Between Worlds

Chapter 5: Signals and Silence

He closed the tablet, setting it aside with a quiet clack. His gaze swept across the apartment again, landing on the far corner where you kept old electronics in a half-forgotten box. Something stirred in him, unformed but persistent. He crossed the room slowly, kneeling beside the box like it held something sacred.

Inside were scraps of a bygone era—tangled cords, cracked casings, the ghosts of utility. His fingers sifted through them with delicate precision, eyes narrowing as fragments of past technology sparked half-buried memories. A piece of copper wiring, a handheld radio with a missing antenna, a broken tuner dial. Useless on their own. But maybe not together.

A knock at the door broke the quiet. He opened it without hesitation.

"Oh! Hello again," the neighbor chirped, that same woman from the day before. She held a box labeled for an address one digit off from yours. Again.

"This isn't ours," Lee said.

"I figured," she said, handing it over anyway. "But you're the only one who actually opens the door. Everyone else pretends they're not home. Funny how that works, huh?"

He nodded slightly, unsure what to say. Her energy was a sharp contrast to the quiet hum of the apartment. But it didn't bother him. She was a disruption, but not an unwelcome one.

She peered inside curiously. "You into tech stuff? I saw your tools last time. My grandpa used to build radios from scratch. Said the old signals are still floating around out there, if you know how to listen. Crazy, right?"

Lee blinked slowly.

"Yes. Crazy."

But the words struck something. Still floating around out there. Not gone. Just... unheard. Maybe not from this world at all.

She laughed and waved him off, disappearing down the hallway. He shut the door, her words repeating in the back of his mind.

Still floating. Just need to know how to listen.

The idea bloomed, slowly at first, like something returning to him from a long way off. He stood still in the center of the room for a long time, tracing the shape of the thought until it became clear: if the signals hadn't come to him, he would go to them.

Two hours later, the living room looked like a gentle hurricane had passed through. Spare parts, wires, and pieces of your old appliances were laid out in surgical precision. Lee's fingers worked steadily, mind alight with something unfamiliar.

Not a directive. Not a command.

Purpose. His own.

Each screw, each wire placement, was a thread connecting him to something intangible. Hope, maybe. Desperation, too. The idea that something was still out there. That his search could mean something.

He calibrated the receiver by hand, listening to the feedback loop hum against his fingertips. The soldering iron hissed as he fused an old circuit board into place. The smell of hot metal and plastic filled the room, grounding him in the moment.

He paused once, sitting back on his heels. Sweat—or something like it—had gathered at his brow, not from heat, but from effort. It was the first time in a long while that he felt like building something for himself.

He powered on the scanner. The screen blinked. Fuzz. Then, something.

Just a spike. A flutter of data. Too inconsistent to be a message. But enough.

His hand hovered over the device, then settled. A flicker of something like wonder passed over his features. He leaned forward slightly, letting the faint noise wash over him.

For a second, he didn't feel lost. For a second, he felt like maybe—just maybe—he wasn't the only one out of place.

You came in a few minutes later, pausing in the doorway when you saw the state of the room. Tools scattered, wires coiled like veins across the floor, Lee crouched over the scanner like he'd summoned it from thin air.

"...Lee?"

He looked up, eyes brighter than they'd been in days. "I think I found something. Or maybe I didn't. But it could be something."

You set your bag down slowly, crossing the room as though worried you might disturb something fragile. He didn't move away when you sat next to him, thigh brushing his in quiet solidarity.

"What do you mean, 'something'?"

Lee's voice was low, thoughtful. "There's a signal. A pattern that isn't noise—but it's not clear either. Just fragments. Enough to make me think someone's trying to say something, or that they once were. It could be nothing... but I keep thinking about it. About what it would mean if it wasn't."

You looked at the scanner, the glow reflected in his eyes. "And what do you want it to mean?"

Lee hesitated. "I don't know. That I'm not alone? That something beyond this reality still exists. That this version of the world isn't all there is."

There was a quiet beat. You nudged his shoulder gently. "Maybe the signal doesn't need to prove anything. Maybe you just needed a reason to believe there's more. And now you've got one."

Lee turned his head slightly toward you, studying your profile with the same intent focus he gave his machines. "You say that like you believe it."

"I do. I think... maybe you're trying to prove it to yourself, not the world. And if that's the case, you're already doing better than you think."

You didn't look at him, but your voice softened. "And if this signal is nothing? If it never becomes anything at all?"

He lowered his gaze. "Then I'll still try. I'm not ready to stop."

You leaned into him more fully, the side of your head resting lightly against his shoulder. His posture stiffened briefly, then eased. You could hear the quiet tick of the scanner beside you.

"You don't have to try alone," you said. "Even if it's unclear. Even if it hurts. I'm still here."

Something in Lee's chest clenched tightly. Not pain—just pressure, the kind that comes with emotion too deep to name. He didn't respond right away. He just let the silence stretch between you, heavy and charged, and not uncomfortable.

Eventually, he said, almost a whisper, "Thank you."

"What for?" She asked.

"You make it easier." He paused for a bit before continuing "Being here."

Your breath caught, but you masked it with a small smile. "Then I'll stay with you. Until you find whatever it is you want."

He hadn't known how much he wanted to find something—anything—that didn't belong in this world, until now.

He didn't say anything more. But he didn't move away, either. And that, perhaps, said enough.