_“It’s in the street lights”_

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Robert stared at the message on the screen in confusion, even checking the sender’s phone number, willing it to be a mistake. Looking out of his apartment window, pin pricks of fear crept up his neck as he realized he couldn’t even begin to count the number of street lights visible from his window alone. As his eyes darted around the fourth story window in front of him, both looking at everything and seeing nothing, his stomach tightened and he felt his blood run cold. He turned back to his desk and reached for his phone, for a moment forgetting it was still in his hand.

_“Are you sure?”_

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They’d had countless hours of research and sleepless nights invested in searching for an explanation no one seemed to have for a phenomenon most didn’t know existed. There had been several times when they thought they had finally figured it out only to find holes in their logic or that a small detail didn’t quite line up. As crucial as it was for them to find an answer as fast as possible, Robert found himself hoping Jamie was wrong.

_“Get to the office. Sam’s here.”_

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“Fuck,” he huffed through gritted teeth. Hurriedly grabbing his bag from the corner he’d tossed it into the previous night, he grabbed the manila folder of research materials and stuffed it into the largest pocket. After gathering a few journals and bits of equipment, all shoved into the same barely zipped bag pocket, he turned to grab his shoes and head out. He knew Jamie’s response meant this was not just another _possibility._ He knew that everything was about to change drastically. Not finding his shoes by the coat rack, he dropped his bag to quickly search across the apartment. His chest tightened and his pulse quickened as he stooped to look under furniture and behind messily scattered boxes of news papers. Glancing back down the hallway, he blinked in confusion as he saw his shoes sitting right where he had left them by the coat rack. Rolling his eyes in exasperation, Robert quickly slipped the shoes on and raced through the door, his bag catching on the latch as he went. Grumbling and yanking the bag off of the door and locked the dual deadbolt he’d installed recently, he turned left and headed for the stairwell. As thoughts of Jamie’s revelation buzzed through his mind, he felt acutely aware of where his body ended and the world around him began. His skin felt clammy and tight against his starched clothing, and even that layer felt distinctly separate from the space surrounding him. As he found himself becoming almost certain the lights felt dingier than usual, he set his teeth and blinked hard, dismissing the paranoid thoughts as nothing but. Nothing had changed yet; they just had an explanation.

With his chest a tight from making it down three flights of stairs in what seemed like only a handful of steps, Robert gripped his shoulder strap and trudged out into the rain. Ducking under the awnings along the sidewalk, he found himself gazing intently at street light after street light, feeling caught somewhere between relief that the search was over and dread for what was to come. The glow of each light against the deep inky black of the starless sky made Robert’s knees ache and stomach tighten, evoking a deep, nagging feeling he could not place. He knew Sam would be pleased with the discovery. As powerful as the company he kept tended to be, this was sure to earn him a great deal of favor. He wouldn’t be concerned about the after of it all; that would not concern him or his colleagues. As Jamies was less of a one-dimensional numbers driven type than Sam, he wasn’t sure how he would be handling it, but it probably would be fine. They had all worked together in some capacity for the last decade. Robert knew how they thought, and he knew they had all been working toward the same goal. Why was he suddenly dreading stepping into the room with them?

After walking for several minutes thinking up elaborate scenarios in which each of his colleagues reacted in different ways, Robert tripped on a lifted patch of sidewalk and his eyes snapped back up from the ground he didn’t remember staring at. As he was snapped out of his thoughts, reality crashed back into him all at once. As soon as the spiraling train of thought was broken, the weight everything suddenly felt much heavier than it had before. Would the news outlets even pick up the story or simply dismiss it as some baseless nonsense? How long would they have before it was too late to take action? What happened when everyone around him knew the same thing he did?