Elias spent the rest of the day in a frenzy of theoretical physics. If the Chronoslide was real, it was caused by a sudden, catastrophic shift in his local spacetime coordinates – a temporary break in the continuum that resolved by placing his consciousness into the nearest available, contiguous reality. The falling dream was the neurological processing of this temporal displacement.
He needed proof of the shift. Something measurable.
He logged into the secure university research servers using his key codes (which, mercifully, still worked – apparently, institutional access protocols were harder to rewrite than personal history). He searched for “Chronoslide.”
The results were overwhelming. The term wasn’t new; it was foundational to this reality’s astrophysics. It referred to the theoretical tendency of consciousness, when violently separated from its native timeline, to “slide” into adjacent, parallel temporal streams. The prevailing theory suggested these slides were harmless, short-lived hallucinations.
But Elias had the key that didn’t fit, and the memory of a project named Prime. He knew the theory was wrong.
He decided to find the biggest change possible. He pulled up the latest global climate data. The atmosphere was the same. He pulled up the major geopolitical events. The wars were the same. The history was largely intact, save for the micro-details of his life.
Then he went deeper, pulling raw data from the university’s specialized Mass-Energy Equivalence Chamber – a device designed to measure the mass of elementary particles with near-perfect precision. He had calibrated it himself, just days ago, in Reality Alpha.
He compared the latest reading to his memory of the previous reading. The difference was infinitesimal, but it was there: a tiny, unexplainable mass anomaly – a fraction of a milligram – had appeared in the chamber’s readout, localized to the university campus.
It was too small to be a contamination, too persistent to be a fluke. It looked like an invisible dust mote of pure, misplaced matter.
Elias realized that when he had slid, he hadn’t just moved himself. He had brought something with him. A tiny, measurable piece of Reality Alpha had ripped through the continuum and deposited itself in Reality Beta.
He went to his own research notes in this reality’s system. He found the “Chronoslide” grant proposal Thorne had mentioned. His own handwriting stared back at him. And there, buried in the appendices, was a chilling prediction:
Prediction: The transit of a high-energy consciousness across timelines will result in a measurable, residual mass anomaly in the target reality, which we term “Anchor Mass.” This Anchor Mass will remain energetically linked to the consciousness until the next slide.
Elias looked at the mass anomaly reading – a persistent, foreign stain on the universe’s canvas. He hadn’t just slid into this reality; he was physically tainting it. And the Anchor Mass was located not in his apartment, but in the West Wing Laboratory where the current Dr. Thorne was now supposedly working.
Elias had been locked inside by the key, but the true trap was the Anchor Mass. If he slid again, the new reality would recognize the mass, making his next resting point even more contiguous and perhaps more dangerous.
He looked at his front door. The lock still resisted the key. He needed to get out. He needed the Anchor Mass. And he needed to find out why this reality’s Dr. Thorne was working in the exact location where his contamination now lay.