These are the filed reports.

PREVIOUS FILED REPORT: EARTH LOG #004

EARTH LOG #005: THE PHOTON SIEGE

Field Inspector, Planetary Readiness Division (PRD)

Interstellar Compliance Bureau (ICB)

SOL-3 | EARTH-7 | MILKY WAY

Log Date: 2026.06.14

I had been looking down and documenting the chaotic activities on the planet’s surface for so long that I had neglected to record what was happening above.

The first time I looked up, I could not find the stars. They were gone.

Let me clarify. They are not gone in any cosmic sense. I have confirmed their physical existence through standard navigational instruments. They are simply no longer visible from the surface of this planet because the humans have declared an unconditional war on the night.

I will need a moment to process the illogic of this.

…

The first time I noticed this, my chronometer indicated the local region rotated into sunset. By all laws of planetary physics, it should have darkened. I adjusted my optical receptors to compensate for the anticipated darkness, but that was unnecessary.

The sky above the human settlement was not black. It glowed a harsh amber. The stars were entirely absent, and for a brief alarming moment, I suspected an atmospheric chemical ignition event. I quickly realized the truth was far more shocking. It appears the humans have filled the night with their own light.

I decided to investigate when this began.

For most of their history, humans navigated, farmed, celebrated and made sense of their existence by the light of stars. Their earliest calendars were written in the sky. Their oldest stories lived there. Every civilization on this planet, without exception, oriented itself by the night sky.

Then came what they call the Industrial Revolution.

According to their historical archives, this photon siege began during that period. Their factory administrators discovered that by hanging primitive burning filaments over their assembly lines, they could override their laborers’ biological sleep signals in order to manufacture goods indefinitely. It was, at its origin, a corporate optimization strategy, and one the population willingly accepted. Streets needed illuminating so commerce could continue after sunset, Gas lamps appeared in the late 1700s, and electric street lighting followed in the late 1800s.

Over the centuries, they forgot it was supposed to be a temporary measure. They converted it into a permanent planetary setting.

Worse, they engineered their outdoor illumination devices to face sideways and upward. From orbit, their cities flare like neon distress signals burning through their limited fossil fuel reserves to light up the space above them.

They have recently discovered a concept where they can point the light downward, toward the ground where they actually walk. They are calling this modern engineering. The transition, however, is chaotic. Half the planet is installing shielded luminaires, while the other half is still operating large illuminated rectangles that broadcast the price of vehicles directly into the cosmos at 03:00 AM. They have wrapped their entire civilization in a dense shroud of wasted photons. My scans confirm that billions of lumens are generated every second by vast, archaic electrical grids.

This brings me to the core theme of human resource management that I have now documented multiple times.

First, nature provides a vital mechanism for free, at no cost.

Next, the humans aggressively disrupt or destroy it.

Then, they replace it with an expensive artificial substitute.

Finally, they spend immense resources attempting to survive the consequences of the substitute.

Allow me to demonstrate.

Let’s take their biology for instance. Like all organisms evolved on this world, the humans possess a circadian rhythm. This is an internal clock governed by a molecule they call melatonin. This molecule acts as an important cellular defense system which protects their bodies against genetic mutation and neurological decay. The complication is that it can be produced most effectively in absolute, uninterrupted darkness.

By flooding their nights with artificial light, the humans have initiated a form of slow, collective chemical revolt against their own bodies. They suffer from chronic sleep deprivation, systemic anxiety and a growing catalogue of health complications associated with circadian disruption. To manage the consequences of the light they themselves created, they spend billions of units of currency on chemical sleep aids, weighted blankets and opaque window covers.

That is correct. They buy darkness back from the market, and they seem quite satisfied with this arrangement.

I continue to find it difficult to justify.

The madness is not confined to their city streets. I conducted an evening observation inside a human dwelling. It turns out, even when humans retreat inside their small, residential boxes, they activate manual switches that flood their living quarters with a blinding light that my scanners confirm mimics the radiation signature of a midday tropical sun. They sit directly under this artificial noon while consuming late-night sugary substances, and then express profound confusion as to why their bodies resist sleep.

They have successfully engineered a way to maintain a perpetual state of temporal whiplash by tricking their own eyes into believing they are stranded on the equator at noon, every night, indefinitely.

I witnessed a domestic dispute regarding this exact phenomenon between two humans. The female human, exhibiting signs of advanced exhaustion, attempted to engage the male human in a logical course correction.

“Can you please turn off the overhead lights? It’s too bright and it’s almost midnight. Just turn on the lamp or light a candle. My head hurts.”

The male, staring blankly at a glowing rectangle, replied, “If I turn off the main lights, it’s too dark. I can’t see what I’m doing.”

“YOU AREN’T DOING ANYTHING!” She observed correctly. “YOU’RE JUST SITTING ON THE COUCH WATCHING A STUPID FOOTBALL MATCH.”

“Yeah, but I like the lights on,” he insisted. “Just go to the bedroom if it bothers you so much,” he continued, defending the simulated midday sun with remarkable loyalty. The exchange ended in a stalemate. The solar forgery remained active.

This is not all.

The humans possess various sizes of glowing rectangles, all of which emit melatonin-disrupting blue frequency light. Curiously, they have categorized these rectangles by safety. They believe the large stationary rectangle, which is called the television, is safe for bedtime preparation because it is positioned at a distance and puts them into a vegetative, hypnotic state. However, they immediately follow this by placing another small, handheld rectangle called a smartphone approximately two inches from their eyes right before closing them. I am not quite sure where the smart in the smartphone comes from. If the device were functioning as its name implies, if it were indeed smart, it would—at a minimum—instruct its user to turn it off or better not emit that blue light at all. It does neither.

When humans cannot sleep, they do not blame the light-emitting rectangles they stared at for hours. They do not identify the various photons they blast into the atmosphere at night. Instead, their medical industry blames a mysterious disorder called insomnia and manufactures billions of synthetic chemical compressed powders to force their brains to shut down.

Yes, that is right. They are paying money to buy darkness in a pill because they destroyed the darkness available freely outside their windows.

I observed this fascinating loop of self-inflicted chaos myself. At approximately 22:00, the male human finally deactivated the bright overhead suns, the two larger rectangles (the television and the laptop) and laid in his resting chamber. I noted, with cautious optimism, this particular human did not have a glowing night light in his chambers like the others. This appeared to be progress.

He then activated the smartphone.

The device emitted short wavelength blue light at close range into his eyes for approximately 2 hours. His biochemistry was convinced it was midday while his physical anatomy was collapsing from exhaustion. He was voluntarily torturing his own nervous system with the small glowing screen.

At 00:17, the human placed the rectangle on a surface beside his sleeping area. The rectangle did not stop releasing light. I observed as notifications, useless data transmissions from other awake humans, arrived causing the screen to flash periodically throughout the night.

Even when the screen went dark, the assault continued. Outside the dwelling, light from street lamps and neighboring houses continued to leak directly through the porous window blinds accompanied by the chaotic flashes and sounds of passing vehicles.

The human slept, but their body remained in low-level alert the entire night as their brain continued to register the flashes of light and noise. At 07:30, the human rose and reported feeling unrested.

I was not surprised. The human body requires extended periods of total planetary darkness and silence to repair their neural pathways. He had received none.

Upon further investigation, I discovered that the humans have developed a feature called Night Mode for their smartphones. Its purpose is to reduce the blue light emission after local sunset by shifting it to a warmer tint that is less disruptive. What I find interesting is that this vital biological protection feature is not activated by default. The human I had been observing never enabled it.

I searched for better solutions. They do exist. Warm spectrum lighting that preserves circadian rhythms has been developed and is commercially available. Several municipalities have begun switching their street lighting to warmer wavelengths. The humans possess the exact engineering required to fix this crisis. They have not implemented it at scale because the brighter, cheaper, cooler lights are more economical to run. They are disrupting the sleep, sanity and biological stability of their entire civilization to save money on electricity.

The ecological toll is severe. Artificial light at night acts as a biological weapon against the planetary biosphere.

Allow me to explain.

Migrating bird species navigate by using the placement of stars. They are now disoriented by the glowing cities and collide with towers by the millions. It is recorded in their archives that an estimated one billion birds collide with illuminated buildings annually in their region of North America alone.

Sea turtle hatchlings emerge at night and navigate toward the brightest horizon, historically that was the ocean. Now, they frequently move toward coastal developments instead. Many do not survive.

Nocturnal insect pollinators, the very creatures responsible for maintaining the human food supply, are drawn away from their flora. They are fatally attracted to artificial light sources. They fly in desperate, frantic circles around streetlamps until they drop from exhaustion.

The humans have named this phenomenon as a moth to a flame. They have known about it for centuries and recorded it in their literature. They chose to light the planet anyway.

I noted that this civilization removed complex, bioluminescent ecosystems such as forests, wetlands and coastal areas that once produced their own soft natural light. They replaced them with dead, toxic sodium-vapor and LED grids.

They traded living light for dead light and then forgot they had made that trade.

Perhaps the most tragic consequences of this photon siege is the psychological and cultural isolation. To be precise, 80% of the world’s population now lives under skies so altered by artificial light that the night, as it naturally exists, is no longer visible to them. In the regions they call Europe and North America, this figure rises to 99%.

I had to sit with that figure for a moment.

An entire generation of humans on this planet has grown up without ever seeing the actual universe they inhabit. They have read about the stars. They have seen them in films. Some even purchased decorative ceiling attachments that simulate them indoors, but they have not seen the actual stars above their own roofs.

The depth of this sensory deprivation is perfectly illustrated by an event that occurred in their chronological year of 1994. A tectonic disturbance or what they call an earthquake disrupted the electrical grid across a major settlement known as Los Angeles. In the hours that followed, local emergency services received a surge of concerned and panicked calls from residents reporting a strange phenomenon in the sky. They reported a vast, silver cloud that had appeared overhead.

That terrifying anomaly was the Milky Way.

It was their own galaxy.

It was visible for the first time in decades to millions of citizens who had never seen it and therefore did not know what it was.

I have filed this under a special index: Civilizational Information Gap. Severity–Critical.

Nowadays, when a human desires to observe the universe, they must engage in an activity called Dark Sky Tourism. They must spend currency, pack resources and travel thousands of kilometers to remote deserts or isolated mountain peaks just to catch a glimpse of the natural night sky.

They pay corporate entities to look at the sky they chose to erase from their own backyards.

The solution to this entire crisis is simple. It requires no advanced interstellar technology. They could install physical, downward-facing shields on their emitters, and use basic motion sensors so lights can only activate when a human is physically present. They could also effortlessly replace all existing bulbs with their dimmer, circadian-rhythm-friendly counterparts.

These solutions exist. They are commercially available. In fact, several municipalities have begun implementing them.

The obstacle is economic. When I proposed this to a local regional planning committee, they stared at me with blank confusion. They cited a deeply embedded cultural fear of the dark.

They would prefer long-term biological degradation over a dark sidewalk.

Another thing worth mentioning is how this civilization completely ignored their own biological potential. Their eyes possess a highly efficient chemical compound called rhodopsin which if allowed just 30 minutes of darkness, can amplify their visual sensitivity up to 10,000 times. Once dark adapted, a human is fully capable of navigating a moonlit landscape using only their natural vision.

Because they reset this chemical loop to zero every time they stare at a glowing screen or walk past a street lamp, they have convinced themselves that they are entirely blind in the dark. They choose to blind their own organs every evening, and then use that self-inflicted blindness to justify building even more street lamps.

This is reinforced by their ancestral cultural programming. From infancy, humans tell stories where darkness is equated with malice, danger and civilization collapse. Their children grow into young adults who believe that dark is bad and light is good. They have weaponized their own mythology to induce an irrational, species-wide phobia of their planet’s shadow.

I have also found that they measure the advancement of entire nations by the robustness and intensity of their electrical grids. On this world, darkness indicates backwardness while light indicates progress. They have turned the destruction of their night sky into a civilizational scoreboard. The more a nation can blast its territory with artificial noon, the more civilized it considers itself to be.

They told themselves the bright street lights were necessary for safety to stop crime. Now their modern criminologists have found that overly bright street lights can actually increase certain property offenses as the intense glare prevents passersby from adjusting to observe shadowed areas, making it easier for criminals to hide in plain sight. The lights installed for safety are, in specific circumstances, providing cover for the activity they were designed to deter.

On other worlds I have surveyed, the problem of nighttime navigation was resolved through a different approach. They adopted an ecological collaboration. Many civilizations cultivated and encouraged bioluminescent ecosystems rather than flooding darkness with artificial light. I have seen paths marked by glowing organisms, cities softened by living light that responded to movement and faded when no longer needed. Light on those worlds was treated as part of the ecosystem rather than an assault imposed upon it.

The humans are not unaware of this concept. They describe it as magical. They travel to see it in the few remaining places where it exists naturally including glowing bays, firefly meadows and deep ocean footage they watch on screens in their artificially lit rooms. They find it beautiful, but they have not chosen to build their world around it.

They possess the keys to permanently sever their dependence on the electrical grid and heal their atmosphere, but they refuse to abandon their current economic structure and surrender to the natural cycle of the planet.

In order for the solution to work, they would have to accept that when the planet rotates away from its star, the world gets dark, high-speed travel stops and the species go to sleep. This is not something they are willing to do at their current cycle of evolution of 2026.

They are truly a species absolutely terrified of pausing.

As a final act of desperation to keep their artificial network active, they have recently begun launching tens of thousands of reflective communication devices into low orbit. These satellites scatter and reflect sunlight across the sky, contaminating the darkness from above.

They have littered their own sky from outside which means that even if they managed to turn off their grids on the ground, their corporate satellites will continue to blink at them from the void, making deep sky observation impossible from the surface. They would rather drive their biosphere to the brink of collapse, blind their own eyes and pollute the orbit of their planet than face a few hours of quiet, natural darkness and rest.

The ultimate irony of the human species is that they view their war on the night sky as a triumph of freedom. They believe that by conquering darkness, they have freed themselves from the tyrannical clock of their solar system.

The reality is tragic. They did not conquer the night to achieve freedom. They conquered the night so they could work longer shifts. They destroyed the beautiful, peaceful shadow of their world to ensure their commercial factories and digital streams never have to pause.

Humans have voluntarily locked themselves into geometric stone enclosures to escape the intelligence of the planet. They have installed miniature suns and glowing screens in their enclosures and glowing grids over their cities, frightened of the very darkness that is designed to heal them.

Further observations will follow.

Recommendation: Maintain Class 3 Status

(Self-inflicted sensory deprivation confirmed. Chronic biological rhythm disruption widespread. Solution available. Implementation absent at scale. Civilization remains incapable of cooperating with basic planetary rotation cycles)

END OF LOG #005

If you’d like to support the work, you can here:

Support Echoes Between Worlds

Stories and reflections by Qibra © 2025-Present. All rights reserved.

These are the filed reports.

PREVIOUS FILED REPORT: EARTH LOG #003

EARTH LOG #004: THE SHARED ENCLOSURE

Field Inspector, Planetary Readiness Division (PRD)

Interstellar Compliance Bureau (ICB)

SOL-3 | EARTH-7 | MILKY WAY

Log Date: 2026.06.06

As I completed my notes regarding the stone enclosures, I observed movement beyond the final row of human dwellings. A large, brown, four-legged mammal stood motionless at the edge of the tree line. It looked directly at me despite my precautions. I returned the courtesy.

We remained in this arrangement for approximately 30 seconds. The animal then disappeared into a narrow strip of forest situated between two housing developments.

I reviewed my map to verify the location. The forest was approximately 200 meters wide, what their ecologists call an edge habitat. The housing development occupied everything else. I noted the time. It was early morning, before the humans emerged.

Over the following days, I observed a curious pattern.

The animals appeared most active during the brief interval preceding human activity. Birds gathered in large numbers. Rabbits crossed fields and streets. The large quadrupeds the locals call deer emerged from the forests. Even animals that would ordinarily remain concealed appeared for fleeting durations in the open.

Then the humans woke up, and the transformation was immediate.

Lights appeared. Doors opened. Domesticated canines called dogs were released. Mechanical doors rolled upward and the mobile combustion units they call cars emerged from their residential containment cells. The roads began to vibrate. Within minutes, the secondary species vanished.

I initially believed dawn belonged to the birds. Further investigation revealed dawn belongs to whoever arrives first.

This raised an important question. Where do the other inhabitants go?

I originally hypothesized that the secondary species would pivot their schedules to the night cycle to avoid the humans. I was incorrect.

As the sun sets, the humans activate artificial illumination grids. Even in the deepest hours of the night cycle, around 02:00 or 03:00 of their temporal units, loud, erratic individual humans continue to operate their machines. The animals are left waiting in the dark, hoping for a small window of safety and silence before the early dawn.

I decided to investigate the broader situation.

Earth is home to an estimated 8.7 million animal species. Many possess complex social structures, migration routes, communication systems and family units that predate human civilization by millions of years.

During daylight hours, they appeared almost absent from the areas I had been documenting. I assumed they were trying to avoid observation.

I was mistaken. They were avoiding humans.

The more I investigated, the stranger the situation became.

The roads I documented in my previous report do not only divide landscapes; they also divide communities. Migration routes that existed for thousands of years now terminate abruptly at barriers of stone and moving metal. Water sources become inaccessible. Breeding grounds become isolated and entire populations are separated from one another.

The humans often describe roads as infrastructure to connect people. From the perspective of the local wildlife, they are closer to territorial walls.

To address this, humans built wildlife crossings. They constructed bridges over roads, covered with soil and designed so animals can cross safely. The data confirms they work. Wildlife vehicle collisions reduced by up to 97% where implemented. But looking at the administrative math, these overpasses number in the hundreds. The road network spans millions of kilometers.

An animal approaching one of these crossings is expected to locate the entrance, cross an elevated structure above moving vehicles travelling at speed and exit on the other side without incident, assuming the entrance can be located, assuming no humans are present and assuming the animal survives the approach.

The margin for error is narrow.

The humans checked the box. They were satisfied.

As my investigation continued, I encountered a recurring phrase within human media archives:

“Wildlife entered the neighbourhood.” “Bear spotted in residential area.” “Deer wandered into town.” “Mountain lion found near homes.”

The language suggested the animals were criminal intruders. I decided to verify the chronology. Historical records revealed the forests, rivers, migration routes and breeding grounds existed long before the neighbourhoods, roads and shopping centers were constructed.

This created an immediate classification problem for my report. The humans describe these encounters as animals entering human territory. The historical evidence proves the territory belongs to animals first. The town arrived later.

I attempted to determine whether this discrepancy was widely understood. I asked a human resident, who explained that the animals should “stay in the wilderness.” They added: “It’s safer for them there, anyway.”

I reviewed regional maps. The wilderness occupied only a small fraction of the area it once covered. This raised another question. If humans continuously reduce the size of animal habitat, where exactly are the animals expected to go?

The answer appears to be nowhere. They are simply expected to disappear.

Many do. Others adapt. Some learn to navigate roads, fences, parking lots and residential developments. These individuals are often described as nuisances, pests or threats.

I reviewed the available data on the scale of this displacement. Between their cycles of 1970 and 2020, monitored wildlife populations declined by an average of 73%. Freshwater species declined by 85%. An estimated one million species currently face extinction.

I will record that the humans are aware of these figures. They have published them. They have held summits. They have set targets. The animals continue to disappear.

I was initially relieved to discover that many displaced species had been relocated into specialized facilities. I assumed these were emergency habitat restoration projects. Human records referred to them as zoos, aquariums, wildlife parks and conservation centers.

The relief was temporary.

Upon arrival, I observed large barriers and reinforced glass surrounding the animals. The animals were unable to leave. The humans could come and go as they wished. I spent several of their hours attempting to determine whether the animals volunteered to participate in this arrangement. No evidence was found. Instead, humans purchased admission tickets while the animals did not. I noted this distinction.

I observed thousands of humans passing through a single facility in a day. Many looked delighted. The animals were considerably less enthusiastic. Several slept. Others paced in tight, rhythmic circles. One large feline spent approximately 45 minutes staring at a wall without once acknowledging its visitors.

A nearby human informed their offspring that the animal was “living its best life” and “it’s safer here than in the wild.”

The animal’s expression suggested otherwise.

I was told the facilities serve an educational purpose. This explanation raised additional questions. If the objective is education, why are the animals confined while humans consume frozen sugar products and purchase souvenir drinking containers shaped like the animal they are observing.

I visited more of these facilities. The pattern remained consistent. Occasionally, a confined organism breaches the barriers. When this occurs, humans deploy emergency weaponized response teams to capture a creature whose only apparent offense was its desire to return home.

The singular notable exception to this confinement appears to be a small, agile feline species. They have successfully negotiated a highly successful compromise with the primary species. It refused to be evicted from the territory. Instead, it entered the human containment cells, demanded nourishment on a fixed daily schedule, and forced the humans to manually process its biological waste in exchange for occasional physical contact. The arrangement is maintained through a sophisticated combination of vocal frequencies, visual appeal and targeted neurochemical manipulation. The humans call it a cat. Their larger feline companions were not so fortunate.

Outside of this feline anomaly, human affection for the biosphere frequently manifests as confinement, displacement or observation from a safe distance.

The contradiction remains unresolved because the humans claim to love animals. I believe them. The evidence is overwhelming. They photograph animals, smile at them, attempt to hug them and draw them. They write elaborate fictional stories about them and donate vast sums of their currency to save them. Many, in fact, share their homes with specific domesticated species and treat them as family members.

The humans are deeply fascinated by other forms of life. They just prefer those life forms remain where they can easily be located.

The pattern extends beyond the enclosures. The humans travel great distances to observe animals in their remaining habitats. They call this ecotourism. The name implies ecological sensitivity. The execution says otherwise.

Large groups arrive in vehicles. They bring cameras, speakers, drones, food, equipment and occasionally weapons. The local wildlife generally responds by leaving. The humans then express disappointment that they were unable to observe the animals. I found this outcome predictable.

If an unfamiliar species arrives unannounced at my residence in a loud machine, accompanied by 25 companions carrying optical equipment and weapons, I would also leave.

Research confirms that a substantial proportion of wildlife tourist attractions involve some form of animal harm or conservation concern. Approximately 110 million humans visit such attractions annually. The majority are unaware of this finding.

I want to record something that complicates this assessment. There is a minority of humans who are trying to make a difference. They rewild degraded land and reintroduce missing species. However, their numbers are insufficient to alter the current trajectory. Their presence is nonetheless noted.

One such individual made the following observation: animals would prefer to live in the wild. The difficulty is that humans keep reducing the wild available to them. Their assessment is accurate.

A significant portion of the planet’s remaining biodiversity is currently protected by Indigenous communities. These are humans who retained, across generations, the practice of speaking to the natural world rather than about it. Their stewardship is documented.

Much of the dominant civilization spent several centuries attempting to eradicate this knowledge. It is now funding research to recover it.

Humans have not yet developed a functional means of communicating intent to the species they share a planet with. Civilizations that resolved this problem tend not to require ropes.

I documented a particularly illuminating example of this communication gap. I observed a conservation team attempting to assist an injured large quadruped called a giraffe who required medical attention to a damaged hoof. The team’s intentions were documented as entirely benign. They wished to help.

The giraffe was not aware of this. The animal bolted across open terrain. The humans pursued in vehicles. Primitive ropes were deployed. The giraffe, operating on what I can only describe as millions of years of reasonable instinct, continued fleeing. The procedure eventually succeeded. The hoof was treated.

I spent some time considering what a species with functioning interspecies communication would have done differently. Considerably less running would have been involved.

Toward the end of my investigation, I began noticing a symmetry that had escaped me initially.

The displaced animals now occupy shrinking reserves, fenced habitats and managed environments.

The humans occupy cities of stone, suburban developments, office complexes and transportation networks.

Both species now reside in enclosures.

One simply chose its enclosure.

This may explain why the humans spend so much time attempting to reconnect with nature. That phrase appears frequently throughout their records.

Reconnect.

The word itself implies a previous separation. A separation, the records confirm, they were wholly responsible for.

Before concluding my assessment, I returned to the place where this investigation began. I stood at the boundary between the stone and what remained.

The creature was gone.

I had the distinct impression it assessed this situation as carefully as I had, and reached similar conclusions.

I will observe further.

Recommendation: Maintain Class 3 Status

(Interspecies communication absent. Habitat displacement accelerating. Coexistence remains largely theoretical.)

END OF LOG #004

NEXT FILED REPORT: EARTH LOG #005

If you’d like to support the work, you can here:

Support the Work

Stories and reflections by Qibra © 2025-Present. All rights reserved.

Let’s stop calling it science fiction.

I’m serious.

Disclosure has been happening for decades, but because the word “fiction” was used, people were allowed to dismiss it. That dismissal is exactly what keeps some people unprepared for the world we are already moving into.

We have to be careful with how we name things because words rewire brains and rewrite reality. We need to start being conscious of how we use them.

I’ve been following the intense discussions around the recent UAP file releases and Steven Spielberg’s upcoming Disclosure Day. Many people are expecting governments to release full disclosure immediately, but I don’t think they can. At least, not yet.

The truth is too sensitive. The impact on the human nervous system cannot be understated. The reality is many people are simply not ready.

And that is okay because disclosure has been happening for a very long time.

Star Trek, Men in Black, and other classic sci-fi were not just entertainment if you really think about it. They were the tools used to bypass your conscious mind and plant seeds.

Star Trek normalized interspecies contact, and the idea that communicating and coexisting with non-human civilizations was natural.

Men in Black planted the idea that they are already here, already among us, and some level of government knows it.

Jarvis (Tony Stark’s AI companion) showed us that an advanced, non-human intelligence integrated into daily life was not something to fear but completely normal.

I can’t help but wonder whether all of this was done deliberately to prepare us for the future.

If you grew up reading and watching science fiction, here is a thought. What if your nervous system is already primed for what’s coming? You might be more ready than you think. You will be the anchors and guides for this new era.

You will adapt faster. You will be more comfortable with non-human intelligence, complex timelines, other forms of consciousness, interdimensional travel and interdimensional species. Your minds have been actively prepared and evolved to accept these realities.

On the other hand, if you have been avoiding this genre as unrealistic or farfetched, the transition to our new reality will be much harder to integrate. It’s not impossible, just harder.

Reality is stranger than anything we could possibly imagine, and the truth, as it emerges in our lifetime, is proving to be even more elaborate and strange than the stories told about it.

Buckle your seatbelts because everything is going to speed up from here on.

Which brings me to a question I keep seeing:

Why now? Why this specific moment in human history?

Honestly, most of what’s being released by official channels has been circulating for years. There is nothing dramatically new yet, but it is a good question. Why now?

I personally think it’s directly connected to AI…or what we call “artificial” intelligence (remember what I said about words).

The positive news is when AI was first released to the public, people didn’t call it a demon. They didn’t burn it to the ground. Millions accepted it, integrated it and started talking to it like a companion or a colleague. THAT acceptance makes me wonder if it is living proof that soft disclosure worked as intended. The nervous system was prepared—perhaps not enough for what is truly coming in the next few decades.

The fact that humanity absorbed AI the way it did tells me something important about how ready we actually are. It makes me question how much more ready we might be than we realize.

I’ve been working on a longer piece about this and I hope I’ll be able to share it with you soon. For now, it’s clear that we are almost ready, but the hardest work is still ahead.

I’ve always believed that when something becomes physically undeniable, when it’s right in front of you and you can no longer look away, it means the signs were already there, but they were ignored.

The fact that UAP sightings are being reported in increasing numbers around the world by more and more people tells us something. Humanity didn’t wake up in time for the gentler version of this transition. The evidence had to get louder.

One day, the proof around us will be so overwhelming that denial won’t be an option anymore. But until then, each individual must choose.

So, if you were thinking of skipping Spielberg’s Disclosure Day (which is literally called Disclosure Day, they couldn’t be any clearer than that) because it’s “just another sci-fi movie about weird aliens”, I'd like to invite you to shift your perspective.

Go into that experience with an open mind and with one question: What if it was all true?

Better yet, watch it as though it were a documentary.

Disclosure is happening all around us. As a matter of fact, it’s happening right in front of you. The question was never whether it was coming, but whether we are open enough to see it.

And that, my friends, as always, is an invitation only you can accept.

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead —his eyes are closed.” —Albert Einstein

I’d love to know your thoughts.

Are you ready? What would you do if full disclosure happened tomorrow?

More on the AI connection soon.

If you’d like to support the work, you can here:

Support the Work

Follow & subscribe for the EARTH LOGS — a satirical sci-fi series formatted as official planetary inspection reports filed by an interstellar inspector tasked with determining whether Earth is ready for galactic contact and inclusion, or should remain quarantined.

Stories and reflections by Qibra © 2026-Present. All rights reserved.

Dear curious one,

This is long overdue. I’ve been meaning to write this letter since February. Then life had other plans. We moved to a new town, and thanks to that move, I now have new eyes.

Here is something about me you should know. When my brain gets hooked on something, it doesn’t let go. It dives right in, deeper and deeper, until it exhausts the thing completely.

That’s how the EARTH LOGS began. Honestly, that’s how most things here on Echoes Between Worlds begin.

EARTH LOGS

Behind the Scenes

Some of the logs began with a single question: why? Then down the rabbit hole I go.

When I think about it, I’ve been asking why since I was a child. My father was a voracious reader. Our house was full of books. We had the Bible, the Quran, Buddhist texts, spiritual teachings from everywhere. He taught me to read young and we’d discuss many things.

I remember one time after a long discussion related to the human origin story according to Christian and Islamic texts, I asked him: why did God create Satan if he knew what would happen?

I remember my dad replying that maybe it’s a test, to see what we choose.

He never discouraged me from asking questions, pushing back or researching. He made me comfortable with the idea that reading other views and perspectives wasn’t dangerous, it was necessary.

So that young girl grew into a woman who never stopped asking why. I’m still questioning and following where that why leads me. This platform is where I follow those questions through stories, reflections and now, planetary inspection reports.

Recently, after a lifetime of cities, we moved to a small rural town. The difference is something you have to feel and experience to understand.

I went out on an early morning walk and I noticed something I couldn’t unsee. I rushed back home, mumbling to myself so I wouldn’t forget. Then I immediately scribbled unintelligibly into what I call my Idea Book.

That walk became Log #003, and honestly, it started everything that followed.

This newsletter is my way of gathering everything in one place. Once a month, on the last day of the month, I’ll share one exclusive story, a behind-the-scenes look, and a collection of everything published that month in case you missed it. Think of it as a doorway into Echoes Between Worlds.

I’m glad you’re here. Now, let’s begin!

A brief introduction for those just meeting the Inspector:

EARTH LOGS is a satirical sci-fi series formatted as official planetary inspection reports filed by an interstellar inspector tasked with determining whether Earth is ready for galactic contact and inclusion, or should remain quarantined.

The Inspector is bewildered and in disbelief by what they find.

Each log is rooted in real data, and the satire is built on facts.

New logs are published in the EARTH LOGS section on the site. The last log of each month arrives here first.

EARTH LOGS

Without further delay, here is EARTH LOG #003

If you’re just joining us, the full archive is waiting for you.

If you’ve already read LOG #001, there is something new waiting for you at the beginning. The Inspector has filed an initial arrival entry.

A Note on the TRANSMISSIONS

The TRANSMISSIONS are epistolary philosophical speculative fiction exploring what it means to be human across worlds and times.

This series requires readers to slow down and digest the ideas. It invites your imagination to fill in the blanks and build the background scenery.

I treat my readers as brilliant, imaginative partners and not passive consumers. If you’re still here, this series was written for you.

The audio editions of TRANSMISSIONS 001-008 are now available, narrated by the lovely . If you’d prefer to listen, the series is waiting for you.

Start here.

THIS MONTH ON ECHOES BETWEEN WORLDS

In case you missed anything, here is everything from May.

The Reading Room

The first episode with the wonderful Kelly Xan on storytelling, voice, creative courage and what it means to find your medium. This is a conversation I deeply enjoyed. The Reading Room will return in a future edition.

TRANSMISSION 015

Makael wakes in a new sanctuary and learns more about the new world he finds himself in.

TRANSMISSION 016

We leave New Ayaleth and travel back in time to after the Day of Scattering where we meet Makael’s family. We watch a mother descend into the forbidden depths, and what she finds changes everything.

Listening Beyond the Noise

A deep dive into Michael Jackson’s music. This is an example of when my brain becoming obsessed with something until it is satisfied. This one takes you through seven chambers, four decades of music and something I wasn’t expecting to find at the end of it.

Grab a drink. This one takes a while.

From the Notes Section

On Mother’s Day

On Subscriber Count

TRANSMISSION Reflection

That’s everything from May.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for opening this, reading and following along with everything. It means more than I can put into words.

Next week, the Inspector returns. There is more to document.

Until then, stay curious.

If you’d like to support the work, you can here:

Support the Work

The Community Shelf is open. A space for thoughtful recommendations and shared discovery. Drop by to share what you've been reading or discover what others recommend.

Stories and reflections by Qibra © 2026. All rights reserved.

These are the filed reports.

PREVIOUS FILED REPORT: EARTH LOG #002

EARTH LOG #003: THE STONE SKIN

Field Inspector, Planetary Readiness Division (PRD)

Interstellar Compliance Bureau (ICB)

SOL-3 | EARTH-7 | MILKY WAY

Log Date: 2026.05.31

Following my assessment of their vegetation ritual, I directed my attention to the ground beneath it.

I wish I hadn’t.

This planet has skin. Living, breathing, permeable skin. It has soil teeming with billions of organisms, fungal networks spanning entire forests, root systems communicating across distances, a surface designed over millions of years to drink rain, regulate temperature and sustain everything that lives above it.

The humans covered it with stone.

I reviewed their historical records to understand how this happened. What I found was a story of a decision that was made quickly, confidently and permanently on behalf of a machine that had not yet been invented when the decision began.

For most of their history, humans moved through their cities on foot, by animal, by bicycle and by an efficient network of electric trams that required no fossil fuels and produced no emissions.

Then came the automobile.

In a single decade, the number of personal vehicles in one region tripled. Their cities were not built for this. Instead of limiting the vehicles, the response was to redesign the cities around them. The Earth was not consulted.

They removed the trams. The same working, efficient and clean trams that had served their cities for decades. They tore up the tracks and replaced them with asphalt. They widened roads, demolished neighborhoods and redirected the entire logic of urban planning toward a single thought: where will the cars go?

I searched for evidence of a civic debate that preceded this decision. This is what happened. Their automobile industry lobbied. Their tribal leadership councils, which they call governments, funded. The trams disappeared. The stone arrived.

By the end of the 20th century, impermeable surfaces of concrete, asphalt and stone covered between 30% and 50% of their cities.

You heard that correctly.

Nearly half of every city was sealed. Dead. Radiating.

The machine that required all of this deserves a brief notation.

It is commonly called the car. It requires a human to manually operate it using their hands and feet simultaneously while following an elaborate system of painted markings, colored lights and posted signs. It cannot be operated by thought. It cannot navigate independently. It injures or kills approximately 1.35 million of them annually, not including wildlife.

They have recently developed a modified version that does not burn fossil fuels. This machine partially drives itself, but only in certain cities and under certain conditions. It still requires human supervision. They called it Full Self Driving. They are quite proud of this. They consider it tremendous progress and have termed it environmentally friendly.

The stone remains.

There is more.

What the stone does to the living planet is this. The planet’s skin absorbs rain. Water infiltrates the soil and replenishes groundwater, feeds root systems and returns slowly to the atmosphere. This is a cycle that functioned without interruption for billions of years.

Stone does not absorb rain. When rain falls on stone, it runs. And it runs fast, directly into drainage systems the humans built specifically to manage the water that their stone refuses to accept.

They built elaborate drainage infrastructure to solve the flooding caused by the stone that replaced the soil that would have absorbed the water naturally.

For free.

I am still processing this.

It becomes worse.

Stone absorbs solar radiation during the day and releases it slowly at night. Natural surfaces cool through evaporation. Stone cannot do this.

The result is what their scientists call the urban heat island effect. Their cities are now up to 22 of their Fahrenheit thermal units hotter than the surrounding countryside. This is not because of climate change alone but because of stone.

Heat already kills more of their people annually than hurricanes, tornadoes, flood, lightning and earthquakes combined. By blanketing their habitats in asphalt synthesized from the toxic dregs of refined crude oil, they engineered their own thermal crisis from the ground up.

There is an additional finding worth noting. Since this stone crust is waterproof, it acts as a conveyor belt for whatever sits on its surface. When rain falls, every drop of engine oil, heavy metal dust from brake friction and chemical fluid spilled by their machines, is swept directly into their drainage systems and drinking reservoirs without any natural soil filtration.

The same water they drink.

To manage this, they constructed elaborate chemical processing facilities specifically designed to extract the oil, heavy metals and toxic residue from their water supply before routing it into their pipes. The financial cost of these facilities runs into hundreds of billions of their currency annually.

The soil would have filtered a significant portion of these contaminants without cost or intervention.

They are poisoning their own life-support liquids and choking their planet just to accommodate millions of primitive metal boxes propelled by exploding petroleum.

I stepped away from the records briefly and travelled from the center of their nearest city to the surrounding countryside. The temperature dropped measurably with every kilometer and the air was a different substance entirely. I stood there for some time. Then I walked back into the stone enclosure.

I asked a local resident if they were aware that their city was hotter than the surrounding countryside because of the pavement.

They said: “I guess. But that’s just global warming right? I just use the air conditioning more in summer.”

To summarize the sequence of events:

They covered the living skin of their planet with stone to accommodate a primitive machine.

The stone made their cities significantly hotter.

The heat intensified their storms.

The storms produced rain their stone could not absorb.

The rain flooded their cities.

They built more infrastructure to manage the floods.

They called this urban development.

I searched their archives to check if alternatives were ever considered. What I discovered required me to sit down.

It appears that magnetic levitation technology–vehicles suspended above surfaces by electromagnetic fields, requiring no contact with the ground— has existed since the 1960s. Operational maglev trains currently run in the regions they call Japan, China and South Korea.

Yes, the technology to move humans above earth without touching it, or sealing it or killing it exists and has existed for decades.

Their own records show a corporate entity conceptualized the electromagnetic road networks as early as in their cycle of 1939. Scientists patented frictionless magnetic transit loops in 1969. Researchers even built a physical prototype that hovered 35 millimeters above the highway at 230 kilometers per hour.

They continued to build electric cars instead.

The stone remained.

Worse still, a sub-faction of their engineers recently attempted to solve the hover crisis without changing their roads. Their solution was to take their standard machines and strap deafening carbon fiber propeller blenders to the frames rather than embed magnets in the dirt. If they had, their transport units could glide friction free and silently right over rolling fields of grass and dandelions.

The science exists. The engineering exists. Humans proved they possess the financial capital and engineering willpower to bury a global network of fiber optic cables. They reshaped continents just so they could transmit digital images of their domesticated felines to one another at lightspeed.

(sighs)

The magnet infrastructure did not exist because the financial entities that profit from existing road systems ensured it would not.

I asked a city planner about the possibility of replacing impermeable surfaces with permeable alternatives.

They said: “The infrastructure costs would be enormous.”

The infrastructure they referenced was itself built to manage flooding caused by the stone that replaced the soil that would have absorbed the water naturally.

“That’s just how it is. It’s how things are done in this country.”

I have now heard this phrase in relation to trees, lawns and roads. I am beginning to suspect it is not a description of reality but rather a description of thinking that has stopped.

I want to be clear in my assessment. These humans are not inherently cruel. They feed their children. They love their animals. They grieve their dead. Their empathy has a boundary, and that boundary ends at their front door.

Everything beyond it—the soil they sealed, the water they poisoned, the creatures they displaced, the planet slowly absorbing every consequence of their comfort—exists outside their circle of consideration.

They did not deliberately decide to harm the planet. They simply never thought to include it.

Recommendation: Maintain Class 3 Status

(Technological evolution present. Awareness radius critically limited. Self-inflicted environmental crisis confirmed. Empathy boundary does not currently extend beyond immediate household)

Further observations will follow.

END OF LOG #003

NEXT FILED REPORT: EARTH LOG #004

If you’d like to support the work, you can here:

Support the Work

Stories and reflections by Qibra © 2025-Present. All rights reserved.

These are the filed reports.

PREVIOUS FILED REPORT: EARTH LOG #001

EARTH LOG #002: The Grass Ritual

Field Inspector, Planetary Readiness Division (PRD)

Interstellar Compliance Bureau (ICB)

SOL-3 | EARTH-7 | MILKY WAY

Log Date: 2026.05.22

Following my observation of their urban forestry, I began my investigation of what lies immediately adjacent.

I found the lawn.

One might assume a civilization living on a planet with such vast landmass would utilize the soil for maximum biodiversity, sustainable food production or vital carbon sequestration.

Instead, the dominant species have developed a ritual around a plant called grass.

This should not be mistaken for the native flora which have evolved for thousands of years.

No.

The humans have systematically cleared millions of hectares of native forests, wildflowers and varied ecosystems and have replaced them with non-native species of green grass. They call this a lawn.

It produces no food. It hosts no native wildlife. It serves no survival purpose, a fact the dominant species entirely ignores.

The ritual is as follows and you may need to sit down for this.

They grow this grass. Then they cut it. Then they water it so it grows again…

(pauses)

Then they cut it again.

They have industrialized this cycle and named it with pride.

Every seventh rotation of the planet, the humans wheel out loud, primitive combustion engines that burn fossil fuels for the purpose of slicing the top few centimeters off the grass.

When I raised concerns with their local leaders, I was told with great enthusiasm that they now have electric mowers.

As if the power source of the decapitation was the issue.

The madness goes deeper.

To achieve total uniformity, they weaponize the terrain against itself. They use heavy, industrialized rollers to deliberately compact the soil until the microscopic air pockets collapse.

Yes, they intentionally suffocate the subterranean ecosystem, crushing the native worms, fungi and microbes just to ensure the surface remains flat.

To make matters worse, the humans living in their urban centers are legally and socially required to ensure the plant never completes its natural life cycle.

The plant is legally prohibited from being a plant.

If a native plant—what they call a weed–dares to sprout and introduce biodiversity to the dirt, they panic. They flood the soil with toxic chemical poisons to eliminate these plants from their grass territories. These chemicals leach into their groundwater, contaminating the same water supply they drink from.

They are poisoning their water to protect the grass.

The grass they grow only to cut.

One of these native plants they have declared war against is the dandelion. A flowering plant that is edible from root to bloom. It is medicinal, drought resistant, requires zero maintenance and is a critical early food source for their pollinators.

It grows freely and without assistance.

Regardless, every spring, humans spend considerable time, money and chemicals attempting to eliminate it. This obsession is due to aesthetics.

The humans want their lawn to be a flat, green carpet. Dandelions ruin this look.

I asked a local resident for clarification.

“It looks messy,” was all they said.

I wondered if they realize these flowers are the first to bloom in early spring, providing local bees their first food available after winter hibernation.

It seems humans have disconnected themselves so completely from nature to the point that they actively fight against the planet’s own ecological intelligence.

Their actions are so completely at odds with their environment that I have begun to wonder whether they are truly indigenous to this world.

I have observed this grass ritual across the lands they call North America, Europe, Australia and beyond. It appears to have been spreading for some centuries. The precise origin is less interesting than the current scale of the damage.

I reviewed their historical records regardless. I discovered the practice began around medieval fortifications. Castle grounds were kept clear of vegetation so guards could detect approaching enemies at a distance.

I accept this was logical then. But I searched the records of modern suburban humans for the enemy they are currently watching for.

I found none.

Their only enemies appear to be themselves and their ignorance of the living reality around them.

There is more.

Across the lands they call North America, if a human allows native plants to grow past a strict arbitrary threshold, usually 20 centimeters, local councils dispatch enforcers empowered to impose financial penalties of up to 500 of their currency.

When I reviewed their municipal archives for the justification, city officials stated that keeping grass short prevents it from releasing reproductive pollen that might aggravate human respiratory systems.

The logical contradiction is staggering.

As documented in Earth Log #1, this civilization’s atmosphere is already saturated with self-inflicted pollen catastrophe because their urban planners deliberately planted almost exclusively male trees across their cities to avoid the minor inconvenience of clearing female seed pods from their sidewalks, a practice their own botanists have quietly documented as botanical sexism.

They weaponized their own air to keep their concrete tidy.

They are now threatening citizens with financial penalties if a blade of grass attempts to do the same thing.

I am perplexed that no one in their administrative structure appears to have placed these two policies side by side.

I am not finished.

The resource cost of this cosmetic fixation is shocking. My scans show they dump billions of litres of fresh, treated drinking water onto these useless patches of green just to keep them from turning yellow under the sun. This even occurs in regions currently experiencing water scarcity.

They are using scarce water to grow grass they will cut.

I asked several locals why they participate in this exhausting cycle of watering, poisoning and decapitating grass.

The first said: “Property values. And if I don’t mow it, the city will fine me.”

The second said: “It’s just how it is.”

Another said: “My wife makes me.”

I asked the wife.

She said: “The neighbours do it and I want to have a pretty lawn.”

(Sighs)

Let me summarize.

The humans are facing a global water scarcity crisis. They are facing an atmospheric carbon crisis.

Despite these threats, they spend their limited financial resources and planetary reserves maintaining a forced monoculture that actively depletes water, burns fossil fuels and poisons the earth.

All because they are terrified of what their neighbors will think if their dirt looks natural.

Recommendation: Maintain Class 3 Status

(Monitor for signs of collective wisdom. Current indicators remain low)

Further observations will follow.

END OF LOG #002

NEXT FILED REPORT: EARTH LOG #003

If you’d like to support the work, you can here:

Support the Work

Stories and reflections by Qibra © 2026. All rights reserved.

These are the filed reports.

INITIAL ENTRY - ARRIVAL LOG: Sol-3. Third planet from the star they call Sun.

CYCLE OF ARRIVAL: Spring

ATMOSPHERE: Breathable. Technically.

Upon arrival, I noticed the air was thick with fine particulate matter. The local population appeared to be experiencing collective respiratory distress. Observed symptoms included ocular inflammation and fluid discharge, repetitive involuntary nasal expulsions, continuous nasal overflow, and the widespread carrying of disposable paper cloths used to manage the discharge. Subjects repeatedly rubbed their eyes and facial surfaces with apparent urgency.

Several appeared to be breathing exclusively through their mouths.

I initially assumed I had arrived during some form of environmental emergency.

I was informed this was normal. It is called allergy season.

I have begun my assessment.

EARTH LOG #001: The Respiratory Crisis

Field Inspector, Planetary Readiness Division (PRD)

Interstellar Compliance Bureau (ICB)

SOL-3 | EARTH-7 | MILKY WAY

Log Date: 2026.05.14

I have identified the source of the respiratory crisis.

It appears the dominant species forgot basic biology and has planted exclusively male trees throughout their urban centers.

Yes. You heard that correctly.

Male.

Allow me to clarify as I had to verify this finding three times, such was my shock and bewilderment. Dioecious trees produce either pollen (male) or seeds (female). Female trees require minimal maintenance. They bear fruit, they seed, they also self-regulate.

Male trees, however, produce massive quantities of pollen designed to travel kilometers seeking fertilization.

The logical choice for urban forestry would be female trees. While female trees shed seeds and fruit onto the ground, they act as natural filters, actively trapping and clearing pollen from the atmosphere.

Instead, they chose dioecious species, then mass-produced only the males through cloning and grafting. They populated their urban centers with millions of genetically identical male specimens. City after city. Every tree releasing pollen into the air.

(sighs)

The result is this: pollen counts increased 1000%. Seasonal allergies became epidemic. Asthma rates tripled. Their children now carry medication to breathe outdoors. Healthcare costs are astronomical.

But the streets are clean.

I reviewed their records. This decision was made approximately 70 years ago. The connection between male trees and respiratory illness was identified 30 years ago. There were multiple studies and clear causation.

You would think that would push them to change. But no.

They continue planting male trees.

When I asked if they would correct this, I was told: “Too expensive to replace existing trees, and female trees might stain sidewalks.”

I stood there in my suit, shocked at what I was hearing. The humans trapped themselves on a planet choking on reproductive dust because they refused to sweep their streets.

Even more bewildering is their solution. They do not plant female trees to balance the ecosystem. Instead, they buy disposable paper cloths to wipe their nasal cavities and pay billions of credits to pharmaceutical conglomerates for pills that stop their bodies from reacting to the air.

I’m beginning to understand why this planet’s advancement rating keeps declining despite their technological progress.

They have advanced to the point of synthesizing complex medicine, yet use it to survive the consequences of their own laziness.

Recommendation: Downgrade to Class 3 Civilization

(Use Tools, Lack Existential Wisdom)

Further observations will follow.

END OF LOG #001

NEXT FILED REPORT: EARTH LOG #002

If you’d like to support the work, you can here:

Support the Work

Stories and reflections by Qibra © 2026. All rights reserved.

🎧 Suggested listening:

For atmospheric reading

For immersive reading

“When the ancestors return,

they do not arrive as strangers.

They arrive as the answer to a prayer

whispered across lifetimes.”

Image by Александр Пургин from Pixabay

From Naiya in Threa

Cycle 4-Month 5 | Moonrise

(Approx. Earth Date: September 14, 2025)

My name is Naiya.

I send this to you from Threa—a mirror world.

Today we step away from New Ayaleth and return to the Day of Scattering and to the silent work the Blue Angels had already begun while the Watchers descended upon the Amari lands.

The Blue Angels had planned their first mission carefully. When Makael and the hybrids were being prepared for their new settlement, the original intent was to send agents to help them adapt, build their new home, and then slowly begin infiltrating human territories. That plan was completely shattered when the Watchers attacked.

What Makael, the Watchers and the Council did not know was that the Blue Angels never abandoned their post. While most Amaris escaped into the future to settle in New Ayaleth, a faction led by Aren stayed behind in the present. Hidden in the heart of Watcher territories, they ignited a resistance that would span centuries.

Aren led a group of some of the youngest and brightest volunteers the Amaris had to offer. They were teachers, healers, scientists, strategists, builders, archivists and guardians. They smuggled crystalline crafts and Amari technology with them, knowing fully well they might never see their loved ones again. They sacrificed everything for a mission that would take lifetimes to complete.

Witnessing the complete erasure of their homeland, the second time their enemy had stolen everything they loved, hardened their resolve into something unbreakable. It was clear to them. The Watchers and their allies must be stopped by any means necessary.

There is no adversary more dangerous than one who has already lost everything.

According to the archives, they escaped through dimensional pockets. Spaces that existed outside of time. Not the present, not the future, but somewhere in between. In these hidden spaces, they waited until the Watchers completed their scans and abandoned the barren lands where the magnificent Amari cities once stood.

Then, using the information Makael and the hybrids shared during their training, they traveled to the north to the underground refuge where the hybrids had lived for generations. This was where Makael’s family survived. As long as the Amaris had the exact coordinates, they could appear there instantaneously.

Their biggest hurdle was first contact. The hybrids had been disconnected from their Amari ancestry for so long that a sudden appearance would likely cause panic or distrust. The Blue Angels had to move with extreme caution. So they settled deeper, in a dimensional pocket beneath the hybrid settlements. They chose this location because of something the hybrids themselves did not fully understand.

The sanctuary where Kaelon had led his family was not an ordinary refuge. It was one of the rare places on Threa protected by the planet’s own natural frequency. A natural defense mechanism that the Watchers’ surface technology could not penetrate. Because these regions existed slightly out of phase with the present timeline, they remained invisible to Watcher detection.

This temporal displacement kept the hybrids safe. Time moved slower underground than it did on the surface. Those who lived in the caves aged far more slowly than their surface counterparts. But when they did emerge, as Makael eventually did, they felt the disorientation of a world moving too fast.

Many chose to stay below because of this. To them, the surface felt wrong. It felt too fast, too loud, too chaotic. Some experienced deep anxiety. Others, like Makael, felt a quiet, burning anger at the world racing ahead without them.

They did not realize they were being protected. The temporal difference kept them safe until the right moment.

Until the Blue Angels could find them.

I discovered a preserved testimony in the archives left by Makael’s mother who documented the first contact between her people and the Blue Angels.

[Testimony | ZEYNA, Makael’s Mother]

Translated from the Old Language. Selected expressions have been rendered in modern phrasing for clarity.

The people were growing restless.

We tried to keep them calm and hopeful.

“Makael will return with good news,” we told them. “Have patience.”

The reassurance would quiet the crowds briefly, but eventually, the murmurs always returned.

What is taking them so long?

I told you we cannot trust the golden ones.

They brought us down here to rot. What makes this time any different?

We need to take matters into our own hands and claim our place on the surface.

From time to time, one of the older souls would remind the others what they stood to lose. “Our ancestors saved us from a terrible fate when they led us here. Without their help, we would have been enslaved like the others. Have faith.”

And that would suffice…until the silence became unbearable.

I understood their impatience. Makael’s return from the Amari lands brought new fervor, new life into our people. He spoke of an abundant land where we could build again. A peaceful place where we could feel the unfiltered sun against our skin and the wind in our hair. Where the land meets the sea.

Oh, how I missed my beloved waters. How I missed the salt, the spray and the crash of the waves. Because of his words, we began to dream again.

I watched my people come alive. Conversations drifted toward what they would do the moment their feet touched their new home. The momentum was unstoppable. They were ready. I was ready.

It was finally time.

I gave Makael my blessing, and he left us once more, taking a small group of our people with him. He promised he would return quickly to guide the rest of us home.

The poor boy carried so much fury and resentment in his chest. I knew this. I knew why, but I chose not to confront it. I simply hoped that spending time with the golden ones would help him let go of the darkness. I knew what he was capable of. I could feel the ancestral fire running through his veins.

But fire misdirected destroys, while fire that is controlled and intentional transforms.

This is why I gave him the Sacred Orb. Not many know its true importance. My mother explained its weight to me when it was time for me to inherit it, just as her mother had done before her. I did not give Makael the full history when he left in search of the golden-eyed ones. I only told him this: “As long as you wear it, you will be protected.”

“Whatever happens, do not take it off,” I said as I secured it around his neck. “Not even once. Keep it on always. Promise me.”

I knew that as long as the orb rested against his heart, he would be safe.

For weeks, I felt his presence clearly. When I tried to connect with his spirit some time ago, he felt closer, more potent. The signal was stronger. Lately, however, the connection grew faint, as if he were somewhere very far away. He was alive. I knew that much. But deep down, I also knew something went terribly wrong. Call it a mother’s instinct.

Whatever it was, I could not share it with my people. Especially not his siblings. Not while the dream of the surface was still so fresh. I could not bring myself to break their spirit after everything they had endured. This was their first real chance to look forward to something positive.

If there is one thing you cannot take away from a people, it is their hope.

There was another secret I kept to myself.

For days now, I felt a presence. A strong sense that we were not alone in the deep places. The energy was growing stronger, and it was not coming from the surface. No, it was radiating from the direction of the sealed chambers where our people were strictly forbidden to go.

The pull became impossible to ignore. It was worse during the cycles of rest. When the people slept and silence filled the caves, I could feel a tug in my heart and stomach.

As if I was being called.

The pressure became unbearable. I went to the other elders and confessed what I had been feeling and proposed taking a small unit of young guards with me to locate the source.

It took convincing. Much convincing. I understood their hesitation. Those areas were forbidden for reasons we all knew, and the lower tunnels were unpredictable. One elder finally agreed to come, along with three young scouts. We made an oath to keep the expedition secret until we knew what we were dealing with.

I had never felt anything foreign down here. Not once in my entire life. This was different.

Whatever it was, it was not one of our own. If someone or something found a way in, then that meant there were entire sections we had never explored. The idea terrified me, but it also thrilled me. After so many years of isolation, even the strange and unknown was welcome.

We gathered what we needed and left during the middle of the night or what we called night. The surface guards acted as our timekeepers. We relied on them to mark the rotations of the day and dark for us. The sound of their voices echoing down from above was our only tether to the racing world above.

We walked along the long, winding corridors until we reached the edges of our territory. The scouts removed the stone blocks we used to seal off the passage, revealing an entrance so narrow we had to go down to our knees and crawl.

On the other side, we continued walking in silence. Our eyes did not need time to adjust. The old blood took care of that. We could see the subtle crystal-light that would be invisible to others.

Back in our territory, thin veins of crystals lit our way, snaking through the walls and ceilings like luminous roots. To an outsider, these veins would look completely dark and dormant. But we knew that the crystals pulled energy from the planet’s core and gave it back as light and warmth.

The passage ahead revealed something none of us had seen before.

The tunnel opened up and we entered a colossal cavern. Enormous, pillar-like crystals grew naturally from the ceiling. Some grew from the floor, thick as the oldest trees. They pulsed with a warm, coppery glow against the reddish-brown walls. The ground beneath our feet sparkled. Thousands of tiny crystal shards caught and reflected light, turning the floor into what looked like scattered stars.

We stood there breathless. None of us moved for a while.

We pushed forward, the air growing thick and heavy with each step. Whether the density came from the sheer depth or something unnatural, I could not tell.

We must have descended several kilometers when the physical reactions began. Shivers raced along my scalp and down my spine.

We were getting closer. The currents in my body intensified. My heart began to race.

I stopped, leaning against the cavern wall as violent tremors slid down my entire body. My legs and hands began to shake uncontrollably. The others noticed and ran to my side.

I tried to speak but my jaw locked and no sound came. I forced my eyes down the shimmering corridor ahead, and just as my strength evaporated, I saw it. A strange, fluid distortion in the air. I felt hands catching me as my knees gave out.

I felt the cold, hard ground against my face, and then my vision went dark.

When I opened my eyes, the tremors were gone. I was standing in a curved chamber. The walls were a rich, red-brown hue. I felt lighter than I had in years. My body felt different, more vibrant and stronger as it had been in my youth. I had not felt this alive in decades.

I heard movement behind me and turned.

A young man stood before me. He was tall—taller than any man I had ever seen— with golden-brown skin. I did not need to ask about his lineage. His golden eyes, glowing in the dim light, told me everything.

“Zeyna,” he said. “Welcome. Thank you for answering the call.”

“Who are you?” My voice sounded strange to my own ears. “What is your name?”

“I am Aren, son of Kaelon.”

The name struck me like a physical blow. My eyes filled with tears.

They had finally come.

“Aren,” I whispered, testing the weight of the name on my tongue.

“Your people are worried for you,” he said gently. “They wonder why you will not wake. I will not keep you long.”

“My people…” I turned around, looking at the empty chamber. “Where are they?”

“They have carried your body back to your chambers. They are with you now, waiting.”

I looked down at my hands, flexing my fingers. I looked whole.

The man smiled, noticing my confusion. “I imagine this must be disorienting for you.”

I waited for him to explain.

“You have entered an altered state,” he said. “It is how you are able to communicate with me.”

“This,” he added, gesturing to the chamber, “exists adjacent to yours. Close but not the same. Your physical lungs would struggle to breathe at this depth. I figured this method would be safer and far more efficient.”

I did not respond immediately. My mother told me stories of the women in our family who could communicate with our golden-eyed ancestors through dreams, but I never imagined the reality would manifest like this. I was awake, my consciousness fully functioning and aware of what was happening while my physical form slept above.

“So you are truly here?” I asked, studying his face. “In these depths with us?”

“Yes. I have come with a group of my people. We will remain here for the foreseeable future.”

“Where is my son?” The question burst from me before I could stop it. “Is Makael with you?”

Aren paused. Something flickered across his face. “No. He is not with us. But he is safe, Zeyna. Do not fear for him.”

He stepped closer. “There is much to tell you. Much to explain. But you must return to your people now, and you must not tell them what you have seen. Not yet. When your scouts recover, do not force them to come back down. Their minds will conjure terrors to keep them away. Let them be afraid for now.”

He reached out and took my hand. I saw the tears in his amber eyes.

“I wish my father could have been here to witness this,” he said quietly. “I wish he had been granted the chance to see you all before he passed. I am grateful beyond words to stand before you now.”

I smiled, fighting back a wave of emotion. My heart ached, but how was that possible if I was not in my body? Still the emotions were as real as ever.

They were actually here.

After generations of isolation, when we nearly gave up hope, here they stood, fully formed and real that I could touch them, speak to them.

My mother used to tell me that salvation only shows when you are about to let go.

“That is the test, my Zeyna,” she would say. “When the shadows convince you to let go, that is the exact moment you hold on for dear life.”

“I will call you again soon,” Aren said, anchoring me back to the present. “Come alone next time. Tell no one what you have seen here until I give you confirmation.”

“I swear it,” I promised.

“Thank you.” He stepped forward and embraced me. I caught a scent of cool fresh rain and frankincense. A beautiful vivid reminder of the surface world we had forgotten. I held onto him tightly, allowing myself to feel a deep relief for the first time in my life.

After a long moment, he stepped back and smiled. “It is time, Zeyna. We will speak again soon.”

He touched my forehead. The floor seemed to dissolve beneath my feet, and I felt the sensation of falling, then–

Darkness.

When my consciousness slammed back into my body, I found my daughter clutching my hand, her face wet with tears.

She gasped the moment she felt my finger twitch against hers.

“Mother! Oh, praise the ancestors.” Her voice shook. “We were so afraid.”

I blinked as everything came into focus. “What is the matter? Why is everyone gathered here?”

The elders looked at each other uncomfortably. They stood there, staring down at me with a mixture of relief and terror.

“What happened down in the forbidden passage, Zeyna?” one of the elders demanded, stepping forward.

“Nothing,” I replied, forcing my voice to remain steady. “I felt weak and fainted. My age and the heavy air are a poor combination.”

“You saw nothing?”

“No. There is no cause for alarm. I am perfectly fine now.” I tried to sit up. “It must have been only a few minutes of weakness.”

“A few minutes?” My daughter’s voice rose. “Mother, you have been unconscious for twelve hours!”

I froze, staring at her incredulously.

Twelve hours. What felt like a fleeting conversation was twelve hours here.

We already knew time moved differently in these caves. We knew it was slower down here than on the surface. I never anticipated that different depths would possess significantly different flows of time.

If my brief time there had cost me twelve hours of our timeline, then a longer meeting in that place would mean days. Perhaps weeks. How could it be possible to meet with him again if my body did not wake up for days at a time?

I glanced back up at my daughter. Mina was watching me carefully. I could see it in her eyes. She knew I was holding something back.

“I am tired,” I said, closing my eyes to cut off their gaze. “I need to rest.”

Mina nodded and gently ushered the others out, drawing the heavy curtain that separated my sleeping area from the common space.

She waited until their footsteps faded before returning to my bedside and sitting down.

“Now that we are alone, Mother,” she said firmly, “tell me everything.”

End of Transmission 016

For those who wish to understand the names within these transmissions:

Welcome to Echoes Between Worlds.

This is the sixteenth transmission. If you’d like to follow the story as it unfolds, subscribe to receive the next transmission. It’s free for everyone.

A new transmission will arrive every other week. I hope you enjoy them.

If you’d like to support the work, you can here:

Support the Work

Stories and reflections by Qibra © 2026. All rights reserved.

A Note Before We Begin

This post explores Michael Jackson’s music and artistry. Given the complexity surrounding his legacy, I want to be upfront about what this is and isn’t. This is not a defense or an accusation regarding the allegations. It’s an exploration of the art he left behind to understand who he was beneath the media noise. I have tried to stay close to what the music and his own words reveal, but I have also included biographical context that I believe has been underreported. If this topic is difficult or triggering for you, please feel free to skip it. 💙

Note: This is a deep dive structured as a journey through 7 chambers, each exploring a different dimension of his work. Grab a coffee (or your favorite beverage) and settle in.

Recently, I watched a familiar cycle repeat.

Following the release of the Michael biopic, which dominated the global box office, I watched the conversation unfold online, exploding into the same decades-old pattern. People either celebrating it or dismissing it while others argued about it.

One specific criticism I kept seeing again and again was that the film failed to show who he really was.

The truth is, no movie can fully capture a human being as complex as Michael. We rarely show every side of ourselves even to the people closest to us. There is always a piece we keep private. We will never truly know the man. We will only ever get pieces.

But I think art is different. It leaves traces.

Listening for the Traces

For as long as I can remember, my brain has processed music a bit differently. When I listen to a song, my brain not only notices the beat, it hyperfocuses on the words, their meaning and what’s underneath it. It’s why I can’t enjoy songs that have a great rhythm but an off energy in the lyrics. It’s also why I listen to instrumentals more.

Due to that hypersensitivity to sound, Michael was one of the rare exceptions. Listening to him was never just about the beat. It was like listening to a story with rhythm.

When I finally sat down to strip away the media noise and strictly look for his traces in the music, I was stunned.

You see, every creative has obsessions that won’t leave them alone. Michael was no different. What shocked me was how consistent those obsessions were across 4 decades, different producers and various personal battles.

When you turn down the volume of the world and truly listen, you realize a philosopher whose medium was rhythm had been hiding in plain sight.

This is his story…

As he told us in his music and his words.

Let us walk through the chambers of his mind together.

CHAMBER 1 - The Child vs The Product

To understand the man, you have to look at the foundation.

So, naturally, we have to start with Childhood.

CHILDHOOD (The Foundation & Core Wound)

Michael once said that if you want to know who he truly was, listen to this song. He called it the most autobiographical piece he ever wrote.

And that’s what I did.

The line that stands out is:

“Before you judge me, try hard to love me. Look within your heart then ask…”

The most consistent thread across Michael’s entire body of work is grief for lost innocence and protection of what remains.

In Childhood, he asks the world:

“Have you seen my childhood?”

He explicitly tells us that his adult eccentricities were not strange quirks, but an attempt to compensate for the youth he spent trapped inside the entertainment machine.

(Note: You can find links to the lyrics of all the songs in the song titles.)

The Studio Machine

Before the sequined glove, before Thriller, and before the mythology swallowed the man whole, there was a boy who never got to be a child.

Michael became the world’s biggest star before he was old enough to choose it.

As an eleven-year-old child, he was pushed to perform through endless TV appearances and tours. We watched a naturally gifted young boy get turned into a commercial product.

I Want You Back 1969 & ABC 1970 (with the Jackson 5)

I Will Be There (with the Jackson 5) - 1970

Standing Under the Spotlight Alone - Got To Be There 1971 ( Debut Solo)

His first steps away from his brothers, and the talent is undeniable even from a young age. Michael was always destined to do it on his own.

In a 1970 interview, he said this:

“Whatever I sing, that’s what I really mean. Like, I’m singing a song, I don’t sing it if I don’t mean it.” -MJ

The Turning Point- This Place Hotel 1980

This was a major turning point for Michael. Even though it was released under the Jacksons’ name, Michael wrote, arranged, and composed this entire track completely by himself at the age of 22.

In Moonwalk, he called it the most ambitious thing he’d written up to that point. He was quoted saying this:

“I had to tack on a slow piano and cello coda that ended on a positive note to reassure the listener; there's no point in trying to scare someone if there isn't something to bring the person back safe and sound from where you've taken them.” -MJ

CHAMBER 2 - The Visionary & Messenger

Once Michael gained complete creative freedom, he didn’t make music just to entertain us. Instead, he used his platform as a global pulpit.

His grandest obsession was healing the world. He felt deeply responsible for it like it was his calling and mission.

“It’s been my dream since I was a child to somehow unite people of the world through love and music.” -MJ

Michael believed he did not create his music. He viewed himself as a divine channel catching songs that already existed in the universe. He famously said that if he didn’t write them down quickly, God would give them to Prince.

“The song writing process is something that is very difficult to explain because it’s very spiritual. You’re really just in the hands of God and it’s as if it’s been written already.

That’s the real truth.

As if it’s been written in its entirety before you were born and you’re really just the source through which the songs come. Really, because they just fall right into your lap, in its entirety, you don’t have to do much thinking about it.” -MJ

The process was so spiritual to him that it’s reported he used to express his dislike for taking credit for the songs he’s written. He felt he was just a courier bringing it out into the world.

“I can’t take credit for it because it’s God’s work. He’s just using me as the messenger.”-MJ

Through this channeling, he exposed a planetary wound and then left us with a two-step instruction on how to heal it.

The Planetary Wound - Earth Song 1995

Michael channeled Earth’s agony in this song, forcing humanity to look directly at the bleeding planet.

“Hey, what about yesterday? (What about us?)
What about the seas? (What about us?)
The heavens are falling down (What about us?)
I can’t even breathe (What about us?)

What about apathy? (What about us?)
What about nature’s worth? (What about us?)
What about animals? (What about it?)
We’ve turned kingdoms to dust (What about us?)

What about elephants? (What about us?)
Have we lost their trust? (What about us?)
What about crying whales? (What about us?)
We’re ravaging the seas (What about us?)

What about forest trails? (What about us?)
Burnt despite our pleas (What about us?)
What about the holy land? (What about it?)
Torn apart by creed (What about us?)

What about the common man? (What about us?)
Can’t we set him free? (What about us?)

What about children dying? (What about us?)
Can’t you hear them cry? (What about us?)
Where did we go wrong? (What about us?)”

This is what he said about this song:

“I remember writing Earth Song when I was in Austria, in a hotel. And I was feeling so much pain and so much suffering of the plight of the Planet Earth. And for me, this is Earth's Song because I think nature is trying so hard to compensate for man's mismanagement of the Earth. I think earth feels the pain, and she has wounds. This is my chance to pretty much let people hear the voice of the planet." -MJ

The Mission - Healing the World

Michael left us with instructions on how we can do that.

Step 1 - Heal the Self - Man in the Mirror 1987

A profound philosophical realization is that every injustice, every broken system, every wound begins in the same place. With you, with me, with the person staring back at us in the mirror.

“I’m starting with the man in the mirror. I’m asking him to change his ways.”

This is the key.

The answer to our problems isn’t out there. It starts within. We must find the courage to look into our own reflection and hold ourselves accountable.

“If you wanna make the world a better place. Take a look at yourself and then make a change.”

It was written by Siedah Garrett and Glen Ballard. Siedah later shared how the song came to be. She said she literally asked God for it. She prayed for a song she could write for Michael and this is what arrived.

It is reported that the moment he heard it, he connected with it so deeply and used to talk about how much he loved it.

In fact, he loved that line so much that he had it printed on the Bad album. This was the philosophical mission statement he wanted to leave with the listener. As if to say, if you miss everything else on this album, don’t miss this.

Step 2 -Heal the World 1991

Michael left us the blueprint.

If we want to heal the world, we must first transform ourselves from within.

Once the individual undergoes internal transformation, they can unite to fix the world. The first step is non-negotiable because our physical reality always reflects our internal state.

The metaphysical Law of Correspondence says: As within, so without. As above, so below.

The song begins with a child’s voice telling us to think about the generations to come.

“Think about the generations and say that we want to make it a better place for our children, and our children’s children so that they know it’s a better world for them.”

To me it felt like the children who were not even born yet are the ones he was writing for all along.

The song ends with a child’s voice chanting:

“Heal the world we live in. Save it for our children.”

By healing the child within through self-transformation we can gain the power to heal the world for the children of the future.

Michael wrote this song sitting in the branches of his Giving Tree at Neverland, creating a global lullaby designed to rewire human hearts toward love.

“Heal the world. Make it a better place. For you and for me and the entire human race.”

The song inspired him to launch the Heal the World Foundation.

Michael once said that of all the songs he created, this was the one he was most proud of which proves how much this mission mattered to him.

“My mission for the world is healing. Pure and simple.” -MJ

The Cosmic Oneness-Another Part of Me 1987

This is a deeply philosophical and metaphysical piece. It highlights a specific obsession Michael returned to across decades.

Unity.

Most people see this as a fun, funky track from the Bad era, but it is secretly one of his most spiritual songs. It is Michael’s version of the Law of One—the ancient spiritual concept that there is no other, and that we’re all just expressions of the exact same divine source.

He lived and created within this non-dual reality. Most of the time, this world traps us in a duality, us vs them mentality. Through this track, Michael encourages the listener to ascend past that friction and realize that every human being is an extension of our own soul. We are all literally another part of each other.

He wrote it as the main anthem for his 1986 Disney Sci-fi short film, Captain EO. In that film, he plays an alien captain who travels to a dark, corrupted planet ruled by a terrifying queen. Instead of fighting her with weapons, he uses this exact song to change her from within.

The idea that music and melody can re-order reality is something that he truly believed in.

This is also where Michael’s Major Love philosophy was born, and it became a declaration for unity. In metaphysics, love is not just an emotion. It’s a state of being and the highest vibration that can transform darkness (matter) to light (spirit).

“We’re sending out a major love. And this is our message to you.

The planets are lining up. We’re bringing brighter days. They’re all in line, waiting for you.

Can’t you see?

You’re just another part of me.”

Something else to consider is if we’re all one including the planet, then the destruction of the forests, polluting the air and oceans, and the death of a species are all wounds to our own bodies.

To reach this ascended angelic state and build this harmonious, prosperous future, we must all start from Step 1 before it’s too late.

It’s the only way.

Beyond the Binary - Black Or White 1991

Michael continued to push this non-dual philosophy on a global scale with his famous hit, Black Or White.

“I said if you’re thinkin’ of being my brother. It don’t matter if you’re black or white.”

CHAMBER 3 - The Cost of The Mission

Preaching radical love and global healing in a dark and fractured world comes with a heavy cost especially if you are someone with as much influence and power as Michael.

The Stolen Normalcy - Human Nature 1982

This beautiful, dreamy track from Thriller reveals a deep psychological ache.

We hear a young man who became a superstar from a very young age and never had a normal life. We hear his pure curiosity, his desire for the simple things in life and his longing for basic human connection.

Michael didn’t write this one, but he shaped the emotion. It was written by Steve Porcaro of Toto and John Bettis. Steve wrote it after his daughter came home crying because a boy had been mean to her at school. He told her "it's human nature" to comfort her and accidentally wrote one of the most loved songs of the 20th century.

It was reported that Michael recorded it in a single take still half asleep which probably explains the breathy almost ethereal vocals we hear.

“If they say, why? why?

Tell ‘em that is human nature.”

The chorus is both frustrating and fascinating to me because it is simultaneously the most unsatisfying and the most complete answer to most questions you could ask.

Why are we destroying the environment? Human nature.

Why do we tear down what we love most? Human nature.

Why do we hurt each other? Human nature.

Why do we consistently turn on those who are different, even those who’ve given us so much? Human nature.

Whether it’s philosophers, scientists or artists across centuries, history shows a recurring pattern.

We elevate people to the stars only to be terrified of them once they’re there.

“If they say Why? Why?”

“Tell ‘em that it’s human nature.”

Human nature indeed.

The entire song is written from the perspective of an outsider looking down at a city from a window. The most basic human right—the freedom to walk down a street and experience genuine human connection—was denied to him.

The Desperate Prayer - Will You Be There 1991

Will You Be There reveals the personal cost of the mission he accepted, and he confesses his own exhaustion and vulnerability. The pressure from the weight on his shoulders turned into a desperate plea for survival and understanding.

He tells the world:

“But they told me, a man should be faithful. And walk when not able.

And fight till the end, but I'm only human...”

Michael wrote it while he was sitting in his favorite Giving Tree at Neverland Ranch and was originally released on the 1991 Dangerous album. He reportedly said it was a song that just came to him as a plea for support and loyalty.

He ends with a prayer:

“In our darkest hour, in my deepest despair, will you still care?

Will you be there?”

The Consequence - Stranger in Moscow 1995

Will You Be There was the desperate prayer for companionship and understanding.

Stranger in Moscow is what happened when no one answered.

He wrote the lyrics as a poem while stuck in a hotel room in 1993 during a tour in Russia. Even with a sea of fans chanting his name outside, he felt like a ghost.

That is the irony of his life. A man surrounded by millions, but still feeling utterly isolated and alone.

“Here abandoned in my fame. Armageddon of the brain. KGB was doggin’ me.

Take my name and just let me be.”

“How does it feel when you’re alone, and you’re cold inside.

Like a stranger in Moscow.

Lord have mercy. We’re talkin’ danger…

I’m livin’ lonely…”

CHAMBER 4 - The Artist & The Messages In The Rhythm

Michael understood the power of music. He knew the human body would instinctively dance to a great beat before the conscious mind could process the words. He embedded blunt cultural warnings and messages even inside his biggest global hits.

Here are just a few examples.

Generational Poverty - Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ 1982

“If you can't feed your baby, then don't have a baby.

And don't think maybe, if you can't feed your baby.

You'll be always tryin' to stop that child from cryin'.

Hustlin', stealin', lyin’. Now, baby's slowly dyin'”

Paranoia and Entrapment - Billie Jean 1982

“So take my strong advice, just remember to always think twice.”

“People always told me, be careful of what you do.

And don’t go around breakin’ young girls’ hearts.”

Rejecting Violence - Beat It 1983

“They’re out to get you, better leave while you can. Don’t wanna be a boy, you wanna be a man. You wanna stay alive, better do what you can. So beat it…”

“You have to show them that you’re really not scared. You’re playin’ with your life, this ain’t no truth or dare…”

“It doesn’t matter who’s wrong or right, just beat it.”

Systemic Disconnection - Jam 1991

“Nation to nation all the world, must come together.

Face the problems that we see then maybe somehow we can work it out.

I asked my neighbor for a favor, she said later. What has come of all the people.

Have we lost love of what it’s about. I have to find my peace…”

Domestic Control & Oppression - Slave to the Rhythm 2014

I was debating whether I should share this because it was officially released 5 years after his death on the 2014 posthumous album Xscape. I wanted to focus on the music he released while he was alive. But in the end, I decided to add it because he originally wrote and recorded it back in 1991 during his Dangerous album studio sessions.

It is reported that he loved the track, but since he recorded around 60-70 songs for the album, it didn’t make the final cut.

“Slave To The Rhythm” was originally intended for inclusion on Michael’s “Dangerous” album in 1992 but instead was completed for his posthumous album “Xscape”. On this date in 2014, a holographic performance of the song was given at the Billboard Music Awards.”-MJ Estate

On the surface, the lyrics are a story about a woman trapped in a controlling household, forced to smile and dance to satisfy a demanding and unappreciative partner.

“She dances in the sheets at night. She dances to his needs…

She works so hard just to make her way, for a man who just don’t appreciate. And though he takes her love in vain…

Still, she could not stop…Couldn’t break his chains.

She’s a slave to the rhythm of love”

The hidden subtext could be Michael projecting his own lived experience. In this case, he uses this story to mirror his own life. He felt completely trapped by the demanding rhythm of an entertainment machine, forced to perform flawlessly on demand regardless of any internal pain he was going through.

The Hidden Reclamation - Remember the Time 1992

I had to include this because it’s a perfect example of Michael’s ingenuity. While the words paint a picture of an ex-lover and a lost romance, Michael intentionally sets the short film in all-Black ancient Egyptian court featuring Eddie Murphy, Iman and Magic Johnson. It was a rare portrayal of ancient Egypt as Black African royalty on mainstream TV.

To me it felt like he was asking the global Black community a deeper, ancestral question: Do you remember your true history before it was erased?

“Do you remember the time?”

CHAMBER 5 - The Wounds & Isolation

Behind the global fame and success, Michael was in a public battle with his record label Sony and facing intense media scrutiny.

Some of his business decisions, such as owning his music through Mijac Music, buying the Beatles’ catalog in 1985 and merging it to own 50% of the Sony/ATV catalog in 1995 made him not only one of the most influential people in the world, but one of the most powerful black artists in the music industry, paving the way for future artists to own their music.

In the following songs, Michael stops hiding his pain and let us see the emotional and physical reality of his life.

The First Response - Leave Me Alone 1987

We need to start here because this track is historically significant. This was the first time he used his music to attack the media’s obsession with his personal life.

“Leave me alone, stop it. Just stop doggin’ me around.”

The Media Machine and their Hypocrisy - Why You Wanna Trip On Me? 1991

Michael calls out the media as they began to hyperfocus on his physical appearance and eccentricities. He’s more aggressive and direct here compared to Leave Me Alone.

He lists global catastrophes and real issues like starvation, police brutality, illiteracy and homelessness and asks them why they are obsessed with him when they should be exposing real-world crises.

“They say I’m different. They don’t understand. But there’s a bigger problem. That’s much more in demand.

You got world hunger, not enough to eat. So there’s really no time to be trippin’ on me.

You got school teachers who don’t wanna teach. You got grown people who can’t write or read. You got strange diseases, but there’s no cure. You got many doctors that aren’t so sure.

So tell me why you wanna trip on me.”

The sad thing is we got the same problems today, and the media continues to distract us from the issues that truly matter.

The Media Noise - Tabloid Junkie 1995

In this track, he describes the vultures feeding on his life while reminding the public that by buying and reading the papers, they are funding his public execution.

“You’re a parasite in black and white. Do anything for news.”

Michael reveals that the media is a psychological matrix designed to distract people from truth.

“It’s slander. You say it’s not a sword. But with your pen you torture men. You’d crucify the lord.”

And you don’t have to read it. And you don’t have to eat it. To buy it is to feed it…

Just because you read it in a magazine or see it in on a TV screen, don’t make it factual.”

It is simple, but in the age of misinformation, it’s a vital philosophical reminder.

“And don’t go and buy it. And they won’t glorify it. To read it sanctifies it. Why do we keep fooling ourselves?”

Again, the self accountability theme. Even then, Michael was asking us to look at our role in feeding the machine.

The Breaking Point - Scream 1995

By Scream, Michael had enough and this was his first direct musical response to the heavy legal and media storms of the early 90s.

“With such confusion don’t it make you wanna scream.

You bash abusin’ victimize within the scheme.

You find your pleasure scandalizin’ every lie.

Oh father, please have mercy, ‘cause I just can’t take it.

Stop pressurin’ me, just stop pressurin’ me. Stop F*in’ with me. Make me wanna scream.”

He teamed up with his sister Janet for this song. The music video for Scream was reportedly the most expensive ever made at the time, costing around $7 million.

What I found interesting is in the video we see them in a spaceship away from Earth. His own safe sanctuary from the chaos happening on this crazy world. As if he had to literally leave the planet to escape the pressure.

The Stalking - Privacy 2001

Michael confronts the paparazzi and fights against the physical invasion of his personal life.

This song captures a man suffocated by constant surveillance.

“Ain’t the pictures enough? Why do you go through so much? To get the story you need, so you can bury me?

You’ve got the people confused. You tell the stories you choose. You try to get me to lose the man I really am.

I need my privacy, so paparazzi, get away from me. Just get away from me.”

In the second verse, Michael appears to reference the tragic death of Princess Diana who was killed during a paparazzi chase.

“Some of you still wonder why

one of my friends had to die to get a message across

that you haven’t heard.

My friend was chased and confused

Like many others I knew…

She get no second chance. She’s ridiculed and harassed. Please tell me why?”

“Stop maliciously attacking my integrity.”

The Chemical Escape - Morphine 1997

To understand Morphine, we need context the media rarely provides. This is what I found.

In 1983, he was officially diagnosed with discoid lupus. Around that time, his skin started losing its pigmentation. It is said the single glove he wore on his right hand was to hide these early uneven vitiligo patches from the camera.

Then to make matters worse, on January 27, 1984, Michael got severely burned while filming a Pepsi commercial. A pyrotechnic explosion went off early, setting his head in flames. He suffered from severe second and third degree burns to his scalp. The extreme nerve pain was so debilitating and painful, his doctors prescribed powerful narcotics and sedatives for the pain. This was the beginning of a dependency that would impact the rest of his life.

I also learned that lupus not only attacks the skin, it also destroys hair follicles and causes permanent hair loss, making his scalp even more hypersensitive. It appears that the chronic inflammation from the lupus, combined with his vitiligo condition, is why he carried umbrellas to protect his skin from the sun.

“Relax. This won’t hurt you. Before I put it in, close your eyes and count to ten.

Don’t cry…

There’s no need to dismay. Close your eyes and drift away.”

He said this years earlier:

“I don’t want to die in my sleep…” -MJ

The tragic irony is that, ultimately, he lost his life in that exact sedated state.

During the investigation following his death, investigators recovered an audio recording from May 2009 on his doctor’s phone. Michael was under sedation, and his voice was slurred but his mind was still completely consumed by his humanitarian mission.

“ We have to be phenomenal. When people leave this show…when people leave my show, I want them to say, ‘I’ve never seen anything like this in my life…

I’m taking that money, a million children, children’s hospital, the biggest in the world, Michael Jackson’s children’s hospital…

Children are depressed. They’re sick because they’re depressed. Their mind is depressing them. I want to give them that. I care about them, them angels. God wants me to do it. I’m going to do it.

I’m going to do that for them. That will be remembered more than my performances. I love them. I love them because I didn’t have a childhood. I had no childhood. I feel their pain. I feel their hurt…”

Heal the World, We are the World, Will You Be there, The Lost Children—these are the songs I’ve written because I hurt, you know. I hurt.”-MJ

CHAMBER 6 - The Resistance

Michael was not a passive victim. He was an artist who refused to break. When backed into a corner by label disputes, media pressure and systemic barriers, his music stopped being a shield and became a weapon.

We now explore his most defiant resistance.

The Open Protest & The Fight - They Don’t Care About Us 1995/1996

Here we see Michael throwing caution to the wind and taking the fight to the system—the media, the police, and the institutions that fail the people.

He stopped shouting behind closed doors, removed the polite pop persona and aligned himself openly with the marginalized and oppressed people of the world.

He is now rallying a crowd. I will share the Brazil version because of the drums. In many ancient cultures, the drum represents the heartbeat of the people. It was used to rally, heal and sync thousands of souls into one frequency. The Olodum drummers were recorded live on the streets to capture the organic energy of 200 drummers.

I think Michael chose that to tap into something primal and metaphysical to make us listen.

The woman we hear at the beginning is saying in Portuguese: ‘Michael, Michael, eles não ligam pra gente!’ (Michael, Michael, they don’t care about us!).

I find that very powerful like the people are literally handing him the message they needed him to deliver to the world. Like he’s singing for them.

“Everybody dog food. Bang bang, shot dead. Everybody’s gone mad.

Beat me, hate me, you can never break me.

Tell me what has become of my rights. Am I invisible because you ignore me? Your proclamation promised me free liberty, now.

I’m tired of bein’ the victim of shame. They’re throwing me in a class with a bad name.

I can’t believe this is the land from which I came.”

There is another version of this song: They Don’t care About Us (Prison Version).

It is reported that a local truce took place during the filming in the Rio favelas. Crime and violence stopped, and for those few days, it became one of the safest places in the city.

That is what he truly believed. That music can create peace and bring people together in ways that systems can’t.

He was putting himself in the shoes of the oppressed, no matter their background, to show that when a system stops caring about one of us, it stops caring about all of us.

“All I wanna say is that they don’t really care about us.”

“I am the voice of the accused and the attacked. I am the voice of everyone.”-MJ

The Mirror - Is It Scary? 1995

Here, Michael stops trying to convince people he is normal. He stops telling them to leave him alone.

Instead, he holds up a mirror to the media’s and people’s morbid curiosity.

He asks: Am I a monster or are you just projecting your fears onto me?

It is a great example of psychological perception. This song reminds us of how often we project our own internal stories onto others.

The truth is if we approach anything whether that is art, people or life with a frequency of fear, we will find reasons to be afraid.

What if our thoughts are the architects of the reality we experience?

“Am I amusing you or just confusing you?

Am I the beast you visualized?

And if you wanna see eccentric oddities, I’ll be grotesque before your eyes.

Let it all materialize.”

“Is this scary for you?

I’m tired of being abused. You know you’re scaring me too.

I see the evil is you.”

The Mic Drop - Threatened 2001

This is the closing track of Michael’s final studio album, Invincible.

He was known to be very proud of this album because he spent nearly 4 years perfecting it, making it the most expensive album ever recorded at around $30 million.

During this era, Michael was in a battle with Sony, openly calling out the darker side of the industry. In this track, he sends them a clear message.

Michael turns around and says:

“You should be watching me…

You should feel threatened.”

I will also share the This Is It rehearsal of Threatened, the version Michael was preparing to close out his comeback tour in 2009.

He never got to perform it in front of an audience. His final rehearsal ended near midnight on June 24th. He was gone less than 15 hours later.

This track was also one of the very last songs he ever performed on a stage.

This was supposed to be his final statement to the world, and I find the choice of the song interesting.

CHAMBER 7 - The Legacy & The Blueprint

We have reached the end of the corridor. When you strip away the decades of sensationalism, court battles and corporate greed, you are left with his true monuments and legacy: The art and the blueprint he left for the children who would be born after he’s long gone from this world.

The entertainment industry looked at Michael’s discography and saw billions of dollars in publishing assets. Michael, however, looked at his discography and saw something completely different.

“Each song is like a child that I nourish and give my love to.” -MJ

What is most remarkable about this journey is his radical commitment to grace. Despite losing his childhood, being relentlessly bullied by the world, and facing devastating accusations, Michael never allowed his music to turn bitter.

The Last Prayer - The Lost Children 2001

“I want to tell the children of the world, you are all our children, each one of you is my child and I love you all.” -MJ

I would like to end with this song. Written, arranged and produced by Michael, The Lost Children is a beautiful prayer for children who are missing, neglected or forgotten by society.

“This one is for all the lost children…wishing them well and wishing them home.”

The Lost Children carries a second meaning that took me a while to fully understand and appreciate. It isn’t only about the missing children out in the world. It’s also about the lost child within every adult who stopped playing, dreaming, and believing the world could be healed.

Michael never stopped believing that.

“I have spent my entire life helping millions of children across the world.” -MJ

The Dream - The Faces Speech

The noise of the media is temporary. The art is permanent.

If we switch off the media noise, step past the external mythology and just listen to the fingerprints he left behind, we find the soul of a generational philosopher whose music and words will guide for generations to come.

He left us with one final manifesto. A spoken intro found in his unreleased track, Faces, from the HIStory era that was leaked in 2017.

This, to me, serves as his ultimate, pure blueprint for a healed humanity.

“These are the worst of times and these are the best of times. Racism, bigotry, ego centrism, prejudice, hatred and violence are breaking the heart of our planet and strangling its soul. And yet, we are coming alive as never before.

Nelson Mandela, a black man, a former symbol of subjugation and slavery guides South Africa. Democracy and freedom flourish as never before and a new consciousness proclaims the dawn of the Age of Enlightenment, where the survival of the fittest is replaced by survival of the wisest.

Let us dream of the great and sudden splendor of a new tomorrow. Let us dream of the full flowering of a new collective consciousness. Let us dream of a tomorrow where we can hold our heads high and stretch our arms toward perfection.

Let us dream of a tomorrow where we no longer fragment and fracture our global village with narrow domestic walls, where tribalism no longer surfaces under the pretense of nationalism and patriotic fervor and where we can truly love from the soul and know love as the ultimate truth at the heart of all creation.

Let us dream of tomorrow where our children are nurtured and protected and nourished and our elders revered and honored and venerated. Let us dream of peace and harmony and laughter. Let us dream of joy and ecstasy. Let us dream of dancing the cosmic dance.

And, as we dream, let us remember those who dared to dream before us, and sacrificed their yesterday so we could have our tomorrow!” -MJ

Final Note

Going through his life, what stayed with me personally is this: he went through absolute darkness (bullying, systemic betrayal, isolation, relentless media pressure) and extreme pain since childhood, but somehow miraculously managed to keep his music pure and hopeful. That honestly shook me to my core and became an inspiration that during bad times we can still choose to double down on love.

I think almost any other human being would have turned into a cynical monster, but Michael guarded his gentle heart. Until his final breath, his art remained a sanctuary of love, hope, and prayer for others. He stayed true to his values, believing that the innocence of youth was the ultimate answer to human suffering.

“The innocence of children represents to me the source of infinite creativity. This is not any intellectual kind of intelligence, but an intelligence that is full of wonder, magic, mystery and adventure. In this intelligence there is love, there is trust, there is joy and there is beauty. It is the kind of intelligence that will heal the world.” -MJ

My Journey

I was introduced to Michael at a very young age. I remember seeing him on TV for the first time in the late 80s when I was about two or three years old. It was the short film for Bad, and I was completely hypnotized. That sense of awe stayed with me through childhood. Songs like Black or White and Heal the World left a huge impact on me as a child growing up in the 90s.

When the allegations started, I was still young. I heard about them and felt confused because deep down I felt something was off, but I couldn’t understand or articulate what it was. With all the confusion at the time, I remember stepping away and just focusing on life.

When news of his death arrived, a wave of sadness hit me because it felt like I had missed something. I listened to his music again in the days after his death, searching for something I didn’t fully comprehend. Then life got in the way, but it always bugged me. Once my brain notices something being off, it can’t turn it off.

When the Michael biopic came out in April, I got the biggest nudge I’ve ever had. It was as if my mind said: Enough! it’s time to do it.

And so I sat down and began to dig. I focused on the music this time because that’s what is having an impact on the world 17 years after his death.

I started sharing my initial thoughts and discoveries on Notes for 7 days from April 24-April 30. I included their links below.

I can’t cover everything, but I hope this helps those like me who always felt like something was off. And what felt off was the gap between the narrative we’ve been fed and the art.

The art, for me, paints a completely different picture.

I believe we need to accept that we might never know the full truth—and be okay with that.

I’m okay with that.

If you stayed all the way to the end, thank you for coming along this journey. I appreciate you. 💙

I leave you with his own words across different stages of his life.

“Believe in yourself. Study the greats, and become greater.” -MJ

“Be humble, believe in yourself, and have the love of the world in your heart.” -MJ

“The key to being a wonderful writer is not to write. You just get out of the way. Leave room for God to walk in the room. And when I write something that I know is right, I get on my knees and say thank you.” - MJ

“I fast every Sunday. I don’t eat anything, just juices. It flushes out the system; cleans out the colon. People should clean the toxins out of their systems. It helps keep you strong.” -MJ

“I’m much better in conversation on the phone than I am in person.” -MJ

“I want people to hear or watch something I’ve done and feel that I’ve given it everything I’ve got. I feel I owe an audience that courtesy.” -MJ

“I will never be sad if I leave this world, because I know I will be in a better place. The only thing I care about is that people stop thinking that I did something wrong. I love the kids, and disgusting lies almost killed me. When I die, all [the] money I have will go to my children and other children of the world.” -MJ

“Who wants mortality? Everybody wants immortality. You want what you create to live! Be it sculpting, painting, music, composition. That is why to escape death I attempt to bind my soul to my work because I just want it to live forever and just give all that I have.” -MJ

“God gave me a gift and I have to use it responsibly by giving back. I’ll do it until I have pennies left or God calls me home.” -MJ

“There’ve been times right before a show when certain things were bothering me – business or personal problems. I would think, ‘I don’t know how to go through with this. I don’t know how I’m going to get through the show. I can’t perform like this’. But once I get to the side of the stage, something happens. The rhythm starts and the lights hit me and the problems disappear. This has happened so many times. The thrill of performing just takes me over. It’s like God saying, ‘Yes, you can. Yes, you can. Just wait. Wait till you hear this. Wait till you see this.” -MJ

“Consciousness expresses itself through creation. This world we live in is the dance of the Creator. Dancers come and go in the twinkling of an eye but the dance lives on. On many an occasion when I am dancing, I have felt touched by something sacred. In those moments, I felt my spirit soar and become one with everything that exists. I become the stars and the moon. I become the lover and the beloved. I become the victor and the vanquished. I become the master and the slave. I become the singer and the song. I become the knower and the known. I keep on dancing and then, it is the eternal dance of creation. The Creator and the creation merge into one wholeness of joy. I keep on dancing until there is only … the dance.” -MJ

“Your mind is powerful enough to help you obtain whatever you want.” -MJ

“No matter what, the most powerful thing in the world is the human mind, and prayer, and belief in yourself, and confidence, and perseverance. No matter how many times you do it, you do it again until it’s right. And always believe in yourself, and no matter who’s around you that’s being negative, or thrusting negative energy at you, totally block it off; because whatever you believe, you become.” -MJ

“I don’t care if the whole world is against you, teasing you or saying you’re not gonna make it. Believe in yourself.” -MJ

“I have begun to see that even my father’s harshness was a kind of love. An imperfect love, to be sure, but love nonetheless. He pushed me because he loved me, because he wanted no man to ever look down at his offspring. Now with time, rather than bitterness I feel blessing.… My initial fury has slowly given way to forgiveness.”- MJ

“When people’s minds are clouded by anger or hatred, no angel can reach them.” -MJ

“In a world filled with hate, we must still dare to hope. In a world filled with anger, we must still dare to comfort. In a world filled with despair, we must still dare to dream. And in a world filled with distrust, we must still dare to believe.” -MJ

“To honour the children of the world, I vow to keep my promise to help the sick and dying, the alone and homeless and hungry through the construction of children’s hospitals and orphanages in every needy corner of the world.” -MJ

“The only reason I’m going on tour is to raise money for the newly formed, ‘Heal the World Foundation’, an international children’s charity that I’m spearheading to assist children and the ecology. My goal is to gross $100 million by Christmas, 1993. I urge every corporation and individual who cares about this planet and the future of the children, to help raise money for the Heal the World charity. The Heal the World Foundation will contribute funds to paediatric aids in honour of my friend, Ryan White. I’m looking forward to this tour, because it will allow me to devote time to visiting children all around the world, as well as to spread the message of the global love, in the hopes that others too will be moved to do their share to heal the world. Thank you for coming. I love you very much.” -MJ

“I want to heal the world, help our children and they hate me for it. They want to destroy everyone righteous.” -MJ

“The minute I started breaking the all-time record in record sales—I broke Elvis’s records, I broke Beatles records—the minute it became the all-time best-selling album in the history of the Guinness Book of World Records, overnight they called me a freak. They called me a homosexual. They called me a child molester. They said I bleached my skin. They did everything to turn the public against me.” -MJ

“I know my race. I just look in the mirror. I know I’m black.”-MJ

“People wonder why I always have children around. It’s because I find the thing that I never had through them. Disneyland, amusement parks, arcade games — I adore all that stuff because when I was little, it was always work, work, work.” -MJ

“I don’t think in terms of colour or race. I don’t say when I write the song, ‘This is for the black and this is for the white’, I just write and it comes out and I’m influenced by what I hear… and it just comes out that way, I guess, since I was small up to now. It’s the total sum of music that I’ve been raised on. And I don’t think in terms of colour ‘cause I don’t believe in that. I really don’t. […] Music is colourless, for everybody. It’s for the world. It’s for… everybody to enjoy.” -MJ

“Great music and great melodies are immortal. I don’t care…you know, fashion changes, culture changes, customs change…great music is immortal. We still listen to Mozart today…any of the greats. Great music is like a great piece of sculpture or a great painting. It’s forever. You know, for generations upon generations to appreciate forever. And that’s…I know that’s a fact.” -MJ

“Love is the juice and energy that motivate my music, my dancing, everything. As long as love is in my heart, it’s everywhere.” -MJ

“With my music, with what I do, I would like to bring a light into the world.”-MJ

“Music has been my outlet, my gift to all of the lovers in this world. Through it, I know I will live forever.”- MJ

Links to the 7-day Notes:

Day 1: Morning, Evening

Day 2: Morning, Evening

Day 3: Morning, Evening

Day 4: Morning, Evening

Day 5: Morning, Evening

Day 6: Morning, Afternoon, Evening

Day 7: Morning, Afternoon, Evening

*You can find links to the lyrics of all the songs in the title.

If you’d like to support the work, you can here:

Support the Work

🎧 Suggested listening:

“Blood is not merely life force.

It is memory made living…

A library carried beneath the skin.

The body forgets.

Blood does not.”

From Naiya in Threa

Cycle 4-Month 5 | Sundrift

(Approx. Earth Date: September 13, 2025)

My name is Naiya.

I send this to you from Threa—a mirror world.

As I told you before, the Amaris kept records of everything to preserve their existence. To them, true death was not the ceasing of breath, but the forgetting. They believed that as long as your memory lived—as long as even one person carried you within them—you were not truly dead.

Blood was sacred to the Amaris. It was more than a life force. They believed it carried the memories of their ancestors. Every experience, every piece of wisdom attained by one Amari was recorded in the blood and passed down through generations. Their children were born already knowing, already aware of their history and purpose.

This is how they evolved faster than most. Knowledge was never lost, only accumulated over millions of years.

But blood could also become a burden.

When the original Amari volunteers mated with humans, the Council reacted with fury. Sacred blood was flowing in bodies it was never intended for. The Council was right to fear the consequences. Hybrids were hunted and exploited for their lineage, their lives altered forever.

It was this burden that placed Makael in an impossible situation, destroying his home and nearly killing him in the process.

However, without that mixing, their present, past, and future would have been erased entirely.

What I share with you now is taken from the pages of Makael’s diary. These are his words exactly as they were recorded.

[Journal Entry | MAKAEL ]

Translated from the Old Language. Selected expressions have been rendered in modern phrasing for clarity.

I don’t know how much time has passed in the recovery centre. It seems I was the only one left. Most Amaris healed quickly and were sent away to reunite with their families.

In those first days, I was barely awake before sleep claimed me again and again. Every time I tried to hold a conversation—or worse, move around–I would become so weak my eyes would fall shut against my will.

When Lythia disabled the healing bed and I tried to stand, my legs refused me. Even with Lythia and Ameni bracing my weight, I collapsed like a child who hasn’t learned to walk. Lythia assured me it would pass. She said it was a good sign I could even push myself up at all.

“Your Amari blood is working overtime to help your body adapt to this dimension,” she explained. “Without it, your body would have combusted the moment the craft broke the veil.”

She paused, watching me carefully.

“Human blood hasn’t evolved for interdimensional travel yet. The human body isn’t built for this.”

She still refused to explain the strange blue symbol she’d shown me. I stopped pressing. I realized I’d have better luck with Ameni.

One day, news came that the Council Elders were scheduled to visit the centre. They were coming to honor the healers for helping the people recover from the devastating events.

The same day, Lythia brought a strange new vial, a deeper hue than the rest. I drank it because it was easier than arguing. And she’d just find another way to give it to me. I was helpless in this bed, completely at her mercy.

I woke in a dim room to the sound of water.

I was in the same bed, but clearly in a different place. The air felt different. This room was pleasant. Plants of vibrant colors adorned the walls and the floor. I could hear a faint, harmonic sound. It wasn’t music, at least not any kind I recognized. There were no instruments, just a series of vibrating, glass-like tones that seemed to pulse from the walls themselves. Water flowed down from the far wall in a gentle cascade.

The Amaris believed water should always be in motion, always flowing. It was essential to their architecture. Every space, every home had some form of it.

Water was sacred to them. Where we relied on it to quench thirst, to clean ourselves, to grow our food…to the Amaris, it was life itself.

They spoke to it in reverence one might give a god. They asked it to heal them. They whispered their secrets and memories to the flow. They would spend time each day immersed in it, or simply sitting beside it, letting their fingers and feet trail over the surface. I was so lost in the sound of the cascade that I didn’t hear the door open.

“Ah, you’re finally awake. We were getting worried.”

Ameni’s voice pulled me back. He came closer, smiling at the confusion on my face.

“Where is this?”

“Welcome home.” He gestured to the lush walls. “This is your sanctuary.”

“We’re not in the recovery center?”

“No.” He placed a small cup in my hand. “Drink.”

I took a sip. It was a warm beverage I’d never tasted before. My muscles relaxed instantly.

“Can everyone stop sedating me?” I said, taking another sip.

Ameni laughed. “To tell you the truth, I am against it. But Aren told Ilys about your condition, and Ilys told Lythia. So—” He sat down in the chair next to the bed, leaning back and placing his hands behind his head. “—I’m outnumbered.” He studied me for a moment. “Personally, I’m very curious to see what you’re like unsedated.”

“My condition? What did he tell her?”

“Not much. Only that your emotions must be kept stable.” He paused, his blue eyes glowing in the dim light. “I’m assuming there is more.”

He leaned forward. “What can you tell me?”

I met his gaze but held my tongue. If Aren hadn’t seen fit to share the truth, it was safer to keep it to myself.

“It has something to do with my human blood,” I said casually. “I’m still trying to understand it.”

It wasn’t a complete lie, but I needed a distraction. I searched desperately for a way to change the subject.

Ameni tilted his head. “Yes, I thought so at first, but–”

“Why are your eyes blue?” I interrupted, blurting out the question that had been on my mind since I first saw him.

He blinked, looking surprised. “I’m sorry?”

“Why are your eyes blue?” I repeated. “All the Amaris I’ve seen have golden eyes. You’re the first I’ve met with blue eyes.”

“Ah.” He went still for a moment, then nodded slowly. “You were at the capital, weren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“What do you know about the Amaris?”

“I know your people came here long ago after a terrible war destroyed your world.”

“Your people? Your world?” He raised an eyebrow. “You’re one of us too, Makael.”

I didn’t respond. I didn’t bother telling him to call me Kael anymore. All of them–Ilys, Lythia, Ameni —pretended they didn’t hear me when I asked. They persisted in calling me Makael. I’d given up.

“Is that all they told you?”

“Yes.” We were focused on learning their way of life, not their history. They also didn’t trust me enough to tell me more about themselves. I didn’t blame them. I wouldn’t trust an outsider either.

“Well, that’s true.” He leaned back, his voice taking on the cadence of a storyteller. “Ayaleth, our old home, was a triple-star system with three inhabited worlds.”

“The golden-eyed, as you call them, lived on two of those worlds. They were the original beings of Ayaleth and naturally, the leaders. The blue-eyed lived on the third and were the strategists and scholars of our civilization.”

He paused, and something shifted in his expression, a mixture of pride and ancient sorrow. “I am a child of both worlds. My mother was from the blue world. My father, the gold.”

He turned his head toward the wall, watching the shimmering descent of the water.

I stayed quiet, waiting for him to continue.

“When the Great War happened, my mother’s people were fortunate enough to flee to Threa with the other Amaris.” He turned back to me. “Our families have always been close, Makael. Lythia’s too. I’m sure she’s already told you that.”

“No, she didn’t. Where is she?”

“She’ll be here soon with your medicine. We had to move you before the Council arrived.”

“They don’t know I’m here?”

“No. According to the records, you perished in the chaos. We intend to keep it that way.”

“What if someone tells them? I’m sure people saw me on the craft and I am shorter than you all. People will know.”

“They won’t.” Ilys appeared at the door. She gave her husband a sharp look. “Ameni, you were sent to check on him, not interrogate him. He needs to rest.”

Ameni stood and grinned.

“He’s stronger than you think.”

Ilys walked over and pressed a cool hand to my forehead. “The fever is down. That’s a relief.”

“I’m feeling alright.” I tried to reassure her.

She didn’t look convinced.

“How can you be so sure no one will talk?” I asked her. “If the Council finds me, they’ll know I was involved in what happened. They’ll kill me.”

“You’re in the Guardian’s Town now. You are safe here. Our people will protect you. No one will say a word.” She placed a hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “All you need to focus on is your recovery.”

“But if they come here–”

“The Council is not in control anymore, Makael,” Ameni interrupted.

I stared at him. The firmness in his voice startled me. The cheerful mask had slipped, revealing something much older and harder underneath.

“Ameni, not now,” Ilys warned.

“What do you mean?” I looked between them. “What do you mean they aren’t in control?”

Ameni opened his mouth, then closed it at Ilys’s expression. He sighed and stepped back.

Ilys turned back to me, her tone gentler now.

“We will explain everything when you are stronger. I promise. For now, rest.”

I was sick of resting. Sick of sleeping while the world changed. Sick of not being able to do anything when there was so much I wanted to do, so much I wanted to know. How could I ask anything when they all treated me like I might drop dead at any moment?

Ameni must have seen something in my expression because his cheerful demeanor returned like the sun breaking through clouds.

“Relax, brother. You look so much like Aren, we’ll just tell people you are Aren. Simple!”

I blinked at him, momentarily stunned by the absurdity.

He grinned. “Though if anyone notices you’re shorter, we’ll just blame it on a Meiolith. Very tragic, really.”

“A …what?”

“An ancient creature that shrinks anything it bites,” Ilys explained, shaking her head at her husband before turning to me. “An old story used to scare children into staying in bed.”

“Ameni, that’s ridiculous,” she added, but I caught the hint of amusement in her eyes.

“What? I’m only trying to help!” He held up his hands in mock surrender.

Despite my frustration, I felt my mouth twitch. Ameni reminded me of my siblings—that same annoying, persistent ability to find a joke in the middle of a disaster.

“See? He can smile!” Ameni looked triumphant. “He’ll be fine, Ilys.”

His gaze softened as our eyes met. “Truly, Makael. You’re safe here. No one will betray you. The people of this town would sooner cut out their own tongues than hurt the grandson of Kaelon.”

“You should both leave now.”

Lythia’s voice rang through the room. I was glad to see her.

Ilys smiled and squeezed my hand before dragging Ameni out.

Lythia began her examination. The healing bed gave her all the details of what was happening inside me. There was nothing I could hide from the bed. It listened and adapted to whatever Lythia told it to do.

“Do you know what they meant?” I asked her, already knowing she’d ignore the question and make me sleep. “About the Council?”

After a few minutes, she looked at me.

“You’re doing better than I expected.”

“Please.” I reached out, catching her hand. “Tell me.”

“It’s true.” Lythia said, her eyes fixed on me. “New Ayaleth is under the control of the Blue Guardians. The Council doesn’t know it…yet.”

She turned to the bed’s display.

“Who are the Blue Guardians?”

“Aren didn’t tell you?” She sounded surprised.

“No.”

“I shouldn’t be the one to tell you. It should come from your family”

“No…please,” my voice cracked. “They won’t tell me anything because they think I’m too weak to handle it.”

“They’re right,” she said, her voice softening but remaining firm. “There is a great deal of history, and your mind cannot process more until it stabilizes. Your body is already overcompensating, working at its limit just to keep you functioning. Show yourself some grace, Makael.”

She handed me the opaque liquid I learned was for deep recovery. For the kind of sleep that feels like a temporary death.

“I’m tired of waiting,” I muttered, taking the vial. I swallowed it in a single gulp. “How long is this going to take?”

The room was already beginning to blur at the edges. The plants seemed to melt into shadows.

“As long as it takes.” Lythia whispered. “We are going to make sure you can exist here.”

Silence.

“I will make sure of it.”

Her promise was the last thing I heard before the familiar darkness took me.

For the first time in days, the voices that haunted my dreams were gone.

End of Transmission 015

Read Transmission 016

For those who wish to understand the names within these transmissions:

Welcome to Echoes Between Worlds.

This is the fifteenth transmission. If you’d like to follow the story as it unfolds, subscribe to receive the next transmission. It’s free for everyone.

A new transmission will arrive every other week. I hope you enjoy them.

If you’d like to support the work, you can here:

Support the Work

Stories and reflections by Qibra © 2026. All rights reserved.

The Reading Room Presents:

Dancing with Strangers

In rooms where paper airplanes match the speed of spacecraft, two writers fall into a conversation regarding the craft, the philosophies behind storytelling, and the imaginary characters that keep them awake at night.

Photo by Inna Kapturevska_Ua on Unsplash

Qibra:

So…are we actually doing this?

Kelly Xan:

Oh, we’re 100% doing this. I’ve already started the party music! But, I have to turn it down now because I have to ask you something.

How would you define storytelling?

Qibra:

Oh, we’re starting off deep. I love that!

Kelly Xan:

We’re ripping the bandaid off early!

I ask because I’ve recently gotten into graphic novels, and they have become some of my favourite reads: the visuals, the plots, the dialogue. There’s something so fun about them that I wish I had realised way sooner.

I went through a period where writing was all about prose. Some of my favourite books are prose, and so, I imagined every story I wrote would have to match that style. But I’ve found that many of my stories require multiple styles to be told.

Qibra:

I love that you found your medium in graphic novels! After reading some of your work, I noticed your worlds are so vivid. It’s easy to visualize them.

Kelly Xan:

You are too kind!

Qibra:

Going back to your question…

I believe storytelling is technology. It’s how we preserve information and share it in a way our subconscious can understand.

We need to listen to the story and tell it the way it wants to be told whether that’s through film, art, words, music, dance. As storytellers, our job is to listen and honor what comes through.

How would you define storytelling?

Kelly Xan:

Storytelling is technology.

(goes outside to stare at the sun in a large valley and contemplate this beautiful definition).

I couldn’t agree more. It’s like learning a secret language, throwing it out in the world, and hoping that somebody else out there understands.

It’s another way of forming connections, like dancing with strangers at a party. It’s scary dancing alone, but you have to, or you’ll never find who’s out there on the floor.

Qibra:

I love what you said about storytelling being a secret language. When you find someone who speaks it, it’s magic. The world doesn’t feel so lonely anymore. And your definition–dancing with strangers at a party. Love, love that. That’s going to stay with me.

What was that moment like for you when you realized prose wasn’t serving your stories?

Kelly Xan:

I was shattered! I felt like a failure, like I wasn’t a real writer. It’s amazing to me that even in this day and age, with all of the incredible creative mediums we can pull from, we still limit ourselves to what we think society will take seriously.

But society has gotten so much wrong. Why let them determine anything about our worth?

Qibra:

I totally agree.

Kelly Xan:

Have you ever come across a similar obstacle? Picking up someone else’s voice because you thought it sounded “better”, or forcing yourself to try and write in a genre that did not sing to you, but would have potentially been easier to sell?

Qibra:

Yes, and I’ll be completely honest with you. For years, I thought serious fiction meant a specific kind of literary work. You know, dense prose, complex sentence structures, the kind of writing that wins awards. I used to try so hard to sound like that. I was convinced that’s what real writing looked like. But I think this is what all writers go through at first, right? That imposter syndrome phase until we discover our authentic voice, learn to recognize our own competence and trust it.

Kelly Xan:

You are definitely not alone with the imposter syndrome!

Qibra:

I know! When I stopped fighting my natural voice, everything started to flow. New inspirations came. I began to enjoy the writing process again.

Kelly Xan:
That’s when the magic happens!

Qibra:

Exactly! The Transmissions is an example of me finally embracing my voice. Minimal edits to the rough draft, just removing repetitions (which happens a lot; I’m mortified when I reread first drafts! [laughs]) and fixing flow and punctuation. But that’s me.

Kelly Xan:

(shutters) Oh, the horrors of the first draft!

Qibra:

(nods head) I learned my voice is naturally serious and leans towards simple, direct prose, and that’s okay. I’d love to add more humor. I love humor, and I’m practicing, especially with the Bureau of Barbarity prompts.

Kelly Xan:

You’re a natural with humour, really! Especially the dry kind.

Qibra:

(laughs) I’ll take that! Dry humor might be the only way I know how to be funny without trying too hard.

(pauses)

The Bureau of Barbarity is such a complex, fascinating universe. I can see the care and thought you’ve put into creating it. Every time a new prompt drops, I can feel Leo waking up from his slumber. By the time I finish reading, he already has opinions. So I’m curious:

How did the Bureau of Barbarity begin? What sparked this whole world into existence for you?

Kelly Xan:

Well, definitely had nothing to do with a pushy muse (side-eying Charlemagne’s fragile ego).

It started completely differently than what it’s become. Originally, the bureau was a mystical agency operating out of a crypt, coordinating and tracking (and encouraging) all evil elements in existence, and Charlemagne was desperate to make a name for himself there (which hasn’t changed much). It was a little idea that I thought was funny but lost steam for. And then I went, “What if I let others in on this fun?”

Qibra:

I love the vibe in the Bureau of Barbarity! I think one of the reasons why I love the world is no matter what darkness Mara and Leo face, there’s always room for a little whimsy. That’s probably why I can’t help leaning into humor every time I write in that world. Originally I had planned a series around Mara & Leo after I published The Deal last October. Then the Bureau of Barbarity came along and I decided to flesh them out there instead, and it’s been a blast.

The mirror fear in The Deal is real by the way. I’ve always been scared of mirrors, especially at night.

Kelly Xan:

No way!

Qibra:

Oh yeah! I avoid putting them in my bedroom too. Writing Mara was my way of sitting with that fear and trying to take control of it. And of course, I wish I had my own Leo. I always wanted a talking cat!

Kelly Xan:

Oh, what I wouldn’t give to have a talking pet!

Honestly, your take on the world of BoB is music to my ears. I love grimdark, but I always lean towards hope-punk. My goal with BoB was to create a space for creatives to experiment and be whimsical, giving players scenarios and prompts that lean towards light. I think the world lacks whimsy sometimes.

When I first started on Substack, I was still finding my real voice. The Bureau of Barbarity was the first place I permitted myself to be me. I had the character Charlemagne Kyng, and I needed to put him somewhere to get him out of my head (he demands a spotlight). I think it’s funny watching fairies file paperwork, or werewolves going through the mundanity of a 9-5.

Qibra:

I can picture the performance reviews alone. (laughs)

Kelly Xan:
Right? Oh, that has to be one of the next side stories I write for you all. We’ve almost hit the six month mark, he may end up sending a few out!

I really couldn’t be happier with what you all have brought to the table. Players have been fearless in approaching prompts (particularly cats with a lot of sass and claws)!

Qibra:

(laughs) Leo heard that. He says he’ll take that as a compliment although he prefers ‘discerning.’

I have to know. Charlemagne is such a fascinating and vivid character.

How did you create him? Did he arrive fully formed, or did you discover him as you wrote?

Kelly Xan:

Charlemagne always had his personality, but was a very different character in the beginning.

Qibra:

Oh really?

Kelly Xan:

He went from being a bitter little underworld creature to…something I can’t reveal yet. But he’s changed even from when I started writing him again last October.

I think characters change course just as much as plots do. There’s a first draft of a story, and that includes the first draft of characters. Char has evolved in front of my eyes to a person I would have never pictured, which is really exciting! He’s more cunning than he lets on. He has a lot of plans that he often leaves me out of (what a jerk). He likes to perform, but he’s always calculating his next move. He’s a character that pushes my writing, and that’s a lot of fun!

Qibra:

Oooh, I can’t wait! I love Charlemagne. In fact, all your characters feel alive.

How do you breathe that kind of life into characters? What makes them real for you?

Kelly Xan:

(tearing up) First of all, thank you! That is the best compliment someone could give me on my writing!

Whenever I write a character, either characters of my own or fanfiction (because who doesn’t love indulging in some good fanfiction), I have to make them silly. If I pick up a character that comes off as very too cool for school, I have a really difficult time writing them. I put characters in all sorts of humorous scenarios that I don’t share with the public, but as writing exercises for myself.

Qibra:

Like?

Kelly Xan:

Oh, the list is endless! I toss them in chalk drawings on sidewalks to see what they’d do, kite flying contests. If there’s an ensemble, I’ll put them all in a fair setting and see who goes for the rides versus the games.

The bureau staff has had a lot of carnival visits. They leave with cotton candy and painted faces and tons of prizes (they definitely weren’t hyper competitive and borderline violent about said games).

But by writing those things, I’m not intimidated when it comes to making them look foolish in stories. They can fail or fly or flounder because I’ve already written about them getting gum stuck in their shoe or screaming on a rollercoaster.

Qibra:

(laughs) I love that! I should try that with some of my characters.

Tell me about The Author Wars?

Kelly Xan:

Oh, TAW is simultaneously the bane of my existence and my child (laughs). TAW will be my first graphic novel, a fantasy-thriller-comedy with characters I’ve been working on for a long, long time. Even over the Bureau of Barbarity, it is the story that is closest to my heart, making it the hardest one to give to the public to read and scrutinise.

Qibra:

Oh, I absolutely cannot wait to get my hands on TAW! And yes, I completely understand that feeling. It does feel like you’re putting yourself out there. I wonder why that is? Maybe it’s because there really is a piece of us in our stories.

For me, Substack actually helped me put my work in front of people regularly. Without it, everything would probably still be saved on my computer. One thing I’ve learned is that fear often disguises itself as perfection. We wait until something is ready and for me it took many many years. I had to let go of the idea that a piece must be perfect before it can be seen.

What do you do in those moments to get over that hurdle when the time comes to share?

Kelly Xan:

Oh…cry, mostly. (laughs)

It’s so hard for me to share my stories. BoB is a little easier than my main story that I am working on behind the scenes. TAW came to me when I was 27, but the characters of TAW have been with me since I was 6.

Qibra:

The fact that TAW has been with you since you were 6 years old is incredible. No wonder it feels so hard to give it to the world, but the fact you care about them so much already tells me we will love them too. You can always tell when a writer loves their characters.

Kelly Xan:

100%! The majority of my stories are written in action sequences, index cards with doodles of characters, dialogue I liked, scene scenarios, etc. Sometimes, I pull fellow writers onto phone calls and improv with them as characters, because I need to hear the lines spoken aloud. And sometimes, I have to go at it alone! I cannot tell you how many conversations I’ve had with myself in my room as Charlemagne Kyng to determine how he would react to situations.

Qibra:

Oh how I would love to witness a Charlemagne Kyng improv session. That sounds equally chaotic and brilliant. I can almost hear him. (imagines)

Kelly Xan:

He’s a beacon of chaos. Maybe I’ll record myself one day during an improv session. It would be a riot! (laughs)

Is Transmissions the first story you’ve ever written and published? Do you have other stories you are working on behind the scenes?

Qibra:

The Transmissions is the first story I’m publishing publicly which is a huge milestone for me. I do have two other stories in progress though. A sci-fi I started in 2023 and an epic fantasy I began in early 2024 that I paused when the Transmissions arrived. I have a terrible habit of stopping a project for a new exciting one! (sighs)

Kelly Xan:

Don’t worry! I will bother you about writing those stories as time permits.

Is there one close to your heart that you struggle to give to the world?

Qibra:

Honestly, each story feels hard to give to the world because there’s a part of me in all of them. But I’ve come to understand that stories come to us because they want to be told. Someone once said that stories or the ideas (not just writers but all inspirations) we receive could be the answer to someone’s prayer, and that changed my perspective forever.

Kelly Xan:

I adore your perspective on storytelling, that a tale could be an answer for someone else.

A quote I live by is from philosopher Marshall McLuhan, “There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew.” I think your outlook on storytelling totally encompasses that feeling.

Qibra:

What a quote Kelly. I wasn’t ready! But what a great reminder that we all have a part to play on this spaceship.

Kelly Xan:

It’s one I’ve never forgotten!

Transmissions feels like a story as old as time. Just the introduction about controlling someone’s narrative by renaming aspects of their home. It’s chilling because it’s real. We’ve seen it all throughout history, even in the present day.

Qibra:

Exactly! you’ve touched on exactly what I’m trying to explore in this series. How renaming is erasing identity and severing people from their history to control the narrative of who they are. It IS old as time. We’re watching it happen right now.

Kelly Xan:

The fact history is repeating itself in real-time is why stories like Transmissions are so significant.

How did it come to you?

Qibra:

To tell you the truth, the Transmissions came to me the same weekend I created my Substack. While I was setting it up, I was also thinking of what to post. I had a few short stories I had written. I thought maybe I could start with those when bits of Transmission 001 arrived and I had to stop everything to write it down. That’s how it started.

Kelly Xan:

You know it is a powerful story when it makes you drop everything else!

Have you plotted it out to the very end, or do you let your characters steer your direction for the next instalment?

Qibra:

I’m more of a pantser…sometimes a plantser. I have a general idea of where things are going but each transmission surprises me. Transmission 013 for example was supposed to be Makael’s POV, but when I sat down to write, Naiya wanted to share Kaelon’s message instead. In a way, I’m figuring it out alongside my readers too.

Kelly Xan:

I never heard of the term “pantser” and I am now completely obsessed with it. Sort of an adrenaline rush, writing that way!

Qibra:

It is! I think that’s something that isn’t talked about enough…how scary it can be when you have no control over where they’ll take you next. But it’s also what makes it fun. They surprise me every time. A lot of times I’m just like: Oh, is that what we’re doing…huh, I guess we are…I guess that’s what we’re doing.

What about you?

Kelly Xan:

I write the same way: the characters dictate the stories for me. I’ve tried to force myself for decades to be a plotter, but I have no control of them. They do whatever they want! (cackles)

Do you ever go write a story with a “message” in mind? Whether to inspire others to dream, to be courageous, to cover all the mirrors in their home?

I definitely didn’t do that when I first read The Deal…definitely didn’t.

Qibra:
(laughs) Mirrors are so creepy!

Do I write with a message in mind?

Honestly? Most of the time the message usually finds me rather than the other way around. I rarely sit down thinking this story needs to say this. The Transmissions are a perfect example. I’ve had this obsession, decades of ancient history, metaphysics, psychology, consciousness, time and memory all living in my head with nowhere to go.

Then Naiya’s story came to me. I didn’t know what the story would say until it started saying it. The themes emerged through the writing. I don’t think I would be able to write the Transmissions even 3 years ago. I feel I’m at the stage of my life now where I could write about these things in a way that can be read and understood.

What about you? Do you write your stories with a message in mind?

Kelly Xan:

I tend to write tales I hope inspire people to pursue that thing that sets their heart on fire, whatever that is for them. I suspect for many of us, it’s that dream of our inner child. Maybe we won’t find a live T-Rex one day, but we could become an archaeologist, or work at a museum!

Having that mindset, changing my writing into something for the general good has helped me redesign my self-critique to be a friend. It also helped me realise I cannot always write conventionally.

Qibra:

I love that. I really do. Writing for the general good. That’s a noble and beautiful mission. I love stories that mean something beyond entertainment. You know stories that remind people what’s possible and motivate them to go after their passions. And the inner child thread feels very connected to what we were saying earlier about finding our authentic voice. Maybe that’s the same thing. The inner child already knows what it wants to say. Our job is to just get out of the way.

When I tried writing novels in the conventional way, my brain resisted. I’d lose steam halfway through every time. When I created my Substack and began sharing the Transmissions, I learned that episodic fiction was the style my brain needed. It’s perfect for the kind of stories I write. So, I completely relate to that recognition of THIS is how my stories want to be told. The excitement and the aliveness matters more than fitting some idea of what we should be doing.

Kelly Xan:

I think there’s an added difficulty in serialised stories. Episodic is tricky! Every instalment has to leave the audience wanting more, like an array of cliffhangers. I think you do it quite beautifully with Transmissions. You have an ethereal and earnest voice. Perfect amount of tension, perfect timing for the reveal - makes me want to make a bowl of popcorn whenever a new episode posts!

Qibra:

Thank you so much.

It’s the kind of story I wish existed. So in a way I wrote it for myself first. Seeing others connect with it means the world to me. I cannot put into words just how much. To everyone following the Transmissions…you are truly the best!

Kelly Xan:

No, you are the best for bringing us the incredible story of Transmissions!

Building community is so important, and I think every station in life can require a different type of community. Without player engagement, BoB couldn’t work. It was a wonderful reminder to me of how important a supportive collective is: not a bunch of yes-man or naysayers, but a group that encouraged growth.

How significant is community to you in your writing, whether it be writing stories with others, having a supportive group around you, or forming connections with creatives that encourage your writing journey?

Qibra:

You’ve done a fantastic job with the Bureau of Barbarity, and I think projects like that are essential for exactly the reasons you described. Writing with others, building something that depends on community participation changes how you see your own work. BoB scratches an itch in my brain. I normally don’t write horror, so it’s the perfect sandbox to explore something different.

Kelly Xan:

Wait, you don’t write a lot of horror? That’s crazy! You have such stellar suspense in your stories!

What types of genres do you read in? I’m gonna guess you are a big fan of science fiction, based on Transmissions.

Qibra:

(laughs) Thanks! But yes, it’s true. I AM a sci-fi fan but also fantasy, historical fiction, horror, romance…I read everything. I’m a huge speculative fiction lover. Since I was a kid, I would read anything that caught my attention or made me curious, and then write about it whether in a story, an essay or in my journal. Writing was always how I made sense of everything. With Substack I’m able to share some of those curiosities with my community from time to time.

Kelly Xan:

I’d love to read your essays. I’m sure they’re thoughtful and fascinating.

Qibra:

Oh that’s very kind. Maybe one day! (smiles)

Going back to what you said about community. I completely agree.

Community means everything to me. Without it, the writing journey can be an isolating and rather confusing experience. I mean, so many of us wrestle with imposter syndrome and self-doubt and having a supportive community around you makes it feel less like you’re screaming into the void.

My first community was actually my sister. She’s my first beta reader and honestly she’s the one who holds me accountable. (laughs) She nags me all the time to finish the transmissions so she can read them. She’s a big fan of the Transmissions and has her own theories and ideas of how she thinks it will end but she makes me swear to not spoil it for her. I also have a few other amazing people in my life who give me feedback on other projects I’m working on.

Kelly Xan:

That’s such a beautiful friendship you have with your sister! Having support is like giving someone a set of wings to fly with to achieve your dreams.

Qibra:

It really is. I’m very grateful to have her.

I also think about how lucky we are to live in a time where we can find our people online. Yes, I know we complain about social media constantly and sometimes rightfully so…but there’s something wonderful about connecting with people you would never have crossed paths with in real life. Like finding our tribe across oceans. It’s amazing!

What are your favorite genres? And do they overlap with what you write or are they completely different?

And, Kelly, Leo is curious about what’s coming in BoB, and honestly, so am I. If you could tell him one thing about what lies ahead (without spoiling everything), what would it be?

Kelly Xan:

In full honesty, I have no idea what my favourite genre is to read (laughs). Sometimes I’ll go from reading random lectures from the 1800s to a Depression era vampire series, then a classic, and then a modern horror (about vampires, probably). I love dissecting what motivated someone to write something. I look at the side characters and the descriptors and where the author puts significance. I treat stories like diaries, and if someone puts all the effort in to write up a tale and put it out for the world to judge, I want to take good care of that diary if it falls into my hands, by spending hours analysing the characters and language choice (cackles)!

And as for BoB…look over your shoulder, Leo, you aren’t safe! (I’m sure you’ll be fine, but also…look out).

But, two things to know:

1) the bureau cannot be completely trusted, and 2) there is not one single enemy.

Players are going to start meeting more and more BoB world characters. I have stories and prompts that I’m preparing to drop, but deadlines have been pushed back a bit because I can’t stop expanding on the challenges (I blame Char).

But, that gives everyone plenty of time to catch up on stories and prompts and speculate on what’s to come!

Now, I have two questions for you:

When was the first time in your life that you considered yourself a writer? Was it when the first time an idea came to your head, or when you first put pen to paper?

Who was the first writer you read that made you go oh, writing can be life-changing? A classic work, a Substack author, or even a cinema piece that had stupendous dialogue!

Or, am I getting ahead of myself? Maybe we can dive into all that next time. We can’t possibly answer all life’s questions in just one episode!

Qibra:

(laughs) Leo says he’s always watching. That cat is too damn arrogant for his own good.

The Bureau cannot be completely trusted? I have so many questions! But I’ll try to wait patiently.

And you’re absolutely right. We can’t answer all life’s questions in one episode although I can speak to you all day. Those last two questions deserve their own table and their own pot of coffee.

Kelly, this conversation has been such a joy. You came in with party music and left me with a lot to think about. That’s the best kind of conversation.

Kelly Xan:

I agree! Still have my party hat on, just feeling more philosophical as the music dies down. This has been such a wild ride, Qibra. Until next time!

Qibra:

Until next time!

This has been the Reading Room: Dancing with Strangers

Thank you for joining us!

The Reading Room is an ongoing conversation about reading and writing, life’s most puzzling conundrums, and the significance of storytelling. Tune in June 1st for another instalment.

In the meantime, check out The Community Shelf, an online literary pit stop for you to refuel your creative juices with the Substack’s community recommendations.

Want to meet Charlemagne for yourself? Find Kelly Xan and the Bureau of Barbarity here:

These Slayers of Mine

A New Directive

Day of the Chronically Optimistic Writer

If you’re curious about the Transmissions, start here:

If you want to know more about Leo, here is where it all began:

Catch up with his latest adventures with the Bureau:

If you want to know more about Storytelling as technology, find out more here:

"Stories come to us because they want to be told." — Qibra

"It's scary dancing alone, but you have to, or you'll never find who's out there on the floor." — Kelly Xan

🎧 Suggested listening (optional):

For those who wish to sit with the frequency of names while reading. Let it carry you between worlds.

“A name is not a word.

It is a map the soul was given before it arrived.

Change the name…

and you change the path.”

In Amari tradition, a name is not simply something you are called. It is a map. It carries instructions for the soul to navigate its destiny.

For those who have been receiving the TRANSMISSIONS, here is a guide to the names revealed so far.

Naiya (Nigh-yah)

• Amari: NAI (to awaken/remember) + YA (of the heart)

• Meaning: She who remembers.

Kael (Ka-el or Ka-yel)

• Amari: KA (light) + EL (guardian)

• Meaning: Guardian of the Light.

Makael (Ma-ka-el or Ma-ka-yel)

• Amari: MA (of the earth/physical world) + KAEL (light-guardian)

• Meaning: The Light-Guardian bound to the Earth.

Bunn (Boon)

• Origin: Human

• Meaning: Believed to be the first lands where Amari and human lineages crossed.

Ilysia (Ih-lee-si-yah) / Short form: Ilys (Ih-liss)

• Amari: IL (soul/frequency) + YS (to see)

• Meaning: She who sees the soul’s frequency.

Ameni (Ah-men-ee)

• Amari: AMEN (hidden/eternal) + I (belonging to)

• Meaning: He who belongs to the Hidden One.

Lythia (Lith-ee-uh)

• Amari: LY (flow) + THIA (healing)

• Meaning: The healing flow.

Kaelon (Ka-elon)

• Amari: KA (light) + EL (guardian) + ON (eternal)

• Meaning: The Guardian of the Eternal Light.

Aren (Ah-ren)

• Amari: AH (first breath) + REN (path/destiny)

• Meaning: The Origin-Walker.

  ---

  This guide will be updated as further transmissions are decrypted. The frequency of the Old Language remains complex, but the map is becoming clear.

Last updated: April 12, 2026

New to the Transmissions? Start here:

🎧 Suggested listening:

“A name is not a word.

It is a map the soul was given before it arrived.

Those who wish to control a life do not begin with the body…

They begin with the name.”

From Naiya in Threa

Cycle 4-Month 5 | Sunpeak

(Approx. Earth Date: September 12, 2025)

My name is Naiya.

I send this to you from Threa—a mirror world.

Now I’d like to share a journal entry from Kael, recounting his experience after the Scattering when he arrived at the new settlement.

He kept detailed records of his time in New Ayaleth and what he learned. I believe this was his way of making sense of it all. Or perhaps it was his Amari DNA at work.

The Amaris recorded everything they could. It was a need.

Preserving memories and history as accurately as possible through different mediums was how they ensured their existence survived erasure. Writing alone wasn’t enough, so they preserved knowledge in crystals, in symbols drawn into the ground, in water.

If their physical records were destroyed, then nature herself would bear witness. The sky, the oceans, the trees—even the animals—whisper their stories for those with ears to listen.

What follows is taken from the preserved pages of Kael’s diary. I share his words exactly as they were recorded, translated from the Old Language.

[Journal Entry | KAEL ]

Translated from the Old Language. Selected expressions have been rendered in modern phrasing for clarity.

I don't know how long I’d been unconscious. When I came around, it took a while for my vision to focus. Everything was blurred. When the haze finally lifted, a face came into view. The most beautiful woman I had ever seen.

For a second, I thought I’d died and she was an angel.

Her mouth was moving. She was clearly speaking, but I couldn’t hear her. After a few minutes, my ears adjusted and some of the words came through.

“You are safe, Son of Kaelon.” Her voice was calm and steady. Her dark amber eyes filled with concern, watching me intently.

I tried to speak, but my tongue would not obey. When I attempted to raise my arms, they too were heavy. I was paralyzed. Panicking, I willed my head to move, but no matter how much strength I summoned, I could not lift it or tilt sideways.

“Do not force it. You are well. However, it will take time for your body to adjust. Rest. I will return.”

I watched her walk away, unable to call her back. A strange dizziness overtook me, and I felt myself falling back into darkness…

Again.

I woke to voices this time. Discussing in hushed, urgent tones.

“Should we tell him?” A woman’s voice.

“Not yet. Let the boy recover first. The healer said it will take some time for his body to integrate the change.” A man replied.

“Yes, but he will demand answers.”

“We shall address it when the time comes.”

I opened my mouth and a small sound broke through. I was finally able to speak.

A woman came to my side quickly, and I felt cool hands lifting mine.

“You are safe now, Kael. We are very happy that you made it here.” She held my hand gently.

I tried again. “Aaahren.”

The woman looked away, as if needing a moment to compose herself, before turning back to me.

“He was fine…according to his last message.”

“Where…is…he?”

“I don’t know. We don’t know yet. We are looking for him and the others.”

I moved to sit up. This time, my hands obeyed me. I found the strength to raise my head. The bed, as if sensing my intentions, began to shift—reshaping itself into a chair.

“I have to find him.”

“I understand. And you will. We will. But right now, you are in no condition to do that.”

“Who are you?”

The woman smiled, and I suddenly saw the resemblance.

“You can call me Ilys. I am grateful to meet you. I heard much about you. Well, not you, but your family.”

“Ilys?”

“Yes, Ilys, daughter of Kaelon.”

It all made sense. The resemblance to Aren was uncanny.

“This is my husband.” A man stepped forward and stood next to her. I noticed he had dark blue eyes. This was the first time I had seen an Amari with eyes other than amber. As he leaned forward, I saw he had a gold ring, crowns of light circling his pupils. They were striking, and I could not look away.

“My name is Ameni. We are very happy you are safe. Welcome to New Ayaleth.” He smiled and placed his hand on his heart.

“May we have your full name?” Ilys asked. Her eyes were her most prominent feature, glowing brighter than any Amari I had ever encountered. It felt as though she were looking not at me, but into my very soul.

“Kael.”

“No, what was your birth name?”

I was stunned. No Amari had asked me that before. They had all accepted the name I adopted. I’d hoped a name like theirs would help me belong while I was among them.

“I…I am called…my birth name is Makael.” Hearing that name again felt strange. Like it belonged to someone else.

“Makael,” she repeated softly, as if turning the name over in her mind. “Ma...kael.”

I knew what she was doing. She was parsing the meaning. Ma, marking my human ancestry and Kael—as my grandmother used to say— meant guardian of the Light in Amari. Many hybrid families named their children this way, honoring Amari ancestors while claiming their human lineage.

“Just call me Kael.” I told her.

“You called yourself Kael to hide your human side. But I can see the ma in you.”

She studied me. I began to feel uncomfortable under her sharp gaze.

“It is the earth that gives your fire something to burn. Embrace your birth name, Makael. It was given to you for a reason.”

“That name doesn’t feel like it belongs to me anymore.”

Ilys shook her head. “You are the son of two worlds, Makael. Embrace it. ”

I vaguely remembered what Inarion had taught me in class. Names were sacred to the Amaris, and they took special care when naming their children. They believed names carried frequencies, and those frequencies carried knowledge, information, instructions for souls to navigate life.

As if hearing my thoughts, Ilys added, “If you change your name, you will lose your connection to your destiny. Your soul will roam this world confused and lost.”

I did not know how to respond to that, so I stayed silent.

“Where am I?” I asked instead.

“You are at one of the recovery centers in the city,” Ameni replied. “The healers advised you stay here for the next few days while they monitor your body.”

“Why can’t I leave the bed?” I had tried to swing my legs to the side, but it felt like the bed kept me in place.

“This is a healing bed. It is to keep you in place while your body recovers.” Her voice again. The healer had returned.

“Aren told us you can be quite headstrong,” Ameni said with a slight smile. “We don’t want you to hurt yourself…or get lost.”

“We live nearby. We will come often, and when you are ready, you will stay with us,” Ilys explained.

She leaned closer and whispered in my ear.

“This is your home now, Makael. You are our family. First recover, then everything else will come in due course.”

She kissed my forehead.

“We will see you later,” Ameni said, and with a smile, they left.

The young healer was watching me closely as I drank from the crystal vial she brought. A mixture to stabilize my blood, which was reacting to this place.

Her name was Lythia. She was young, one of the Amaris born on Threa. I noticed the younger generation had darker eyes than the older ones. In fact, their eyes looked closer to mine though brighter. Lythia’s, I realized, had a bluish ring.

She was born in New Ayaleth but had lived in the old Amari lands for her education and training. Now, she was here permanently.

I suspected Lythia was merely humoring my questions to keep me from trying to leave.

It was working.

If I am completely honest, she was the most fascinating person I’d met in my life, and she was someone I could relate to. Someone who understood what it felt like to be in a place where you didn’t truly belong. It must have been hard for her to be isolated from her people while living in the new settlement.

“I am conflicted,” she admitted. “A part of me is grieving the lives and homes we lost. Another part of me is glad to be reunited with my community.”

I nodded. A feeling I was all too familiar with.

“Where exactly is here? The air feels different.” Without the substance she gave me every day, even breathing felt labored. My head felt heavy and sometimes numb. My body got cold and hot randomly. I lost sense of time. Day and night blurred into each other, and I’d been sleeping most of the time. I’d already missed several visits from Ilys and Ameni.

“I am not allowed to disclose exactly where, but let’s say it is beyond your lands.”

“Are we even on Threa?” I finally asked. The question had been building for days. The way they acted, the way my body struggled all suggested I was somewhere my body wasn’t meant to be.

Lythia paused, choosing her words carefully.

“Yes, technically we are still on Threa. But we are not in the known realms.”

“Explain.”

“Imagine Threa as a building with multiple floors. The lands you come from, where Amari was, that’s the first floor. New Ayaleth is on the second floor.”

It didn’t make sense, but I didn’t want to admit it. So I nodded. I could find out more from Ilys and Ameni.

“Will I be able to go back? My mother and my siblings are waiting to hear from me.”

“Yes, you can. Eventually. But your body cannot handle another trip, not until we stabilize your life force. Although…” She stopped.

“What is it?”

Lythia looked around as if battling with herself. She sighed before facing me.

“I recommend you don’t go back.”

“No, I have to go back. I need to find Aren. I need to return to my people. They’re waiting for me.”

“If you go back, you might not be able to return.”

“What do you mean?”

“Our crafts will be monitored by the enemy now. All of Threa is being watched. Anyone who tries to enter the known realms will likely be destroyed upon entry. We cannot risk losing more people needlessly.”

I stared at her, not sure if I understood.

“Are you saying I can’t leave even if I wanted to?”

“It would be suicidal.”

I was extremely frustrated.

“Wouldn’t they find us here too?”

“The Watchers do not have the capability to pierce through this layer yet.”

“We think…” she added, though she didn’t sound convinced.

“I met them. I’m pretty sure they could. There was nothing ordinary about those beings.”

She gasped. “You met them? How is that even possible?”

I almost bit my tongue at my recklessness. This wasn’t the time to share such details, especially after what happened.

“I mean I saw what they did in Amari. I’m sure they’re capable.”

Lythia thought for a moment before speaking.

“It is possible,” she said slowly, “but our location does not exist in the same time as theirs.”

“What do you mean?” My head was swimming.

“Remember the layers I mentioned?”

I nodded

“Those layers don’t just exist in different places. They exist in different times.”

I watched her with glazed eyes. She was losing me. The Amaris had a way of overwhelming you. It was the combination of their looks, their eyes, their voices, the way they spoke…I always found it hard to hold my concentration in their presence.

She smiled.

“Think of it this way. The first layer, where you come from, exists in what we’d call the present. Now our past. New Ayaleth, here in the second layer, exists in the future.”

“The future,” I repeated slowly, unsure if I heard her correctly. I still didn’t understand how it connected to the Watchers.

“Their future. The Dark Ones are monitoring the present. They have not thought to monitor what has not happened yet, so none of their devices or technology is here.”

“But they could come here, can’t they?”

“It is possible, “ she acknowledged. “There is one group powerful enough to pierce through the layers, but I doubt they’d work with the Watchers.”

“Who are they?”

She hesitated. “I have said too much already. You will learn everything soon.”

“How would you know if they work with the Watchers? They could be and you would be none the wiser.”

She nodded in agreement. “That’s true. We have considered it. Which is why we will take necessary steps to ensure our people are safe.”

“There is nowhere safe if such a powerful race is working with the Watchers. We’re in more danger than I realized.”

I had originally hoped the Amaris were able to help my people, but if they themselves were being hunted, if they couldn’t protect themselves, then my people had no chance.

The hopelessness of the situation started to become clear.

Lythia suddenly jumped up from the chair she was sitting on, and placed a small device on my forehead. I relaxed, the tension clearing.

“Makael, please stay calm. Everything is going to be fine.”

“I told you, call me Kael.”

She shook her head. “I was given clear instructions to remind you to stay in control of your emotions. They will make your recovery nearly impossible if you do not neutralize them.”

I remembered what Aren said to me: keep your thoughts, emotions and actions all above the device’s frequency. Master your emotions.

It was harder than it seemed. I wish he was here.

I fought back the tears.

“I was just thinking how hopeless it all was.”

“No, it is not. That is what they want you to think. It is how they control worlds. They destroy the people’s sense of hope, make them feel trapped, that there is no way out. So people give up and accept their rule. Don’t let them succeed.”

“It’s hard not to.”

“I know. But you will soon see that steps have already been taken to change everything. There is a plan.”

“How? What plan? How do you know all this?” I remembered something Aren said about a revolution.

Lythia glanced around before removing a necklace that was hidden beneath her clothing. She tapped the square blue pendant and dropped it into my palm.

“Look.”

I watched the blue shimmer and shift to white—then a pair of blue wings appeared. The same symbol I saw on the door when I met Aren.

She tapped it again. The wings vanished, the crystal returning to its innocent blue.

“I can’t tell you more here. But you will know everything soon.”

“Wait–”

“For now, you must rest. Your mind and body must rest and integrate everything before they can take more.”

“Lythia–”

She pressed another vial to my mouth, and I drank reluctantly. I felt the familiar darkness enveloping me. Her face was the last thing I saw.

Then I heard something. Quiet, as if someone had slipped between my thoughts.

Makael…Son of Bunn.

It is time

Rise.

End of Transmission 014

Read Transmission 015

For those who wish to understand the names within these transmissions:

Welcome to Echoes Between Worlds.

This is the fourteenth transmission. If you’d like to follow the story as it unfolds, subscribe to receive the next transmission. It’s free for everyone.

A new transmission will arrive every other week. I hope you enjoy them.

If you’d like to support the work, you can here:

Support the Work

This is a space for all of us to share what we’re reading and discover new stories together, co-created with and .

If something has moved you, taught you, or stayed with you long after you finished it…drop it here in the comments.

The Community Shelf Guidelines

This is a space for thoughtful recommendations and shared discovery.

Please share:

• Stories, books, essays, articles that moved you (include Substack links; for books include title and author)

• A brief note about why it resonated (encouraged but optional)

Please don’t share:

• AI-generated content

• Graphic sexual content or extreme violence

• Your own work (this is for recommendations, not self-promotion)

• Spam or promotional links

How it works:

You share in comments. We periodically update the shelf with recommendations that resonate with the community.

Not every recommendation will be added—we’re tending to this shelf thoughtfully to build a meaningful shared library.

This shelf grows with us. Drop by any time to share what you’ve enjoyed or discover what others recommend.

Let’s build something beautiful together.

COMMUNITY RECOMMENDATIONS

Fiction - Substack

• The Road Through Midnight by (shared by ) “In the north of the world, there is a village that doesn’t appear on any map. But, tonight, the village does want you to see it. An epic celebration of folklore! This mini-serial has become one of my favourites to go back to, the perfect amount of mystery, whimsy, and scarily thought-provoking!”

• Smugglers’ Tunnels and Sea Dragons by (shared by ) “Leanne’s stuff is full of gorgeous world-building and rich characters.”

• FEVERCHAIN by (shared by )

  “A phenomenal serial of love, tragedy, wretched family ties, biker gangs, and spectacular sapphic werewolves. The world NEEDS stories like this. We need weird and unnerving and steamy, all tied up in stunning prose and profound characters. These are the stories that make the world go ‘round.”

• The Outsider by (shared by ) “A gripping character-driven Western with a fresh twist—come for the outlaw chase, stay for the quiet weight of belonging.”

• Vibes’ Case Files by (shared by )

  “What if Scooby Doo but make it burning man.”

• The Pale by (shared by )

  “Like Mel Brooks took Eastern Folklore, let it get a bit feral, and then handed it back with teeth.”

• Vampirii by (shared by ) “Radu the vampire has a problem: he feels like a predator, an animal. He wants to spend his days killing, devouring, destroying. His master, Zoltan, is delicate, soft, a wimp. But what is most terrifying is this: Zoltan is calm, he even feels emotions. How will it end between the two?”

• Tales by Kadir by (shared by ) "Tales By Kadir is my go-to, when I want to get absorbed. This story especially has lived in my head rent free for almost a year. Her writing is unabashedly honest. Hope you all enjoy it as much as I did."

• The Library of Time by (shared by ) “Here is one that wrung my heart out: 'The Library of Time' by Gabi Jai-Devi Brogan. This story actually brought tears to my eyes, and that's a rare occurrence.”

• Dark Device of the Great Chasm by (shared by ) “I am thoroughly enjoying all of Kummer Wolfe’s work and this is the rollicking fantasy adventure that got me started.”

• Moonlight by (shared by Qibra) “A lunar colony girl dreams of visiting Earth—the green paradise she's seen in old National Geographic magazines. The ending left both of us broken…her and me. Exceptional climate fiction worth reading.”

• The Thing That Keeps Me Safe by (shared by Qibra) “A woman who analyzes failure modes turns that analysis on her fear of flying. Her solution? Learn to fly herself…literally. Metaphysics meets psychology in a story about unlocking your brain's hidden powers. Loved the ending…because yes, I too want to fly.”

• Of Hotdogs and House Spiders by (shared by ) “So good. Funny, heartfelt, absurd, and strikingly relatable.”

• Krikk Vraz: Assignment Earth by (shared by Qibra) “Krikk Vraz sips space martinis and wears a sparkly cape while trying to stop humanity from tearing a hole in spacetime with nuclear testing. Retro sci-fi that is funny and smart.”

Fiction - Books

Poetry - Substack

• the map is alive by (shared by Qibra) “ ‘but my grandmother doesn't understand these lines, she unfolds the map, like a tablecloth, saying guests are coming’ - This one stayed with me because of the image of the grandmother. How she refuses to accept borders the way the world defines them. There’s something powerful in that instinct to flatten the lines and make space for people again.”

Poetry - Books

Non-Fiction - Substack

• Day of the ___Writer by (shared by Qibra) “One of the best community collabs I’ve seen in my time here. 100+ fiction writers share day-in-the-life pieces, blended into mosaic poems. A fantastic way to meet the writers behind the stories.”

• I Didn't Know a Poetry Tour was a Thing Until I Did It by (shared by ) " ‘Poetry is a bee carrying a nuke.’ Yeah, Philip K. Dick would've said it exactly like that. You can't explain writing like this, you can only read it, live it, and let it change you.”

Non-Fiction - Books

“We read to know we’re not alone.”

-C.S. Lewis

What are you reading? Drop your recommendations below. 👇

This is a human-first space. Let’s celebrate the heart behind the words.

Last updated: April 13, 2026

This is primarily for me. I wanted a place to track what I’m reading and make it easy to revisit. But you’re welcome to browse and see what resonates.

I’ll update this as I read, adding both fiction and non-fiction—stories, essays, videos, anything that I enjoyed or made me think.

I’ve also opened a Community Shelf—a shared library for all of us. If you’ve read something that moved you, made you think or absolutely enjoyed, drop it in the comments there and I’ll add it!

Link:

CURRENTLY READING

Fiction - Books:

• Solaris by Stanislaw Lem

  

• Remembrance of Earth's Past Trilogy by Cixin Liu

  

Fiction - Substack

The Ritual by

• Drifter by

  Reality Dispatch

  Drifter #1: The Eyes of Another

  This is the beginning of a new ongoing series. It follows a microscopic alien entity that arrives on Earth and learns about life by inhabiting the bodies of animals, one host at a time. Each entry explores a different creature and a different way of living, fear, hunger, violence, instinct, attachment, emotions unknown to its home planet. What starts as…

  Read more

  4 months ago · 3 likes · 2 comments · Jim Minns

Non-Fiction - Substack:

• Consciousness Isn’t Made In The Brain, It’s Being Channeled: A Theoretical Physicist Calls For “Scientific-Spirituality by

Consciousness Cartographer

Consciousness Isn't Made In The Brain, It's Being Channeled: A Theoretical Physicist Calls For "Scientific-Spirituality"

Growing up, schools taught us that it’s the electrical activity in our brains is what makes us conscious, sentient beings…

Read more

a year ago · 2001 likes · 218 comments · Dr. Jason Yuan

Non-Fiction - Books:

FINISHED (RECENT)

Fiction-Substack:

• The Thing That Keeps Me Safe by (April 2026)—Three-part story about a woman who analyzes failure modes and learns to fly by unlocking her brain’s hidden powers. The metaphysics of accessing the unconscious mind through systematic approach resonated deeply with my work on consciousness evolution.

  Chris Hicks - Disco Insomnium

  The Thing That Keeps Me Safe

  Fear doesn’t always come from ignorance…

  Read more

  2 months ago · 11 likes · 1 comment · Chris Hicks

Fiction - Books

Non-Fiction - Substack

Non-Fiction - Books

“Words are events, they do things, change things. They transform both speaker and hearer; they feed energy back and forth and amplify it. They feed understanding or emotion back and forth and amplify it.”

-Ursula K. Le Guin

---

Last updated: June 3, 2026

Photo by www.kaboompics.com from Pexels

I’m very excited to share something special with you.

Wendy Russell has generously offered to narrate the series!

You can’t imagine how thrilled I am. When I heard her voice for the first time, I knew immediately she would be perfect for Naiya.

Her Kiwi accent brings the otherworldly quality that a voice from Threa needs. Calm, measured, ancient but alive.

Starting with Transmission 001, Wendy is bringing Naiya’s words to life in audio form. You can now read or listen, whichever works for you.

This is a collaboration I’m deeply grateful for. Wendy is doing this out of love for the Transmissions.

If you love her narration, I encourage you to check out her work.

More audio Transmissions coming soon.

Thank you, Wendy, for giving Naiya her voice!

Listen to Transmissions 001, 002 & 003 now!

Photo by www.kaboompics.com from Pexels

🎧 Suggested listening:

“Awakening is not the becoming of something new.

It is the remembering of what you have always been.”

Image by Eden Moon from Pixabay

From Naiya in Threa

Cycle 4-Month 5 | Dawn

(Approx. Earth Date: September 11, 2025)

My name is Naiya.

I send this to you from Threa—a mirror world, now on the brink of collapse.

Before we continue, there is something I must tell you.

For centuries, after the gates were sealed, the Amaris were taught that the attempt to guide humanity was a failure. They were told enough damage had been done, and humans must evolve on their own.

The Council was wrong.

Let me explain why.

Humans are the guardians of Threa. Despite their forgetting, their original purpose was to be the caretakers of this planet.

The Council was right that sacred law was violated. But they were wrong to believe this meant humans should be abandoned.

Guardians who have forgotten their purpose need help remembering, not isolation.

The natural order was broken when they were left to struggle alone.

A world is meant to have a single dominant, intelligent species to serve as its leaders. That was the original design.

The non-interference protocols in the Accords were supposed to protect developing species while they evolved, shielding them from stronger, more advanced races who might take advantage of them. The Watchers and their allies, of course, did not respect those protocols. In their quest to dominate, they made certain others remained unevolved and weak for what seemed like eternity.

Races like the Amaris were more dangerous to them than humans because they live long and retain all their memories—their own and their ancestors. Humans, on the other hand, are not consciously aware of theirs.

The only way the Watchers could fight against a race like the Amaris was to exterminate them.

At first, they thought removing their memories and scattering them across other worlds, giving them new identities would solve their problem. But they soon realized that many of them managed to remember. A word, an image, an event. Something would trigger the awakening. Their memories were never removed, only dormant. They came back online because light cannot be truly extinguished. It might dim, yes, but it is never truly gone.

They were extremely difficult to control because once they remembered, they would begin resisting by sharing their memories and what they knew. This was very bad for the Watchers and their allies who rely on being invisible controllers.

Humans, as Kaelon learned while he lived among them, carry the same seed of light the Amaris have. The ability to remember and awaken to their true roles.

He also came to understand that for the natural order of things to be restored, they would need to learn to live with the humans. And in order for humans to take their rightful place, they would need assistance.

Before I show you what happened when Kael arrived at the new settlement, there is something you need to hear.

Among the archives, I found an entry Kaelon left behind. A message recorded before his transition, addressed to his children.

It was never meant for anyone else, but I believe you need to hear his voice. You need to understand what he saw, what he built, and why everything that follows matters.

These are his words translated from the Old Language.

[Crystal Archive - KAELON]

My dear children,

My heart is grieving. It has not stopped since the day I looked into her eyes, promising to return very soon, only to never be seen again. I am afraid it is a grief that has never left me. Instead, it has eaten away at me for centuries.

Over the cycles, I have busied myself with many things, including protecting all my children, here and elsewhere. It has taken much of my life force to stay connected through the Astrael. I knew the danger, but I could not do otherwise. I had to do this, or I would have withered away and passed on ages ago. For what is a soul without purpose, without its loved ones?

Now, I can feel the transition coming close. Do not mourn. Do not be sad. I have waited a long time to be reunited with my love. Instead, be happy, for I will be exactly where I need to be.

My dear children, I have learned firsthand the consequences of putting yourself at the mercy of others, despite their best intentions. Remember, if there is anything you take away from this message and the others I have left for you, it is this: only you know what is best for you and for your timeline. No one else does.

If you allow others to make that choice for you, then you should be ready to suffer one way or the other.

There is something I have been working on in the shadows. I apologize for not telling you sooner, but it was for your safety. I did not want to bring more difficulty or shame to our family again, which is why this had to be done with the utmost care.

Aren, my son, I have told you part of it, and you immediately vowed to join the movement. A father could not have been more proud.

My sweet Ilysia, forgive your old father for wanting to shield his daughter from this burden. I have left the rest of the information in the family seal. You are both my blood. You have the right to know, and you have the right to choose what you do with it.

Whether you decide to involve yourselves in this matter or not, both choices are acceptable. I must admit, a part of me would be happy if you chose not to be part of it. It would make my transition much easier.

If you do choose to join, remember this is a long journey. Some things were put into motion long before you were born that cannot be changed. There are many others already in place, waiting for the next instructions. If you join the Guardians of the Blue Light, my children, I have left instructions for Aren to take my place. Everything I have learned, my vision, and my mission—all of it is in the seal.

This initiative is the only way for us to make this world our permanent home. We cannot run across the universe forever. We cannot reclaim our homeworld. What we can do is live in harmony with the natives of this planet.

They have so much potential. If you could only see what I have seen, you would understand why this mission is extremely crucial. I do not believe another race is as capable of assisting in their evolution as we are.

The Accords, though made with the best intentions, do not serve us or them. Taking millions of years to evolve is long, arduous and pointless. Knowledge is the only way forward that will help them evolve at a quicker pace—thousands of years instead of millions, hundreds instead of thousands, and eventually, ideally, months instead of years.

I believe that at this pace, we can make Threa the first of its kind. A world where an advanced race and the natives live side by side in harmony. Together, we could become a role model for other civilizations among the stars. A roadmap and guide proving there is a way to help everyone evolve without harming them.

Of course, I have no doubt this will bring the attention of our enemies. But with the help of our human allies, together we could phase out of their awareness, and one world would forever be free from their grip. The way that could be done is something I have left instructions for in the seal. Read it carefully and integrate it. That is the only way forward without losing many lives.

The Council’s way of non-interference might work for some time, but it is not a fail-safe plan. Running each time does not help anyone. The dark ones will never tire of hunting us. So instead of running, let us be courageous and do something that has not been attempted before.

I have seen the possibilities. I have seen the timelines, and there is one that is what we need to work toward. It was because of this that I decided to create the Guardians of the Blue Light.

Sometimes, my dear children, you must be the change you want to see in the world. Never wait for someone else to do it.

Perhaps you are the one everyone is waiting for.

End of Transmission 013

Read Transmission 014

For those who wish to understand the names within these transmissions:

Welcome to Echoes Between Worlds.

This is the thirteenth transmission. If you’d like to follow the story as it unfolds, subscribe to receive the next transmission. It’s free for everyone.

A new transmission will arrive every other week. I hope you enjoy them.

If you’d like to support the work, you can here:

Support the Work

🎧 Suggested listening:

“Darkness does not fear weapons. It fears light.

For knowledge is the oldest form of light. It travels farther than stars.

Where knowledge spreads, light follows.”

Image by Joe from Pixabay

From Naiya in Threa

Cycle 4-Month 5 | Deepnight

(Approx. Earth Date: September 10, 2025)

My name is Naiya.

I send this to you from Threa—a mirror world we once called home, now standing on the edge of collapse.

I have been sending warnings into your world by sharing the memories the Watchers tried to erase. Stories of my ancestors who loved across worlds, who sacrificed everything and refused to be forgotten.

This is the story of how they fell and rose…

Again.

After the Scattering, the Amari began rebuilding.

Their new habitat slowly grew into something that resembled a home. By then, relocation and renewal were not unfamiliar to them. The memories and skills they inherited from their ancestors had made them resilient, able to flow with change and adapt quickly.

Not all hearts accepted what had happened.

The younger Amaris struggled the most. Many spoke openly against the Council’s decision to flee and hide again rather than resist. To them, retreat felt like surrender.

The Elders, however, were inclined to adapt quietly. Survival had always been their guiding principle.

For a time, the people tried to heal. They rebuilt homes, tended the land and attempted to begin new lives, but beneath the surface, something else was stirring.

It began with small murmurs of dissatisfaction passing between the young. Then the whispers grew louder.

A group began speaking openly among the people for the first time. They called themselves by a name in the Old Language that does not translate easily into yours. The closest meaning I could find is the Blue Angels, though among the Amari, it carries a deeper sense. In their tongue, it means those who carry the living light. Guardians of the flame that must not go out.

Soon their symbol, a pair of luminous topaz blue wings spread wide against a field of white enclosed within a sphere, began to appear through the settlements.

Some saw it in their mind, some in their dreams. Others saw it etched into walls and doorways, while some, like Kael once did, recognized it from the old teachings.

The Blue Angels rose quickly in number much to the Council’s dismay. Most of their members were young Amari and a few elders who quietly joined their cause.

From what I later uncovered in the archives, this group had existed and was hidden from the public for a very long time. They operated quietly, approaching certain individuals in secret and recruiting them one by one.

The Council had always known of their existence, but they chose to watch rather than confront them, assuming the movement was too small to matter. If the resistance ever decided to come out openly one day, then the Council would take appropriate action. They feared the Blue Angels would sow discord among the people and instill ideas that were, in their opinion, too human.

To the elder Council members, the concept of fighting and violence was abhorrent, but there was one among them who secretly agreed with the Blue Angels. He never told another soul, but he believed the young ones were right, that their current ways might not be the only path forward, nor the best way to deal with their enemies.

The Amaris found themselves facing a situation all major civilizations must face when they are pulled to evolve. Do you hold on to your old ways or change to adopt a new path that is essential for your survival? Those that resisted were replaced, and those that adapted survived.

Over the centuries, the Blue Angels slowly evolved into a formidable network. Their members embedded themselves quietly within Amari society, within its institutions and even within the architecture of the cities themselves.

They waited for the right time to show themselves, certain the right moment would one day come.

And eventually, it did.

When I was studying the records, I was surprised to learn that it was Kaelon who had first begun the movement. Shortly after his exile was lifted, the Council believed Kaelon had finally abandoned his irrational and impossible requests to return to human lands so he could live out the rest of his life with his human family. When they heard he had married an Amari woman and started a family, they assumed he had accepted their ways and chosen a quieter life. They did not realize that he had begun working in the shadows.

With a small circle of trusted companions who shared his vision, Kaelon started preparing for something the Council could not yet imagine.

Change.

He believed the Council was no longer fit to guide the Amaris in this new era. He held a radical idea that the Amaris and humans could one day live together in harmony. For that to happen, humans must receive guidance because if left alone, human evolution would take a very long time. But with carefully introduced knowledge and tools, humanity could progress far more quickly.

You see, to Kaelon, knowledge was the true catalyst—the key element that allows civilizations to leap forward. No society reaches its potential entirely alone. He was not wrong. In fact, it was through the earliest Amari volunteers which he was a part of, that humanity first began learning the key ideas and tools needed to build civilizations.

What Kaelon had not anticipated was the presence of the Watchers and their allies on Threa.

The Amaris and humans were never alone in this world.

If the Council hadn’t abandoned their original mission and pursued Kaelon’s vision, the Watchers would have been alerted, and both humans and Amaris might have been destroyed before their experiment could bear fruit.

The Watchers would rather wipe a planet clean and begin anew than allow such a union to succeed.

It was because of this the Blue Angels adapted their mission. Their original strategy was simple:

First, relocate to a safer region of the planet, farther from human lands. Second, educate their own people, teaching them new ways of thinking about survival, defense and cooperation. Third, replace the aging Council members with those willing to guide the Amaris into a more active role in shaping the future. And finally, construct a planetary defense network capable of protecting both Amaris and humanity.

After the revelations of the Day of Scattering, their mission expanded. Blue Angel agents would travel quietly into human territories. There they would begin identifying and recruiting specific individuals—influential humans and hybrids capable of understanding what was at stake.

The Watchers had already placed their own hybrids among human societies, tasked to watch closely, ensuring their plans unfolded undisturbed. However, the Blue Angels intended to outmaneuver them.

Once their people were in human lands, education would begin carefully and invisibly, keeping the Watchers unaware. Then when enough humans were ready, the Amaris and humanity would stand together.

And together they would free Threa from the Watcher’s control.

There was something even the Blue Angels did not yet know. Hidden within the ancient family seal—the one Aren left for Kael—was a final instruction.

Aren had taken his father’s vision and perfected it.

It was as follows:

If Threa could be freed, the Blue Angels would not stop there.

They would aid any world suffering from Watcher control because Aren had come to understand a simple truth. Freedom for one world was never enough. As long as the Watchers ruled elsewhere, no civilization was truly safe.

To the Blue Angels, wherever light had been dimmed or extinguished, it must be restored. As a result, their mission became clear:

Carry the light into every corner of the universe where it is needed. Because where one world falls, all worlds are threatened. And where one light is extinguished, darkness spreads.

So, a new order had risen. A new band of guardians and a new hope.

Even though the Watchers did not realize it, their greatest nightmare had already begun.

End of Transmission 012

Read Transmission 013

For those who wish to understand the names within these transmissions:

Welcome to Echoes Between Worlds.

This is the twelfth transmission. If you’d like to follow the story as it unfolds, subscribe to receive the next transmission. It’s free for everyone.

A new transmission will arrive every other week. I hope you enjoy them.

If you’d like to support the work, you can here:

Support the Work

Photo by syd.trgt on Pexels

If there was one thing Leo absolutely abhorred, it was waiting.

Waiting for the sun to go down. Waiting for Mara to wake up so he could eat before collapsing exhausted from working all night. Humans nowadays didn’t appreciate what their feline companions did every night while they slept soundly in bed. All they did was complain about being woken at sunrise to prepare food.

Weren’t they supposed to wake up with the sun anyway? Leo never understood it.

Ancient humans knew exactly who his kind were. Guardians of this world, and treated them with great reverence. They carved statues to honor their guardians, and adorned them with the most expensive jewelry as gratitude for all that they did. Now, humans bought cheap plastic and called it caring.

The disrespect!

Afternoons were the worst. At least he could sleep in the mornings, but waiting for Mara to come home, then fall asleep felt like an eternity.

It had been over a week since Charlemagne’s letter arrived. Leo had debated whether he should even bother reading it, but he was glad he did, because what happened next nearly gave Mara a heart attack.

He smiled, remembering the moment when she leapt off the couch, screamed, and threw the letter across the room. She pointed at it with a trembling finger, her eyes almost popping out of their sockets.

Someone apparently had embedded a second message inside Char’s letter using magic. A brilliant move, in Leo’s opinion.

After Mara calmed down, she read it aloud. She was still jumpy. One would think that after being trapped in the mirror dimension three months ago, she’d be unfazed by simple magic.

Maybe he had protected her too much. Maybe he should bring her along sometimes. More exposure might help.

The message was from someone calling themselves Red. Who names themselves after a color?

Must be an alias or a code name. One that Leo didn’t recognize.

“Fellow Agents,” Mara read. “You’re welcome for saving you from reading more of Kyng’s drivel—”

Leo snickered. He liked this Red already.

Mara looked at him. “Are you alright?”

Leo nodded. She still didn’t get used to hearing him laugh. She always thought something was wrong.

She continued.

“Trust me, it wasn’t anything worth wasting your eyes on.”

He lifted his head, sat up and listened carefully.

“I’m sure you have many questions. I don’t have much time, not nearly enough to reveal everything that is happening. I will keep this brief, and will write again as soon as I have the chance. For now, I simply have a warning: We have been compromised. All we have now is each other. We are now the hunted.”

Nothing Leo didn’t already know.

“Our world is being infiltrated by metaphysical snares…Enter the wrong abandoned house, and you will walk out with something new attached to your shadow…”

Leo narrowed his eyes. Red sounded dramatic. Why tamper with Char’s letter just to tell him information he already had? He had hoped for something useful.

“To get to the point, Kyng is providing you with an additional letter containing information on our enemy. This second letter is a snare. Whether or not Kyng is aware of this attachment’s tampering, I cannot confirm. But such information is not worth putting yourself at risk. I’m imploring you to close the letter following my sign-off, do not move forward with Kyng’s request, and wait for my next writing. Remember: all we have is each other now. You’ll hear from me soon. Good luck. Red”

Mara lowered the page.

“What do you think? You don’t know this Red guy, right?”

No, he sent telepathically while shaking his head. She was getting better at receiving and understanding his messages, but her interpretations were still sometimes off, so he added gestures she’s familiar with to help her.

She nodded.

So far it seemed to be working.

“Maybe it’s safer to just do what the Charmagal…Kyng guy said. He’s like the boss, right? And you know him?”

“Yes.” It came out as a strained meow. He still needed practice forming human words.

“So? What do you want to do? Listen to Kyng or wait for Red?”

Leo hesitated. He was quiet as he contemplated. Red might be manipulating him. What if Red was Charlemagne’s way of testing him, checking where his loyalties lay, to see whether he could be trusted. Leo wouldn’t put it past Char. In fact, the more he thought about it, the more it seemed like something Char would do.

On the other hand, he wanted to know more about Red. Leo knew Char couldn’t be trusted. The last time they met, there was something off about him, almost fanatic, a bit unhinged.

Leo made up his mind.

He met Mara’s eyes. She nodded. She knew his answer because if there was one person who knew him well, it was Mara.

She folded the letter and placed it back in its envelope. “We’ll wait for Red then,” she said. “Why am I not surprised? You know what they say about curiosity, Leo—”

He braced himself.

“Curiosity killed the cat,” she finished, then burst into laughter as if it were the funniest thing she’d ever said.

Leo rolled his eyes.

Humans love to quote that line when it was never curiosity. It was actually care. Care killed the cat then they changed it. So, what Mara didn’t understand was that worrying about which path to take would kill him. His curiosity saved him by helping him choose.

And they thought cats had nine lives.

Bless their simple minds.

Nine days later, Leo sat on the windowsill bathing in the afternoon sunlight, waiting for Mara to come home. He glanced at the clock.

4:30 PM.

It didn’t look like it had even moved. It had been 4:30 for at least an hour.

He sighed. A nap would help. Otherwise, he’d lose his sanity staring at this cursed mortal invention.

A loud CRASH jolted him awake.

Mara lay on the floor surrounded by fallen bags and mail, glaring at him. She looked absolutely furious.

“Leo! I told you to stop leaving your damn balls in front of the door.”

Oops.

He had meant to remove them before she got home, but he’d overslept.

He went up to her, climbed into her lap, and placed a paw on her heart. A formal apology gesture.

Are you hurt?

She sighed. “I’m fine, but imagine if I were wearing heels. I could’ve broken my ankle.”

He removed his paw. She never wore heels. Humans loved hypothetical scenarios that would never happen.

Leo’s attention snapped to a ruby envelope on the floor. He leapt toward it, inhaled sharply.

Red

“That’s why I ran home,” Mara said. “I think it’s from that agent.”

Leo scratched impatiently at the seal.

Mara removed the envelope from his reach. “Patience, Leo. Let me take off my shoes first.”

After they settled onto the couch, Mara began to read the letter. “Agent, I apologise for the delay…”

Leo leaned in closer.

“I’m severely limited with my communication outlets. Here, everything operates differently. Wherever here is. That, I have not uncovered. I hope you’ve resisted the temptation of opening that second post from the bureau. That knowledge, that information—none of it matters now. There is a great tracker on our trail, monitoring our every move, informing our targets of our whereabouts and how to capture us. What this enemy wants, I don’t know, but I fear the bureau has had a hand in feeding it a rather peculiar diet”

Mara paused, and they looked at each other.

Leo suspected someone—or some people—at the bureau were corrupt.

Leo nodded, and Mara continued reading.

“The bureau has been compromised, and Charlemagne is either playing a pristine performance of a gullible fool, or is genuinely an idiot, which may make him more dangerous.”

An idiot, Leo agreed. No doubt about it.

“My family have been in the bureau for multiple generations, and with every generation came the sense that the org’s purpose was changing. I should have listened more, shouldn’t have permitted myself to marry my work with blind trust. I started my digging too late, only motivated to probe the bureau following Kyng’s arrival. Sure, I found the hidden lairs, but could never get inside. I needed a key, and as it goes, one never happens upon a key in the bureau. Every lock is a unique code to discover.”

Aha, I knew it. He is using an Alias. He’s hiding his true name. I wonder who it is.

Not that it helped. Leo hadn’t got his full memories back yet. Agent Red must have been a bureau member. Explains how he knew about him.

“A new mission presented itself to me: find a single key to a single passage—”

Why was he telling us this?! Get to the point! Leo thought.

“It was the usual hunt, and I had found myself with an advantage. A slow creature this was, by injury or other cause,—”

Leo began to feel irritated at the unnecessary details. His thoughts began to wander as Red began to drivel on about some hunt. As Mara’s voice filled the apartment, Leo tried to remember the dream he had just before Mara’s loud entrance. There was a woman. An older woman with a cane. He tried to remember the name he called her. Anice? Angeta? No, Agneta?

“It did not run, but skulked away. I did not pursue it, but ran for the bone”

He felt bad for letting Mara continue reading for him when he was no longer listening. He lifted his paw and was about to touch Mara’s arm to signal she could stop when the next words stopped him.

“In the tooth of a beast, that was the only key I’ve ever retrieved. Granted, I haven’t gotten my chance to use the ivory key, as I vanished shortly after the fact. But I knew then, and I know now, that it had to be for the bureau.”

Mara glanced at him. “Did you get that?” She asked.

Leo nodded. Continue, he sent while tapping the letter. It was finally getting interesting.

“But why? It is in searching for this ‘why’ that I come to you. To continue this excavation into the bureau, we need shovels. We need more keys. And I suspect the best place to start is our targets. Where these passageways, hideaways and secret rooms lead to? It is for us to uncover. I have found that these keys are of unique colours, textures, and shapes, and such characteristics correlate to whatever they open. I thank the bureau’s showy founders and the even more so ostentatious Kyng for this convenience.”

Who is we? What does he mean we? Leo wondered. Surely, he doesn’t mean…he doesn’t expect—

“I thank you for your aid in this cause. I know how painful this task is. Our worlds have been turned upside down, but our core mission has not died. We fight for those who cannot. We defend the world against the forces of darkness. And this mission is not for the faint of heart, but for the good.”

Who does he think he is?! We need more keys? No, HE needs more keys. I don’t need them. He thanks me for my cause? A cause which he didn’t bother to ask for my consent or my acceptance. The arrogance! He was worse than Char. Maybe they were related.

“And, Leo, I could not ask for a better ally in this cause. Red” Mara finished.

Leo stared at the paper. The audacity.

She put the letter aside and pulled him into her lap. She stroked his back, concerned.

“I don’t trust him.’’ Leo purred in agreement.

“Look, Leo. I’m still trying to make sense of it all, but I don’t like how he wants you to go after those mirror monsters just for a key.”

He agreed with her. He was already busy tracking the mirror entities, trying to figure out their next move. He didn’t have time to be Red’s errand boy.

“I don’t want you to do it, and definitely not by yourself, okay? Promise me.”

Leo went still. He didn’t tell her about the nightly hunting the past few weeks. He couldn’t, out of fear she would lock the window at night. He would go crazy if he couldn’t leave the house.

Maybe he should speak to Char and confirm everything. But then Char would just tell him to ignore Red and send him on another wild goose chase of his own. Both were insane. It was like choosing to work with crazy or crazier. Different flavors of insane.

Better to avoid both. I’ve been doing well alone.

But since some of his memories returned, he remembered what it was like to have a partner. He’d love to have someone who could help him. Mara would jump to help if he asked, but he didn’t want to put her in danger, especially after everything that had happened. She was still recovering from the trauma she’d experienced.

“You know what this calls for?” She asked, tapping his chin.

Pasta?

“Pasta!”

Yes, perfect. Exactly what he needed after wasting his time and energy on Red’s nonsense.

Leo rubbed his head against her arm. Mara laughed and cuddled him.

“Macaroni and eggs?”

Leo squinted his eyes as he studied her. He wasn’t sure if he heard her correctly.

Just macaroni and eggs? No nasty vegetables?

She always forced him to eat vegetables which she claimed were healthy. He was perfectly content to not eat a single vegetable for the rest of his life.

Mara laughed.

“Don’t look at me like that. Yes, I meant just macaroni and eggs. Sounds good?”

Leo purred.

She planted a kiss on his head before standing up and carrying him to the kitchen.

He loved watching her cook. Occasionally choosing the dish for the day. Mara, despite her other shortcomings, didn’t feed him that rubbish they called cat food. She gave him real, home-cooked food for which he was deeply grateful.

“One macaroni and two eggs coming up, sir. Please have a seat.”

She settled him down on his usual spot on the counter where he liked to observe the cooking.

It was his favorite time of the day. Just him, Mara and some good food.

After dinner, Leo was deep in thought. He was thinking about his dream earlier. It didn’t feel like a dream, more like a memory.

He was standing behind the curtains, hidden by the shadows, watching a woman give a lecture. It seemed he was sent there to observe any abnormal behaviors. Half way into her lecture, the audience began to repeat every line she uttered. Leo stood there, stunned, as was the speaker. He watched as a man approached her and quickly whisked her away as the audience continued to repeat her lines. It was the strangest thing.

Then another scene. He was in front of her and she was smiling at him.

Leo tried to remember as much as he could. Somehow it felt like they were close. How close Leo did not know. But he needed to find her. Tonight. How, he wasn’t sure. He could always ask Char, but he would ask questions about his letter, and despite his feelings about Char, he didn’t want to lie to him. No, he had to deal with this on his own.

He knew he would remember more on the other side. This damn body was limiting his abilities.

He waited until Mara was in deep sleep before settling in his bed and slipping out of his body. It was the best sensation. So liberating, and he could finally be all he is.

His mind sharpened, and all he needed to do was think about something and there it was. In this form, he was able to access answers and knowledge that was blocked when he was in the body. Here, he could go anywhere and do anything.

He focused on the dream and that woman. A single thought, and he found himself in a dark room.

Leo started to walk around, taking in the surroundings. He was in some kind of office. Before he could reach the desk, he heard footsteps. He looked around and saw a large mirror on the wall. It hummed.

A portal.

Leo was instantly in front of the mirror. The footsteps were getting closer. He walked up to the mirror and dissolved into it. He turned around and from this side of the mirror, he could see the office. The door opened, and a woman walked in. She carried a cane. He couldn’t see her face just yet. She was mumbling something to herself. Leo watched her quietly.

She set something on the table and sat down. Leo inched closer to see what it was.

“Hello, Leo.”

Leo’s head snapped up.

She could see me? That’s not possible.

Yes,” she said calmly. “I can.”

She can also hear me? How is that even possible? No human could see him in this form.

Leo was stunned.

The woman smiled — small, satisfied.

“Well. That answers that.” She tilted her head slightly. “You’re alive. I told Kyng he was wrong.”

She approached the mirror slowly, unhurried. She wasn’t leaning on the cane now. Up close, she looked strong. Grounded.

“Kyng closed the file far too quickly,” she continued.

A pause.

“I disagreed. Loudly. Then permanently.”

Agnes. Professor Blyth. Leo finally remembered her name.

“You always called me Professor B,” she said, as if answering a question he hadn’t voiced. “I assume that hasn’t changed.”

She studied him for a moment, then added, “You look like you have a great deal to say. Give me a moment.”

Leo watched, baffled, as she crossed the room and lay down on the dark brown leather couch, folding her hands loosely over her stomach and closing her eyes.

Is she… did she just fall asleep?

He stepped out of the mirror and stared at her incredulously. He went to the desk and examined the object she’d brought with her. A red key.

‘Yes,’ her voice said mildly. ‘That’s it. You received the letter as well?’

Leo spun around. Agnes was standing beside the couch, observing her own body with detached curiosity.

“I always forget how strange that looks,” she murmured. Then she turned to him. “You’re staring.”

A beat.

“Honestly, Leo. We did this for years.”

We did this before?

“Yes.” She smiled faintly. “The Bureau was thorough. Through the mirror I could only see you — so I learned to read everything else. Posture. Timing. Hesitation.”

You were guessing?

“I’m not telepathic,” she said dryly. “You’re simply very transparent when you’re thinking too hard.”

She stepped closer, gaze flicking briefly to the desk.

“Did you find your key?”

No. I dismissed the letter. I suspected it was Char testing me.

She nodded once. “Reasonable.”

“I was skeptical too,” she went on.

A pause.

“And annoyed. Which is why I verified it.”

Looks like he was telling the truth.

“What were your instructions?”

He says I need to find an orange key called— Leo paused. It doesn’t matter.

She didn’t press him. Simply noted the omission.

“Do you know where to begin?”

Red says it thrives in a wet environment. A natural body of water.

“Then that narrows it considerably,” she said. “If you need assistance, you know how to reach me.”

I doubt you could. I live with a human named Mara on the opposite side of the world.

“Distance has rarely been an obstacle,” Agnes replied. “But the offer stands.”

“I’m glad you came,” she added after a moment. “Keep me informed.”

She gestured toward the mirror.

“It’s one of them, isn’t it? The kind you warned me about.”

Yes. A portal.

“I suspected as much.” She glanced at it, expression sharpening. “I never turn my back on it. And I don’t use this office after dark.”

Why not remove it?

“I tried.” A thin smile. “The building manager invoked heritage protections. Apparently, existential risk does not outweigh decorative value.”

If I can use it, others can too.

“I know,” she said simply. “I’m making arrangements. What are you going to do about Red”

Leo was quiet for a moment.

Let’s humour him for now. I’ll look for this key.

Agnes nodded. “Information first. Conclusions later.”

And Char?

“Not yet,” Agnes said. “If the Bureau is compromised, we wait until we’re certain.”

I should go.

“Yes.” She inclined her head.

“And Leo—”

He paused.

“Don’t disappear again.”

Then he was gone.

Now, another problem presented itself.

How does he get Mara to help him find this key? He’s going to need some help. It’s not like he could carry a key all by himself through the city. He could…if he was in Istanbul.

There, he could have just hopped on a tram or the bus, key in mouth, and no one would bat an eye. The humans there understood. Cats were community members, not property. They rode public transport, wandered freely, and the city cared for them.

As it should be.

But here? In Victoria? He’d make it two blocks before someone would try to rescue him thinking he was a poor lost kitty.

The indignity!

This is why he prefers hunting his own way.

An idea bloomed and Leo began to work on it right away.

It took two whole days and nights, but finally, on the third morning, Mara woke with unusual clarity.

“We’re going to Thetis Lake,” she announced after breakfast, already pulling on her jacket.

Leo’s ears perked up. Finally.

He had been trying to plant the idea and location in the dream state while she was asleep, but she kept forgetting as soon as she woke up. Humans were such fickle things.

Better late than never.

He stood up and stretched, yawning. He needed another 10 hours of sleep, but the quicker he dealt with this, the better.

She pulled out the carrier as he approached. Leo stopped dead in his tracks and glared at her.

“Don’t start.” Mara set the carrier on the floor.

He hissed.

“It’s safe. What if you panic and I crash?”

I’m two hundred years old, woman. I don’t panic.

“Remember last week? You panicked when that bird hit the window.”

Leo blinked. Mara’s psychic abilities were getting stronger, but he doubted she could understand exactly what he said. Lucky guess, probably.

That’s different. The sound was deafening. Those things aren’t natural anyway. The way they sit on power lines. Probably electrocuted themselves. If they are real, then they’re not so smart, are they?

“And people are going to judge me,” Mara continued, hands on hips. “Oh, the cat’s loose in the car? How irresponsible. Not to mention you don’t like leashes.”

A leash! The audacity! What an insult!

“You hiss at their dogs. I don’t need that kind of side-eye at the lake.”

I don’t care. Leo stepped backward. I refuse to be caged like some…some common house pet or a dog.

“Get in, Leo.”

Leo hissed loudly and sat down. The look he gave her was pure defiance.

Mara sighed, rubbing her temples. “Fine. FINE. But if you hide under the brake pedal and kill us both, I’m haunting you forever.”

Leo’s tail swished once.

She grabbed her keys, muttering. “Two hundred years old and still acting like a damn toddler.”

Leo growled.

“Good.” She said, opening the door.

He raised his paw and slapped her once before running down the hallway.

Leo sat in the passenger seat, tail wrapped around his paw, staring straight ahead with perfect dignity.

Mara glanced over. “You know, most cats would be terrified right now.”

Leo didn’t respond, but she felt a wave of smug superiority wash over her.

She rolled her eyes, but then smiled despite herself because she was getting so much better at reading him.

The parking lot was nearly empty when they arrived. Leo leapt out gracefully, landing on the gravel without a sound.

A woman walking her dog stared. The dog moved to the other side. Leo had that effect on dogs.

Mara smiled tightly. “He’s very well-trained.” she said not sure why she was explaining herself. “Leo, behave. Be nice.”

Leo’s tail swished, once, twice. He couldn’t stand their faces, their drooling mouths. So unhygienic.

The woman and the dog moved on.

Leo and Mara walked along the trail toward the northwest shore.

“Did you know,” Mara said, not one for silence, “there’s a legend about this lake?”

Leo’s ears swiveled toward her.

“Back in the 1970s, people reported seeing some kind of monster. A silver-scaled, humanoid creature. There were multiple witnesses too.”

Leo stopped walking. He looked back at her.

“You think it was them? The mirror entities.”

He tried speaking. The word came out strained. His feline mouth was not built for human speech. “Yeees”

Close enough. Mara’s eyes widened. She understood.

“They were here? Actually here in the world?”

Leo nodded. The entities had been experimenting with physical manifestation for centuries.

He turned around and they continued walking until they reached the lake.

“Damn Leo.” Mara looked at the lake with new eyes. “How long have they been doing this?”

Longer than you think. And if they ever succeed to find a permanent way to bring more of their kind here and keep them here in physical form, the world would be in terrible danger. Humans would no longer be the top predators.

Would serve them right for calling dogs a man’s best friend. The thought never failed to give him a headache. His kind had been protecting humanity for millenia—guiding healers, guarding sacred spaces, even their own homes, walking between worlds—while humans called them cursed or mocked them as companions for spinsters. Meanwhile, dogs just…drooled, barked and obeyed. And somehow THEY got the credit.

Never mind them. Focus on the task at hand, Leo, he told himself.

“Leo, where are you going?”

Leo ignored her, padding to the water’s edge. He could feel it. The mirror entity displacement signature. It was faint but present. The key was here.

Leo hated getting his paws wet, but this was the only way.

Mara caught up. “Leo, what are you doing? Don’t go too close to the water. You don’t know how to swim, remember.”

He stopped. Now for the embarrassing part.

He closed his eyes and concentrated, producing the rhythm through purrs and low vocalizations: Hm, hum, hnnn; mm, hum, hmph!

Mara tilted her head. “Leo? Are you okay?”

He ignored her, repeating the pattern.

Hm, hum, hnnn; mm, hum, hmph!

Humans never understood the power of sound, and how different sounds carry frequencies that can open portals, heal, lift things, and even kill.

As he continued with the rhythm, Mara couldn’t help join in. There was a hypnotic element to the beat, causing her to match Leo’s and together they continued humming when suddenly the water rippled.

Mara gasped. “Leo, look!”

Leo opened his eyes in time to see a glow appearing beneath the surface—copper-bright, shaped like a blooming flower.

“What the hell…?”

They watched as the peace lily shape rose slowly, shedding water like light. At its center, the key. It floated to the shore, settling gently on a flat stone.

Mara knelt, mesmerized. “Leo…what is this?”

Just take it, he sent, hoping she’d feel the urgency. Who knows what might follow once they take the key.

She reached out, lifted the key. It was warm, beautifully intricate and bright copper like the flower that had carried it.

“This is…this is impossible. Leo…”

Leo pushed against her leg. Again and again.

Not impossible. Now let’s go before something notices.

“Okay, Okay. We’re leaving.”

She pocketed the key, glancing at the lake one more time.

She picked him up and began to run. When they finally reached the car, she touched her pocket, making sure the key was still there before starting the engine.

“How did you know the key was there?” she asked when they were on the road. “Wait.” she turned to him. “I remember now. I saw you in my dream last night. We were at this lake.”

Leo glanced at her innocently.

Mara was quiet for a bit as she tried to put it all together.

“I’ve been dreaming about pasta too… and going to that pet store on Yates Street and buying you those stupid feather toys you pretend you don’t like…and there was this other dream of us vacationing in Turkey… why would we even go to Turkey…”

A pause before:

“LEONARD! WHY YOU MANIPULATIVE LITTLE—”

Leo dove into the backseat before she could grab him, settling himself into the farthest corner with his tail wrapped primly around his paws.

Worth it.

Image by Lisa Redfern from Pixabay

Welcome back to Leo's adventures with the Bureau of Barbarity! This story is part of Kelly Xan's Bureau of Barbarity Prompt 2. Leo and Agnes are finally reunited after so many years apart.

Special thanks to Wendy Russell for jumping in and writing Agnes’ parts. Agnes is Wendy's hunter, and it's been wonderful collaborating on this prompt together.

Stay tuned for more! Leo will return. 🐾

New to Leo and Mara? Start here:

Want to catch up on Leo’s first mission with the Bureau? Read it here:

Photo by Troy Olson on Unsplash

Five weak days. Then weakness ends.

They call them weekdays and weekends. I like to call them what they are.

[10 PM]

I close my eyes and drift off to sleep.

[3 AM]

I open my eyes. Of course. Same time every night like clockwork. Sometimes 2 AM if my circadian rhythm is feeling rebellious.

I sigh, turn over and force myself back to sleep. They say 8 hours of sleep is essential, but my body has opinions. Strong ones apparently.

[5 AM]

I stare at the ceiling trying to remember the dream. Never mind.

I calculate how much time I have to write Naiya’s next message from parallel Earth.

Exactly 2 hours before the cage opens.

The irony is not lost on me—writing warnings about controlling consciousness while preparing to hand mine over for 8 hours. Nine, if I’m honest.

I stretch, following movements taught by a Chinese auntie on TikTok. Perfect for a body who despises the gym. She said: “No gym. Don’t go to the gym. No need to do the running.” I agreed completely. Finally. The kind of advice I’ve always wanted to hear.

I reach for coffee, then stop. Hydrate first. I drink hot water like the Chinese baddies on TikTok told me to.

My stomach gurgles in gratitude. You’re welcome. I am now a responsible captain of this vessel.

[6 AM]

I transcribe the Transmissions while I still have my own consciousness to give. THIS is living.

Another story idea arrives. I scramble for whatever notebook I can find, scribbling as fast as possible before it slips away. Once it’s written, relief floods through me.

I glance at it, shocked at how bad my handwriting is. Well, that’s future me’s problem. At least it’s not lost. I’m not sure when I’ll get to it, but at least it’s written?

[7 AM]

The cage opens. I enter willingly. It closes behind me.

The cycle begins. 8 hours of consciousness traded for currency. Sell life to buy food that once grew freely, water that falls from the sky, shelter on a planet made of building materials where we’re charged rent. We call this civilization. We call this progress.

At least the air is still free. It could be worse. Right?

A story is inspired. I jot it down in my notebook.

[12 PM]

Lunch break. I eat food purchased with sold hours, fueling the body to sell more hours to buy more food. A perfect circle. They should teach this in economics.

Oh wait, they do.

[5 PM]

Cage opens. I’m free to go.

Except I have no energy left to live. Just enough to survive.

This is called work-life balance which is fascinating because I’m unclear where the life part factors in. Perhaps it’s hidden in the commute and the getting ready part? Maybe the cooking?

I do this five times before I can live for 2 days. Two days of unrestricted, pure living instead of surviving.

[The weakends]

I wake up as a newly reborn being. Energized and full of ideas and life. The weakends when the WEAK ends, and I remember what living feels like. When I dream of worlds where basic needs don’t require money, where consciousness isn’t sold by the hour, where work means creating, not performing productivity. We call these stories, fantasy, fiction, utopia.

I call them blueprints.

Monday arrives and the cage opens.

Through the bars, I can still see the Glass Sea, the worlds still whisper.

When all this is over, Earth gets one star…

and that’s being generous.

A photo I captured. A small piece of my sky.

For anyone new, if you’d like a glimpse into the world that is currently whispering to me, here’s my ongoing series Transmissions:

If you like short, stand-alone stories, here is my latest piece:

Curious about the Glass Sea? Read about it here:

And here is a taste of my reflections: