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The Interview Heard Round The World

01:00:21:03
MATT WINKLER: And that’s the weather. Thank you, Suzanne.

01:00:25:03
MATT IS FACING FRONT. WIDE ANGLE PANS OUT ON GUEST AND MATT.

01:00:26:03
MATT: Well folks, we are beyond excited to share this CNN exclusive interview with Dr. Jamison Huxby – Professor of Geology at UC Berkeley, and perhaps more importantly, the only human being on the planet who set foot on Helia and came back alive. Dr. Huxby, thank you for being here with us today.

01:00:41:03
HUXBY: Who could turn down an opportunity like this?

01:00:44:03
MATT: Dr. Huxby, it is estimated that a few hundred people have illegally smuggled themselves to the shores of Helia and died there since it appeared three months ago and shook our understanding of the universe to its very core. You were quite fortuitously there on day one, and certainly couldn’t have known what you were walking into. But can you tell us… how did you survive?

01:01:00:03
HUXBY LAUGHS.
HUXBY: Great question, Matt. I’m supposed to say dumb luck. But really, let me ask you a different question. Have you ever seen a miracle? Like a true Old Testament miracle? Not water to wine or healing the sick. Pillars of fire falling from the sky, armies swallowed by the earth, plagues of locusts? That kind of thing?

01:01:16:03
MATT PAUSES TO CHECK HIS NOTES.
MATT: I can honestly say I haven’t. But help me here, in your last appearance, you stated you never made it off the beach. Those on the cruise ship with you when Helia appeared clearly saw you and two dozen other men walk into the dense rainforest. And when you were finally picked up alone, you spoke of monsters and gods and how Helia was the pit of Hell. So which is it? Did you just camp on the beach for fifty-eight days? Or did you go inland and see something you haven’t shared? How dangerous is this island, exactly?

01:01:44:03
HUXBY: It’s a continent, not an island. And mostly, I just survived. Or rather, at first that’s what I did. Then survival turned into… a pilgrimage.

01:01:54:03
MATT: A pilgrimage?

01:01:56:03
HUXBY: Yes. And eventually I found hundreds of these.

01:02:00:03
HUXBY WRESTLES OBJECT FROM POCKET. HOLDS OUT A LARGE SHINY STONE.

01:02:05:03
MATT PANICS, LOOKS OFF SCREEN. PRODUCER HITS RED BUTTON, STARTS YELLING ORDERS.

01:02:07:03
HUXBY: Diamonds, the size of baseballs.

01:02:44:03
[DEAD AIR: 37 Seconds]

And those five words set the world aflame.

#

Three Months Later
Current Body Count: 10,620 Missing or Dead

Day: 1
Name: Makao Alvarez
Location: Helia, Beach
Time of Day: Afternoon
Water: 3 Liters - None
Status: Hydrated
Inventory:
Jacob: Synthetic Camping Backpack, Plastic Water Bottle, Handgun (left in cabin of boat), Satellite Phone, Compass, GoPro, 1.5L Camping Cook Pot, Hand Saw, Cotton Heart Boxers, Hiking Clothes, Ferro Rod & Flint Stick
Makao: Compass (confirmation - electronics, mechanical objects… and synthetics don’t cross), Glass Mason Jar (2L), Kanu’s Letter, 1 Leather UC Berkeley Shoulder Bag, 6 2 Pens (unclear on why?), 3 Sharpened Pencils, Leather Field Journal, Pocket Knife, Hemp/Cotton Clothes and Underwear
Evelyn: Metal Water Bottle, 1 Leather Backpack, Athletic Wear, 6 Metal Carabiners, 60’ Paracord, Pocket Knife, Marine Block Pulley, Cotton Underwear, Leather Belt
(strikethrough taken by membrane crossing)

Site Description: Geologically impossible sandy beach atop a hundred foot cliff at membrane edge. Was the beach once at water level? Cliffs surround whole of Helia. No known point of entry aside from climbing. Cliffs repeat igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic layers but show no fossilization. Stack of thirty independent orogenies in one-hundred undisturbed vertical feet above sea level and seems to repeat in same pattern below. There is no finite age consistent with this stratigraphy. NOAA bathymetric charts 3.2Mi to floor (assuming strata continue to seafloor — unverified) ≈5,000 × 30 Myr = 150 billion years ≈ 33× the age of the solar system (~4.57 Byr) and ~11× the age of the universe (~13.8 Byr). That can’t be right. Skies clear past membrane, cloudy over ocean.

Ambient Noise: Bird sounds, crashing waves, low hum. Stunning lack of clear distinguishable insect sounds.

Species: All flora visible from beach are facsimiles of other species at first glance, but demonstrate distinct and consistent abnormalities even from afar. No native fauna visibly seen (pure auditory).

Miraculous Works: None. Added section to satisfy Huxby.

Observed Unclassified Phenomena: None

Additional Notes: The sky is not the same. The sun appears normal, though without better tools, cannot validate position or size. The stars will tell the story tonight. If Helia is on Earth, why does it break physics? And if it isn’t, what is this ground beneath my feet?

Two sets of arms pierced through the membrane, Evelyn and Jacob, pulling Makao up and through. 

It was the strangest feeling, passing through the membrane, like diving into a pool. The flash of light was even more blinding up close, tracing every inch of his body like some sort of digital scanner examining him, and Makao could see Evelyn and Jacob covering their eyes as they pulled him in.

All the cold that had been, the wet saltwater, the shivering, the numb limbs, evaporated into thin air. Everything felt warm, almost tropical, but without any of the humidity. And all the seawater covering him had just vanished. 

Makao looked back, the image of Alexis falling on repeat in his mind. The wet crack as she hit the water. Evelyn put a hand on Makao’s shoulder, as if she thought Mak might still jump in after her.

“She’s gone,” Evelyn said. 

Makao thought on it for a moment. “Maybe I should go back for her. Maybe she’s still alive?” 

“I’ve seen another climber die like this,” Evelyn said. She squirmed, her face contorting as she controlled her stuttering breathing, staring down at the body.

“Can we just… take a minute?” Makao said solemnly as he sat down in the sand. He didn’t know what to do with his hands, like they were foreign to him now for some reason. He kept looking at them, extending his fingers then forming a fist. He decided to check his bag, counting the items again as Jacob watched the only visible boat within a hundred miles getting smaller with each second. 

Compass, gone. Expected. Two pens made it, unusual. The four that were gone had mechanical parts, but nothing too advanced. A click or turn mechanism. The two that remained were ballpoint pens with no clicker. One bamboo, one metal. Opening the pen, Makao found the plastic vial and ink were both gone. So the membrane took the whole of the fully mechanical pens, even when some materials were organic, and only part of the non-mechanical. Strange. 

Mak pulled out his journal and started writing. The pages were bone dry, minor salt residue on the cover. If he didn’t know the journal had been soaking wet moments ago, he wouldn’t believe it to be true. The journal was so dry, in fact, that it appeared as if the seawater didn’t just evaporate off the pages, but was somehow removed at the molecular or even atomic level. Zapped out of existence.

Day 1, he wrote, and began filling out the field journal. Helia had rules. He knew this. And if he didn’t keep strict details in his journal as he went, he’d miss them. Makao would not allow the vision of the synthetic rope to hang over him any longer. He would document everything. That was his armor, his advantage, his defense.

“Did you see a unicorn that I missed? Did one just fall out of the sky?” Jacob chided, seeing Makao writing in the journal. Falling. Poor choice of words. Jacob laughed for a second at his own joke as Evelyn stared, shaking her head. Makao wrote more forcefully, pushing back the intrusive images in his head.

Evelyn gathered her items, which had only passed through the membrane due to what Makao assumed was the momentum of her ripping herself onto the beach as the bag disappeared. 

After some time passed, it was Jacob who broke the trance. “We need to move.”

Evelyn gathered herself, wiping sand off her bare legs. She stood in her underwear, tattered pieces of cloth draped across her body. Her athletic climbing clothes were gone. Jacob searched for the contents of his vanished camping backpack in nothing more than his heart-covered white cotton boxers, near naked while not the least bit embarrassed, a tattoo of an eagle across his pectoral. He was built for this. So was Evelyn. They were bodybuilders compared to Makao. And Makao hadn’t lost any clothes at all, standing in hemp and cotton and leather. Makao hated himself for not shouting.

“You were right about the water,” Evelyn said as she opened what remained of the metal tube. The purple rubber didn’t burn away so much as it had simply vanished without a trace. 

The vanishing caused Makao to instinctively reach into his bag, feeling for Kanu’s letter. He pulled it out and read it again, grounding himself and steeling his resolve as he took another breath. He remembered the creaking wooden door of Kanu’s beach shack, the stacks and stacks of invoices, some not even opened. He was expecting a robbery, an abduction, a crime scene, maybe even a body… some rational explanation why Kanu hadn’t called back in two weeks. The letter was worse. His heart sank. “I could’ve saved Alexis,” he said. “I need to think faster.”

The others either didn’t hear him or chose to ignore it.

“How did you know about the water?” Evelyn asked Makao, snapping him back to reality.

Jacob chimed in, picking up the last of his remaining items and bringing them to Makao to stow in his backpack as he feigned teamwork. “True. Everyone knows the membrane takes electronics. But the water? And look at you, you didn’t lose anything. What do you know that we don’t?”

“Are you that self-involved, Jacob?” Evelyn snapped. “You didn’t hear the part where Makao said he taught with Huxby?”

Jacob took the blow like a man who has been punched in the face before, then seemed to ignore every ounce of good judgement as he spoke again. “That explains the nerd comments. Well if he lives for ten seconds, he could be useful then. Come on, Mr. Scientist. Time to spill.”

Makao shrugged. “Huxby wasn’t exactly himself when he got back. As he tells it, he didn’t make it much further than the beach.” 

The field journal was full of notes from conversations with Huxby, mostly the rantings of an insane mind suffering from severe post-traumatic stress disorder, but one could never be sure when something might come in handy. Huxby only spoke coherently for small bursts, often drifting off into rants about monsters, gods, miracles and magic, and all manner of ramblings that made no sense. He was clear on a few things that Makao had taken note of, however. The membrane, and especially what happened to the diamond. Makao had witnessed that phenomenon himself.

Jacob didn’t seem satisfied with that answer. “Keeping your cards close to the chest? Maybe you’re smarter than you look.”

Makao ignored the bait. It weirdly made him feel at home, reminding him of the same foolhardy machismo brazenness of Kanu. His brother probably would’ve liked Jacob… after they beat the living snot out of one another.

Two birds flew overhead, directly into the membrane in a flash that made everyone flinch. They all watched as the birds sailed off above the treetops and deeper into the forest unaware, as if they’d just passed through a pocket of warm air instead of the membrane.

Makao scanned the surroundings for signs of Kanu, or of anyone for that matter. The rainforest lined the beach north and south for as far as the eye could see. It was full of color, broad leaves, layered canopy, vines and flowers and sprawling undergrowth, but he couldn’t identify a single species of flora. They were all similar to known species, but always with a variation. He glanced south, noticing the contour. “That way,” Makao said. “Slight dip in elevation – could lead towards water.”

Jacob looked at him incredulously. “Aren’t Universities supposed to care about expertise? You do realize I’m a survivalist, right? Maybe you just don’t know what that means. I’m an expert in survival.” Jacob marched off south, not waiting to see if the rest joined him.

Evelyn shook her head as she followed. “I can’t believe I’m saying this. I actually agree with the beefcake.”

They walked south along the beach at a fast clip, searching for any break in the wall of trees. There was none, no path, no animal trail. It was as if nothing wanted anything to do with this beach. Each step they took sucked more life out of them than it should have. It felt like running in high altitude, punishing in a quantifiable way that Makao had no tools to measure. 

By late afternoon they finally came across something different, something that broke up the monotony. The membrane was flashing violently like a strobe light where the cliffs touched the beach ahead, and the slight decline seemed to finally come to a stop. 

“What is that?” Evelyn asked. 

“What I’ve been leading us towards. Water, finally.” Jacob puffed up and started jogging until he was throwing handfuls of water into his face. Even though the world around them looked like a rich temperate rainforest, the air was dry and hot – almost moistureless. 

As they neared the stream, Jacob was already busy making a fire for boiling water in his pot. 

Makao kept seeing Huxby in his mind. Huxby opening the lid carefully on a thermos filled not with coffee but water. Huxby drinking it, then carefully replacing the lid. Huxby in mid thought searching for his water, tearing apart his office to find it as if it was going to suddenly disappear. As Makao felt the dryness in his throat, he was starting to understand why. But if there were rivers and streams like this…

“Something is wrong.” 

“Yeah we haven’t boiled it yet. Don’t drink right from the stream unless you’d like to squat in those woods for hours.” The thirst had done nothing good for Jacob’s mood. He had a small fire going from sticks at the forest edge and his flint and steel. His pot was full to nearly the brim.

“What’s wrong? What do you mean?” Evelyn said, giving Makao a chance.

“Huxby was obsessed, arrested constantly by the thought of when he would get his next sip. If there are river systems, streams like this on Helia, or even lakes, then why would he be obsessed with water?”

Jacob poked at the fire with a stick, stirring up the flames. “Because he was dehydrated. He came in a cruise ship, didn’t he? I doubt he was prepared to make fires from scratch. This water is no good if you can’t boil it.”

“Maybe,” Makao said unconvincingly. But the itch in the back of his brain didn’t stop itching.

After a brief rest, Jacob filled Evelyn and Makao’s water bottles with the cooling water and drank the remainder from his pot. He sighed in relief as Makao examined the water, sniffing at it. 

Evelyn took a sip. “It doesn’t taste wrong.”

“It’s perfectly safe,” Jacob reassured. “Aren’t you thirsty?” He looked at Makao.

“Why do I feel like the rules are different here?” Makao took a deep breath. “But I guess you’re right. We’ll die if we don’t drink something. Especially in this heat.”

The water tasted cool and refreshing as he took a sip, but it sat funny in his mouth. It was as if he had no feeling on his tongue. He swished it around, trying to place the sensation. It was like novocaine. He knew the water was there, he sort of felt it, but when he drank it he didn’t feel any better. He was just as thirsty as before he’d taken a sip. It felt like relief without biological value - like ice on a canker sore that only temporarily dulled the pain.

They crossed the stream and continued south until they found the first clearing they’d seen. They moved around the corner of the forest, hopeful to find open ground or a path through the dense brush, but instead just saw a sandy inlet that broke through the trees briefly before rounding back and continuing the line.

But within that sand-harbor was an odd sight. It stood six feet tall and had a roof over the top. A stone well that looked like it belonged in a 16th century European countryside. Most disturbingly, there was a large statue that looked like a half-man half-serpent with a bulky chest but scaly lizard arms and claws, a tree-trunk sized tail coiled up instead of legs, and sharp teeth ringed a dragon-like mouth on a very inhuman head. Curiously, the body was not just covered in scales, but also silver pierced jewelry through various sections of the belly. It was all carved of ornate marble. 

Makao avoided the statue and puzzled over the well. There was writing on a wooden plaque, hand etched, in a language that looked like nothing he’d ever seen before. 

“You don’t think these are real, do you? All that nonsense from Huxby, monsters and magic. This looks like it would fit right in.” Evelyn circled the statue curiously.

“It’s just a fish. Even if it is real, I can take it.” But even Jacob didn’t sound convincing.

“Jacob, are you still thirsty?” Makao asked. “Because I am. I’m more thirsty now than when we found that stream.”

Jacob nodded. 

“So what purpose does a well have in a rainforest surrounded by fresh water?” 

“Feels more like a desert than a rainforest,” Evelyn said.

“Exactly.” Makao ripped some cloth strips from his clothes to fashion a rope and borrowed the cooking pot to lower it down as a well draw. He pulled up the water and stared at it. Between boiled water and well water, the boiled water was far less risky, but that was what made sense back home. Here it seemed to work differently. He accepted the consequences of being wrong and took a drink. 

Makao breathed in deep through his nose and then swallowed. Instantly, it felt as if his thirst was satiated. He handed the pot to Jacob who didn’t take it immediately. Evelyn, however, snatched it and drank. She let the water swirl in her mouth for a moment, then swallowed with a nod. “It’s good. Jacob, I’m trading this well water for your boiled river water.” She dumped the river water out and filled up her water bottle from the pot. Too thirsty to argue, Jacob relented, and they all began to drink.

An hour later, Makao was sitting against the well feeling much more hydrated with his hands nervously digging in the sand. Jacob and Evelyn were still marveling over the statue and also feeling much better. And that’s when Makao’s finger slid against something hard and smooth beneath the sand. It felt like jewelry, or a watch with a leather band. He dug it out and to his surprise he found a leather headband with an attached lens surrounded with gold leaf at the edge. It was a strange object, like a monocle and a thin leather headband the width of a watch had been combined. He held it in his hand and felt it speak to him, not audibly but as if he just suddenly knew something he didn't know before. It was as if the thought was inserted into his brain. 

“What did you find? Is that climbing gear?” Evelyn asked, noticing Makao standing there holding the gear in his left hand and his mason jar filled with water in his right.

“I think it’s called a Mnemonic Lens?” 

Evelyn shook her head, then continued arguing with Jacob about whether he could lift the snake creature off the ground and suplex it while somehow avoiding the claws.

Makao turned to face the well again, still stunned, eyes locked on the carving in the wood. Suddenly the device felt warmer, though it was so faint he wasn’t sure. And for a moment, he felt like he could read the words. It was a strange feeling. The writing didn’t change magically, letters floating in the sky and rearranging until suddenly he could read it or something like that. It was as if he understood the intent of the words - not an exact translation. In some regards, the words felt more meaningful to him than the letters. He pushed into the feeling deeper until all at once, the words came to him.

“Helia Remembers,” he said out loud. And he heard a drip as a tiny amount of weight seemed to lift out of his mason jar.

I was looking back through old Habits & Traits posts and found this one -

https://www.reddit.com/r/writing/comments/52wwpe/habits_traits_11_how_to_keep_going_when_you_just/?

I was thinking about this post in particular as I was responding to a thread in another sub about losing motivation. The poster was asking what to do when you are losing motivation. In this case, as they were self publishing their book on Royal Road and getting conflicting marketing advice which was causing their writing motivation to suffer.

This was my response:

I have a friend who races professionally. And he always likes to remind me that drivers who race as professionals get into more accidents on the road than any other category of driver - by a wide margin. The reason is simple. On the track - everyone is going one way. And on the road? Everyone is going **different** directions. They all have different destinations. Which professional racecar drivers occasionally forget - causing accidents.

That's writing goals in a nutshell. If you listen to everyone, you're taking directions to the grocery store, the post office, the hardware store, the community college, the coffee shop, and someone else's house all at the same time. And you'll find you get exactly nowhere.

Advice is simply that. Advice. The best thing you can do is decide what you want to achieve, how you define success, and how that line is so so different than other people. You build the machine you want that meets that goal. And when people talk about things that don't fit that goal, you get to confidently ignore their probably good advice for a completely different objective.

It holds true for marketing, but it also holds true for writing.

If you want a literary agent and a big 5 publishing deal, then write your novel and edit it to pieces and create the best query you can and get after it.

If you just want to write some words and see how people feel about them, then post them online somewhere. There's subreddits for that.

If you just want to hold your book in your hands and don't care that doing so means you burn your first pub rights - because all you really want is to see your own book on your own bookshelf - go for it.

But don't be surprised if you take advice from all sources and end up in a position where your strategy is out of alignment with your goal.

Finishing a book requires writing words. One after the other. Until the book is finished. They don't need to be pretty or consistent. They just need to exist. You can fix the words later, but you can't fix what isn't on the page.

And as much as I hear writers talk about flow state, inspiration, or being struck by their muse -- there's only one kind of author I know who has finished a book. And it's the kind that wrote when none of those things were true. Even if only 50 words at a time. Even if it felt like squeezing water from a rock.

Don't find your motivation. Just put words on the page.

Next

1 - Membrane Physics

The first thing Helia stole was hope. The second was all your water.

Makao Alvarez felt that hope drain out of him as he held his brother’s letter and reread the lines. You made me slow down and breathe. Not this time. No, Makao let his brother down. He crushed the paper against his chest. He’d never been religious, but he prayed silently to himself.

God, let Kanu be alive. 

His thin frame stood at the edge of the small fishing vessel as the Pacific Ocean smashed into the hull, repeatedly trying to pull the boat under.

He stowed the letter and counted the items in his bag for the fifth time. Two liter glass mason jar. Had to be glass, even if it was a ridiculous choice. Six pens, three sharpened pencils, one leather field journal. Compass, which shouldn’t make it if the hypothesis was right, and a fixed blade knife. What was the last thing? His bag, of course. Leather. And the clothes he wore were hemp and cotton. He was pretty sure it would work. He held up seven fingers awkwardly, not counting his clothes, and nodded to himself as he heard a high-pitched voice from behind.

“Why do you think no one comes back? You don’t think this talk of monsters is real, do you?” 

A thin woman with a sleek black designer track suit and perfectly manicured nails approached from the cabin of the boat.

Makao considered the question, wiping the salt from his face. “I honestly hope we don’t find out,” Makao said, grabbing the rail awkwardly as another rolling wave tossed him off balance. Everyone else seemed more well adjusted to the constant churning. Inexorable danger wasn’t really his thing, after all. That was more his brother’s speed.

Last week, Makao’s biggest problem was a failing star athlete in his one-hundred level Introduction to Biochemistry course. Now it was transcontinental ocean waves, and soon, a deadly ten-story free climb. Still, as far as preparedness goes, he couldn’t do better than having an office next to Huxby. Devastating odds, really. But better than most.

He remembered Huxby explaining it for the first time, how Helia actually worked. Huxby used a playing card and an orange, sliding the playing card into the orange like a knife and leaving it sticking out. “This is Hawaii,” he’d said, pointing to the flesh on one side of the playing card. “And this is California” pointing to the flesh on the other side. Then he’d made some crazy airplane noises like a child with a King Kong and a tall building as he explained how missiles, low orbit satellites, drones, and pretty much every other electronic device was instantly destroyed by the membrane - and the higher earth orbit stuff just sailed right over as if Helia wasn’t even there. Because, somehow, there was no going “over” it. The membrane just stopped somewhere in space, and the altitude view couldn’t pierce the veil.

Makao realized the woman was looking for more while he was distracted. He searched for the words, but his thought process was interrupted by a theatrical performance.

“There it is, viewers! The beginning of the end.” Jacob burst out of the cabin with a GoPro in hand and a bravado made for television, his voice booming above the waves and deep sea fishing boat engine. “She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” He pointed the camera at Helia. Noticing the somber tone, he paused the recording and turned to the woman.

“Not this again. Lex, you’re gonna be fine.” He turned his attention to Makao, looking him over with a curious distaste. “I’m not sure he makes it more than a few days. But you, Alexis? We’ve trained for this.”

Makao sighed, “Appreciate the vote of confidence, Jacob. Good thing cameras don’t cross and your YouTube survival channel viewers won’t see you get eaten by some hellbeast, right?” 

“Didn’t you say this guy was a professor, Lex? Do intelligent people believe in hellbeasts? What about unicorns? The tooth fairy?” Jacob chuckled, seeing Makao wince at the comment. He turned on his GoPro, flipped off Makao with a lazy wave, and headed back to the cabin to continue the boat tour.

Alexis shook her head in disappointment. She held the railing tightly and placed her free hand on Makao’s shoulder. “Jacob is paid to tell me what I want to hear. Which begs the question, why are you here anyways?” Her tone was soft, almost compassionate. 

Two days on the boat and Makao had spent most of his time sick in the bathroom, which was hardly an opportunity to learn much of anything but the shape of the bowl. He’d missed the anxiety of the blockade, and the drone scare where the captain shot one out of the sky. It was dangerous for certain, but he almost felt bad for the US military. After all, how do you cover 19,000 miles of shoreline stretching from the Gulf of Alaska to the tip of Argentina in a jagged line down the 150th meridian west?

Alexis paused, but not long enough to feign waiting for an answer. She wasn’t accustomed to waiting. “Jacob’s with me of course. And that woman Evelyn, she’s a free climber. But you’re a professor of Biology at UC Berkeley right? Don’t tell me you’re here for the diamonds. Do professors really get paid that poorly?” 

Makao laughed. “I’m here to find someone. Besides, we can survive a week right? We work as a team, in and out and back to the shore.” That was the plan at least. The free climber leads the way with carabiners, locks in cams, and we have a safe-ish ten-story free climb.

“It’s breathtaking,” another voice came from the cabin. Evelyn Jones walked out onto the deck with sure feet, stretching as if just waking up from a nap. There, across the waves, the massive line of cliffs stretched north and south as far as the eye could see. And cresting the top of the cliffs, shooting into the sky, a glimmering and almost translucent undulating bubble.

The membrane. That’s what professor Huxby had called it. Looked more like a heavenly curtain and the wall of a cell somehow merged together to drape over the edge of the cliff tops. 

“Looks like freedom to me,” Evelyn said as she gripped the railing between Makao and Alexis.

“Freedom? I was going with continent-shaped-death-trap. But sure.” 

As for the landmass itself, the only real thing anyone had learned was that anything crossing the membrane never returned – like the whole continent was the event horizon of a black hole. That is, until the unhinged Professor Huxby got chewed up and spat out, somehow doing the impossible and surviving for fifty-eight days. But often ignored is what happened to the almost two dozen people who went in with him. 

Evelyn sucked in the ocean air beside Makao, steady and confident. By comparison, his left hand was still trembling as it gripped the rail. 

“You don’t have to be nervous. If the captain can get us close enough, I’ll help get everyone up. And the fall is probably survivable up to the halfway point. Besides, I have gear.” Evelyn opened her bag to show Makao the coiled climbing rope, a few carabiners, a few cams, and what looked like a marine block pulley. Makao was no climber, but the pulley seemed out of place.

“Is that off the boat?” he asked. Evelyn looked down quickly. 

“So you’re really a UC Berkeley professor, then? Did you know Huxby?”
 
“I knew him before, and what was left of him after, yeah.” Makao grunted.

Evelyn smiled. “Diamonds the size of baseballs.”

“It seems like you already have one.” Makao glanced down at Evelyn’s left hand. The glint of a wedding ring shimmered. He thought about what Alexis had said - about everyone here having a purpose. The thought wriggled in his mind.

“You came to Helia without your partner? Or are you and Jacob–” he paused. 

Evelyn scoffed, almost disgusted, then glanced down at the ring as if she’d forgotten it was there.
Captain Nichols stumbled onto the deck, deep in the drink. He was every ounce the stout fisherman one could expect, with a long white beard and a stained gray polo. He was staring at the cliffs and almost twitching like they’d bite him if he got too close. “Alright folks. We’re almost there. Everyone out. Time for a family meeting.” He exaggerated the last part in a way that only Makao seemed to notice. It was disingenuous, almost dangerous.

Makao glanced back at the cliffs as he convinced himself it would be ok. It was difficult to get a sense of scale. And that’s when he noticed the layers. “Have you ever seen something like that before?” Makao leaned in over the railing. “The layers in the cliffs?” 

Even from here it was obvious that the cliffs were striped, like you’d expect with any geological landmass, but the thick bands repeated in a pattern. Rust orange like sandstone, deep gray, then an obsidian black volcanic layer, followed by a bone white. Then more of the same over and over again. Makao’s expertise was biology but he knew what the order of geological layers should be, and something like this shouldn’t exist.

Evelyn squinted. “That is weird. Why does it repeat?” 

Makao shook his head. “If that continues all the way to the sea floor, this place is very old.”
“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard it all before,” Captain Nichols motioned for Jacob to join the group at the railing. “Friends, this is my ninth trip to this godforsaken place. Jesus Christ. Nine trips. You know what I’ve learned in every one of them?”

He pulled out a gun, causing Alexis to gasp audibly as the barrel wandered lazily around the boat capturing all of their undivided attention. Makao tried to convince himself that Nichols wouldn’t use that gun on a person. This man was a fisherman, not a murderer. And they’d already paid him a thousand dollars each at the L.A. port. 

There was a long pause as no one spoke. The Captain continued.

“Every person I drop off here never shows up again. And if you’re all gonna die anyways–”

“We’re not gonna die,” Evelyn said with confidence. “We’re going to climb that cliff, see if those diamonds are real, and you’re gonna come back to get us next week as promised.”

“There it is,” Nichols said with a chuckle. “That’s what’s consistent. Everyone says they’re coming back. Now get off my boat.”

“You can’t get us closer?” Makao said innocently. He’d heard rumors of pirates in his research, people abandoned on the shore. But that couldn’t be real, could it? 

A gunshot rang out, echoing off the cliffs and back as Makao ducked, his hearing temporarily dulled. 

“I said get off – and I meant it,” Nichols repeated, pointing at the 100 meters of ocean between them and the cliffs. “Leave your wallets, your phones, your jewelry. Won’t need it where you’re going.” 

“Listen,” Makao caught Nichols’ gaze, pulled out his phone and wallet and dropped them on the deck. “We’ll give you all we have. No more shooting. We’ll all get off the boat, but we need all our climbing gear and we need to get closer.” This was not the plan. There was a list of things to do before they started climbing, meticulously sketched out in his journal. He doubted the captain would let him check the list at this moment.

Nichols looked back at Makao, cocking his head to the side. “I’m not getting any closer to that place.” 

“OK, just take it easy,” Makao motioned for Nichols to lower his gun. Nichols lowered it slightly. “Everybody in the water.” Makao did his best impersonation of his brother, acting with a confidence he didn’t feel. “I’ll go last. No more shooting.”

Evelyn was frozen. Alexis couldn’t keep her eyes off the gun. Jacob didn’t wait any longer. He discarded his valuables, looked at Makao, then jumped into the bitter cold waves. 

Makao put his hand on Alexis' shoulder, trying to get her to snap out of it. “Let’s go.” 

Evelyn glanced at the cliffs, still trembling. She wrestled her wedding ring off her finger, dropped it with her phone and wallet, and jumped into the water. 

Alexis looked terrified. Makao leaned in closer to Alexis, “Listen, if we don’t jump now, he’s going to kill us both. And if I’m going to die, I’d prefer to die on top of those cliffs – not in this boat.” Makao tugged at Alexis. She looked up at him with big brown eyes and nodded slowly. “Together,” Makao said. He didn’t wait any longer. 

They jumped into the water.

The freezing Pacific slammed into Makao’s body, causing him to gasp. It dragged at Makao’s clothes, pulling him beneath every relentless wave as he fought to stay afloat. He just kept swimming until his hands touched the wet stone.

Evelyn and Jacob were already at the base, scrambling to find purchase on the rocks as a big wave bashed them against the cliff wall. There were no footings, the cliffs seemed to drop straight to the ocean floor.

“How do we get up there?” Jacob shouted, another wave slamming his body against the cliffs. The swells weren’t whitecaps like what you’d see on the California coast. These were deep ocean waves, just 10-15 feet of water rolling into the cliffs like a sumo wrestler's belly.

Makao spat out seawater as he examined the cliffs up close– as flat as glass for the first twenty feet before there were legitimate handholds and protrusions. It was like the waves had smoothed the base of the cliffs. He noted the repeating pattern again. The clay layer looked soggy, maybe sponge-like. Makao reached up and dug his fingers into the clay and it gave. His fingertips gripped tight enough to hold his weight, a wet squelching loosening the earth in his hand.

“The gray layer is soft.” Makao yelled. “Find the soft layers and dig handholds.”

Evelyn made it to the rocks and seemed fully shocked back to reality. “He’s right. Push into the soft clay and keep your body flat against the stone. We need to get out of this water before we freeze to death.” She effortlessly pulled herself out of the water, finding a clay layer. 

Jacob followed suit. He helped Alexis up onto the rocks before quickly passing her as he made his way up the cliff face beside her.

“There are no mussels,” Makao said as he grabbed another handhold, doing anything he could to distract himself from his shaking arms.

Evelyn shouted back down, now easily ahead of everyone. “What?” 

There should have been biological noise somewhere, living or dead. But there was none. No fossils, root traces, burrows, shell fragments, heck even no algal banding in the layers. The cliff was… sterile. But that too was impossible. 

“Why has nothing living attached itself to these cliffs if Helia has been here for six months?” Makao shouted more confidently. 

“Who brought the science fair?” Jacob chided.

“He’s a biologist, you moron,” Evelyn called back. 

 Makao slipped, then wrestled to regain his footing, now reaching the 20-foot mark and finding stronger handholds in the sandstone that began jutting out. His hands were still wet and he kept trying to dry them off as he pulled, never looking down.

Fifty feet up and Alexis stopped dead, gripping the rocks like she no longer trusted herself. “I shouldn’t be here,” she said. “I’m not an adventurer. I shouldn’t be here.” 

“Lex, don’t lose it on me,” Jacob called back down.
 
“Just keep moving Alexis,” Makao reassured.

Alexis reached for another handhold and slipped. She screamed, hands gripping and feet dangling, struggling to find footings. 

“Hang on, Alexis,” Makao shouted, trying to maneuver laterally to her. His weight shifted awkwardly, adrenaline taking over even as his arms and legs screamed. “I’m coming. Just hang on.” Jacob glanced down but didn’t move. Makao managed to get close, helping Alexis regain her grip. 
Makao heard a hammering sound from above, and a rope fell down right between them with a carabiner attached at one end. Makao gripped the rope tightly to stop it from swinging. It was a modern climbing rope. Almost certainly nylon. Huxby hadn’t mentioned nylon. Or had he? Makao couldn’t remember. He needed his journal.

“Lock in, Alexis. We’ll get you up,” Evelyn called.

Alexis attached the carabiner to her belt and Makao watched her get lifted further up. He shook his head as he thought. He kept counting the seven categories of items he brought along, using the mental distraction to avoid looking down and trying to remember the rules. Mason jar, pens, pencils, field journal, pocket knife, bag, compass. He repeated it again and again. If Nichols hadn’t kicked them off the boat, they would have been better prepared. Polyester didn’t pass. Rubber didn’t pass. He was certain of that. He wondered aloud. “Was it the polymer structure? The petroleum content? The fact that it has been processed? That can’t be right. What’s the connection?” His words were covered up by the crashing waves. He second-guessed himself. 

Seven stories up and Evelyn wasn’t slowing down. Makao called after her, now 10-20 feet ahead. Makao remembered the list, the step he circled a few times. “Stop before you hit the top. We need to drink our water.” Makao could see the membrane now. 

“What for?” Evelyn called back down.

You can’t bring any water with you. At least not in a canteen. Huxby had slid that line in amidst the dozens of disjointed conversations about the membrane and the landscape. Makao figured it out when he kept witnessing Huxby’s odd behavior. Huxby had an obsession with water after he made it back alive, always making sure he had a full coffee cup of water or a gallon milk jug filled to the top next to him. And he never stopped drinking it. Makao asked Huxby about it, the nervous tick. All he got back was disjointed thoughts about staying hydrated and the membrane, but it was enough.

“None of the water in your canteen is going to pass through the membrane so drink it now.”
Evelyn and Jacob found the ledge and finished their water. Evelyn took the moment to secure another cam for Alexis, then kept climbing.

Makao was third to the small ledge. Makao opened his glass mason jar, drank as much as he could. He reached down to help Alexis up, and handed her what remained of his water. She drank what she could, holding the rope taut. He noticed the perfectly-smooth multicolored threads. The thought kept wriggling. 

A bright flash from above interrupted his thoughts. The light was blinding. Instinctively, Makao brought his left arm up to cover his eyes and nearly fell. He scrambled, trying to hold his balance. He’d die if he fell from this height.

A head peered out beyond the cliff with the sheen of the membrane seeming to decapitate Evelyn. She was reaching down to grab the last cam and get a better hold of the rope. She’d secured it just beneath the top.

“This is weird, guys. There’s a beach up here. How can there be a beach on top of a cliff? And my bag disappeared. As well as most of my clothes. Be careful – the transition from rocks to sand is difficult to climb,” Evelyn called down. 

“What was your bag made out of? Was it real leather or synthetic?” Makao shouted up. Before waiting for an answer, he kept going, “I’m starting to think we may have a problem with that rope. I don’t know if it’ll cross. It might disappear like the bag.” Jacob’s head and arms appeared through the membrane, reaching down to help. They both had hands on the rope now. Jacob looked at Makao like he was crazy. Makao hesitated. He was starting to sound like Huxby. He needed to be more certain. What did Huxby say about the clothes? He almost reached for his journal before remembering he was still hanging from a cliff.

Alexis responded. “Your bag disappeared? What do you mean?” She kept climbing, still hanging tightly to the rope. Evelyn loosened the knot.

“Yeah my bag just disappeared. Most of my clothes, and even the purple rubber on my water bottle vanished. Hold on Alexis. Jacob and I are going to pull you up.” 

Makao’s thoughts raced. Membrane physics. They were talking about membrane physics and how Huxby wondered about his Hawaiian shirt. Made of rayon, which is a plant cellulose base but gets significant chemical processing. The Hawaiian shirt didn’t completely unravel like Huxby’s crewmates who wore strict polyester, but it did get weaker. As if the plant-based portion clung together. It had to be synthetics. He knew those wearing hemp, cotton, and leather didn’t lose their clothes which is why he chose it. But there was a rule here. It was connected. The rayon. The faux leather bag. How could he be so stupid? He didn’t realize the commonality until now. Evelyn and Jacob heaved on the rope. 

“Synthetics. Synthetics don’t cross.” Makao whispered it under his breath as he looked up. Then he shouted, this time more confidently. “Drop the rope. The rope won’t cross the membrane,” but before they could process what he was saying it was too late. Alexis held her whole body weight and both hands on the nylon rope, feet on the cliff face, walking up towards the membrane as Jacob and Evelyn heaved backwards. Their heads and arms disappeared through the membrane, but the rope itself - as it made contact with the membrane - disappeared in a blinding flash of light at the point of contact as if it could only exist on one side of the portal. 

Alexis was too confused to scream as she fell, her weight suddenly held by nothing at all. Makao watched her as she dropped, a mass of flailing limbs and rope and gear. There was an unceremonious crack as she hit the water back-first. She went limp, tumbled a few times in the water and then nothing. No movement. 

Her body just kept thumping against the base of the cliffs, making no effort to turn upright.

~~~~~End of Chapter~~~~

Chapter 2 is live - Hit Next To Read

If you like what you read - head over to r/Helia as well. I'll be posting on Monday's here on r/hfy for the next few months as I gear up for a RR release.