared harder at the board, my eyes narrowing as a new thought crossed my mind. What if I was looking at this the wrong way? What if these hidden dimensions weren’t measurable in the same way na we usually detect things? Maybe they weren’t governed by the same physical laws that we know.
I tapped the marker against my chin, my brain whirring with possibilities. Paano ko masusukat ang hindi ko nakikita? What if the reason my experiments weren’t working was because my methods were too… limited?
I sat down again, my fingers hovering over the keyboard. “Okay,” I murmured, my mind racing. “Maybe it’s not about finding something measurable. Maybe it’s about what you can’t measure.”
I scrolled through the data logs from the previous runs, searching for patterns that might have slipped through unnoticed. And sure enough, there it was—a slight, barely perceptible shift in the background noise of the detectors. It wasn’t much, just a tiny blip, pero it was there. Something was affecting the environment, even if it was too subtle for my equipment to fully capture.
“This can’t be a coincidence,” I muttered, sitting up straighter, my pulse quickening. I zoomed in on the anomaly, but the numbers didn’t make any sense. The shift was too random, too small to be a typical error in the system.
My mind kept circling back to one idea: what if these extra dimensions weren’t physical spaces in the way we understood them? What if they were… something else? Parang energy, or a different form of matter entirely, something na hindi ma-detect ng normal equipment.
I felt a chill run down my spine as I thought back to that strange gap behind my closet. Ever since I stepped into that dark, narrow passage, I hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that something had shifted—something fundamental about my perception of reality. Parang may gumalaw sa mundo ko, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Was I looking for proof of something that wasn’t meant to be found? Or was I chasing shadows, a figment of my imagination, born from too many sleepless nights?
No, I thought fiercely. There’s something here. I’m just not looking in the right way.
I stood up again, feeling restless, my mind racing with possibilities. My usual methods weren’t enough. I needed to think outside the box—way outside the box. Maybe it was time to go deeper, to push past the limitations of the equipment and try something new. Something more… radical.
I thought back to that physicist from the 60s—the one who had disappeared after writing that cryptic note about the universe folding. He had been studying strange energy signatures, patterns in the fabric of space-time that didn’t fit with known physics. Could he have been onto something? Did he know about these hidden dimensions, and if so, where did he go?
I grabbed my phone and started searching for anything I could find about his work, scanning through old forums and obscure archives. There wasn’t much—most of his research had been buried or forgotten over the years. But one name kept popping up, an assistant who had worked with him on his final experiments.
“Dr. Amanda Reyes,” I murmured, reading through a faded interview transcript. She had been the last person to see him before he disappeared. Apparently, she had continued some of his work after his sudden departure, but she’d also gone off the grid not long after.
“Amanda Reyes…” I whispered, my mind buzzing with possibilities. Maybe she had answers. Maybe she knew something about the experiments I was running—something that could help me break through this wall I’d hit.
But she was hard to find. All I could dig up was an old email address and a vague mention of her living somewhere out in the rural provinces. “Great,” I muttered, slumping back in my chair. “Another dead end.”
But I couldn’t give up. Not now. I knew I was on the verge of something big—something groundbreaking. I just needed to find the right approach. And maybe Dr. Reyes was the key to unlocking that door.
I looked back at the experiment running quietly in the background, the equipment humming softly, unaware of the larger mystery that loomed over everything. The numbers on the screen hadn’t changed—they never did. But somehow, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was getting closer. Something was happening here, beyond what I could measure. I just needed to push a little harder, dig a little deeper.
“Fine,” I muttered to myself, sitting up straighter. “If you won’t show yourself, I’ll find you another way.”
This wasn’t over. Far from it.
And this time, I wouldn’t stop until I uncovered the truth.
As I stared at the empty results flashing on my screen, frustration gnawed at me. “Ano ba to?” I muttered under my breath. Every single test. Every single setup. I’ve been at this for hours, and what do I get? Nothing. Nada. Zip. It’s like the universe is playing a sick joke on me. Seryoso ba? I couldn’t believe it—everything looked perfect on paper, but when it came to execution? It’s like something was laughing at me behind my back.
I leaned back in my chair, feeling the weight of exhaustion creeping up on me. “Bakit ganito?” I asked the air, the low hum of my equipment the only thing that dared respond. All the equations, the simulations—they should’ve worked. At least, may konting result man lang, di ba? I stared at the ceiling, my mind drifting between quantum mechanics and self-doubt.
“Shet,” I sighed, rubbing my temples.
For days, I’ve been tweaking the parameters, adjusting the angles, kahit yung mga variables na hindi naman dapat icheck, just hoping to catch something—anything. I’m chasing ghosts, and the worst part is… I’m starting to think maybe I am losing it.
But I can’t stop now. Not after getting this far. The math is there; the logic makes sense, but… bakit wala akong makitang anything out of the ordinary?
I turned my chair to face the mess of equipment around me—oscilloscopes, particle detectors, and even a makeshift interferometer I rigged from spare parts. I’ve thrown every bit of tech I could afford into this, and yet, the results are the same. Flatline. “Come on,” I whispered, almost pleading with the universe. “Give me something.”
I closed my eyes for a second, listening to the faint buzzing of the machines, hoping—no, praying—that some miracle would happen, like in the movies. Yung tipong you look away for a split second, tapos may mangyayari bigla.
But nope. Waley. The instruments continued their monotonous hum, undisturbed, unbothered by my desperation.
“Ano pa bang kulang?!” I suddenly shouted, standing up in frustration. I grabbed one of the notebooks on my desk and flipped through the pages, scribbled notes and diagrams staring back at me, mocking me with their pristine logic. “This has to make sense!” I slammed the notebook shut.
Then, a thought crept in, one that’s been lurking at the edge of my mind for days. Maybe I’m looking at this all wrong. Maybe… my methods are the problem.
I paced around the small room, the dull glow of the monitors casting shadows against the walls. The experiments I’ve been doing—they’re all rooted in traditional physics. Controlled environments. Strict protocols. But what if… what I’m looking for doesn’t follow the rules?
“What if… it’s beyond what I can observe?” I said aloud, stopping in my tracks. The thought hung in the air like a challenge.
Physics—at least the kind we know—operates under strict laws. But if these dimensions, these hidden spaces, exist, who’s to say they follow the same rules? What if the tools I’m using aren’t enough? What if this phenomenon—whatever it is—requires something else, something beyond the reach of these machines?
The idea sent a shiver down my spine. If I can’t detect it with these tools, paano ko ito mahahanap? And worse, if it’s beyond the instruments’ detection, then am I even capable of seeing it?
“Dammit, Aelion,” I muttered to myself, sitting back down. “You’re in over your head.”
But giving up wasn’t an option. I’ve come too far, sacrificed too much for this. Sure, I might be teetering on the edge of madness, pero ano bang bago? I’ve been called crazy before. This is nothing new.
I grabbed a pen and began sketching ideas on a blank sheet of paper. What if I didn’t try to observe the particles directly? What if instead of forcing the anomaly to show itself, I let it come to me? “Parang passive observer,” I mumbled. “Let the data reveal itself.”
But how? How can I just wait for something na I don’t even know exists?
The clock on the wall ticked past 3 a.m., the world outside quiet and still, but inside my head, it was chaos. The familiar ringing in my ears returned, that same high-pitched tone that seemed to come and go with my frustration. I rubbed my temples, trying to shake it off, but it persisted. It’s not real, I told myself. It’s just your mind playing tricks on you. But it was hard to ignore the growing discomfort.
Suddenly, a new idea hit me—one that felt both ridiculous and yet completely logical in the haze of my exhaustion.
“Paano kung… ang anomaly na hinahanap ko… hindi lang particles ang na-affect?” My voice trembled with the thought. What if the disturbance was in the space itself? Something invisible, undetectable by the instruments because they’re not measuring the right thing?
“Okay, okay,” I said, pulling out another piece of paper. “Space… could space itself shift?” My pen flew across the page as I wrote down ideas faster than I could think. If I couldn’t detect the particles, maybe I could detect the space warping around them.
It was a long shot. A crazy one, at that. But it was all I had.
Without wasting another second, I started recalibrating the instruments, reconfiguring the setup to measure subtle changes in spatial dimensions, not just particle behavior. It was messy, makeshift, and borderline insane. But I had to try.
Minutes blurred into hours as I worked, the initial rush of excitement fading into a dull determination. As the first rays of dawn crept through the window, I hit the final key on my computer, activating the sequence.
And then… nothing.
I stared at the monitors, waiting for any sign of an anomaly. The same flat readings greeted me, like an insult.
“No. This can’t be it.” I whispered, my heart pounding.
But before I could turn away in defeat, something flickered. A tiny blip on one of the screens. Barely noticeable.
I blinked, leaning in closer. “Wait. What was that?”
I held my breath, staring at the data feed. It was faint, almost too faint to register, but it was there. A fluctuation. A tiny, almost imperceptible shift in the data.
“HOLY SH—!” I jumped up from my chair, the rush of adrenaline almost knocking me off balance.
I frantically checked the readings, making sure it wasn’t a glitch. But no. The shift was real. It was happening. The space around the particles was bending—just by a fraction—but it was there.
I laughed out loud, disbelief and joy bubbling inside me. “I knew it! I knew you were real!” I shouted at the air, at the universe, at whatever force had been hiding from me all this time.
This was it. The first sign. It wasn’t definitive proof, but it was something. A clue. A hint. The anomaly was real, and I was finally on its trail.
I sank back into my chair, my heart still racing, staring at the screen with wide eyes. “You’re out there,” I whispered, a smile creeping across my face. “And I’m going to find you.”
As the morning sun bathed the room in soft light, I realized that this was just the beginning. There were still so many questions left unanswered, so much I didn’t understand. But for the first time in weeks, I felt something other than frustration.
I felt hope.
And I wasn’t going to stop until I uncovered every last secret hidden in the shadows between dimensions.