The Shell and the Infinite
The first fact Carlos notices is that, while not malfunctioning at all, his watch has stopped working.
If he tries harder, in the hot void of the desert, he can listen to its ticking just as easily as the beating of his heart. The voice of the clockwork is there, and unmistakably so; it rreminds him of the flow of time, regular enough to seem a bit off for Night Vale.
The second fact is that, without a doubt, this is not Night Vale.
In this place it is dusk already, and a weird orange light falls on the steel hands. The glare of the sun quivers on their outline, as if they didn't dare move. But he has seen enough to tell for sure — the truth is the hands no longer care to move, as if it did not matter in the slightest.
Carlos breathes in a deep breath, holding on to the usual procedure. He is a good scientist. He is conscious of what weighs on his shoulders— he understands how, here and now and to them all, he might be the most important scientist in the world.
He starts over and over again, collecting data from realities he had never perceived; he struggles to learn more, of them, treasuring all that his senses can possibly send him.
He does not need any help, however, to realize there is a difference. Something brings back memories in the way this sand stays still, in how far the dunes go on, running towards the same non-existent boundaries. It is like a gentle nudge to the back of his head; and he recognizes it with slight surprise, a touch from hands he has by now forgotten.
This desert is one he remembers. It is the one he used to see before, the one that has changed day after day, right under his eyes.
Then, far away, there is a mountain much like the ones from his past, so many years ago. He cannot tell whether it is just the heat to make the sight so familiar. He investigates the red light, a blinking mirror to the vast wheel of the sun.
The mountain reminds him of the dark outline on the horizon, when the whole night used to walk by like nothing, and his lamp shone all along on the chemistry textbooks. It looks like those past dawns, and like more recent sunsets — it is a mirage, a mark of the distance the motorway still threw between him and a stranger town.
He walks a little further in the sand wastes. There would be no meaning in turning back now — now that he exists deep within this place, and nothing of what he has left on the other side, not even a single moment of this day, feels unfamiliar anymore.
Carlos walks, must walk, hand in hand with courage. This fight is no less his than anyone else's; hope and fear come in waves, giving him the cold shivers that conscious people alone can feel. And he has the sinking feeling, as he treads the sand, that all of this will not be enough — that the silent citizens won't be scared, won't be aware, until they try the weight of evil on their skin.
He only has two certainties to entrust his wishes to. He is trying, and he is not the only one.
His heart aches in the dry wind. The scenery does not grow any clearer as the invisible time slips by — it is written in a different language, a complicated language, and yet a much weaker one than that of his memories.
It is impossible, right now, to forget the way Cecil smiled last night, and how he was trembling in tears a moment after. It is hard to get rid of that scent, the mixture of hope and terror creeping under his skin. Carlos could feel every move — each doubt passed onto him in silence, scathing his own confidence layer after layer.
The glow of triumph in his gaze, as they reviewed the plans, was sure. The problem was with everything else — a whole series of unpredictable events, of perspectives torn between success and failure.
It had been intense fear, mixed with a childish purity of sorts, to break Cecil's voice and throw him in his arms.
"I may never come back," he had breathed in his already regrown hair. "You may never come back. We must succeed — I can't let them take you too".
So many times, Carlos thinks, the poor man has been wounded and defeated. So many evenings he has fallen, just to get up on his feet the following morning; he has spent so many hours in telling empty stories, his words hopelessly in chains.
Carlos was one of the few, but not the only one, to sense the change in his voice behind the radio waves; and that is why they never needed to talk much, not even before the storm. They just needed to stay, caught in worldess embraces, as long as they still could.
All night, Carlos struggled to keep his hair entwined with his fingers. Not that Cecil was ever any good at watching his mouth; but he had never looked so vulnerable before, with a body and a soul that shook like chipped glass.
And the time had come again, in the morning, for Cecil to walk through the door. Carlos hadn't missed a single step of his, in spite of his grateful smile — all he could see was a wonderful creature, trapped in a shell that just wasn't enough.
He feels worry build up in his veins to this very hour, whatever hour it might be. The echo of his blood, pounding in his ears as Cecil left, survives like white noise in the mysterious chanting of the desert.
He was too defenceless to let him go that way. But their roles in this war have made them walk different paths — they just had to follow, each to his own battlefield.
The dark cliffs hanging from the mountain beckon him, filling his weary limbs with a strange fascination. There is much, probably, he can do with this land. He detects resources and magnetic fields, and renewed springs of energy — if not in the way he expects, Carlos has good hopes they can find supplies and weapons here. In the end, despite the difficult entrance, this side of the world seems to be safe.
There is a man named John Peters, whom Carlos knows is the farmer. There is a blinking light upon the mountain, probably in the same place where a young lady is looking for a way out. There is a whole army of small, courageous souls, prepared to shout louder than anyone else.
To bring them all together, there is the wonderful strength hidden in the human language; it is the very same force that ties the elements and unleashes the power of matter, the force that gives a chance to move, to awaken, to change the dreams of men.
There is Cecil out there, and Carlos cannot get rid of the very same feeling he had on his first day in town — the terrible idea that, when he falls, all of Night Vale will go down with him.
Just a few steps away, there is the world they are fighting together to protect. The light of the desert turns red and blue and every hue in the spectrum, ready to salute the dawn of whatever lies beyond that door.
Simply, eternally, Carlos knows he is in love.
Carlos is in love with all that he is and isn't; he is in love with the world that wraps them both, in whatever time and space, beyond every door. Cecil is the warmth in the palm of his hand, and the distant universe no measure could ever define. He loves the delicate flesh of his body, and yearns to preserve his frail bones just as much as the eternity of his soul.
Carlos has more than one truth to protect. Whatever the price, both ways, he is coming back.
As he reaches for the doorstep, Carlos realizes his watch is not giving out any sound. Immediately, with care, his steps get shorter and faster.
He thinks back to his gift and its small package, so quickly dropped in Cecil's eager hands. They both had a burning face when Carlos had muttered, staring at his feet, that time in Night Vale did not make any sense anyway.
But Cecil had only laughed, yes, with that laugh of his — it was brighter than this sky, able to melt the very fibers of his being.
Carlos had not cared when he had answered with the cheesiest line ever heard in his much scientific life. He had found his result anyway, and the most accurate one he could ask for — definitely, time did not matter that much. In the end, especially when Cecil kissed him, he couldn't care less.
He reaches for the handle. More than any other day, he is eager to get to the end. He wants a quiet victory, a slow return to the time that is just their own.
With a small click, the door opens on a void.