The heat vanished, and the roar of the flames was cut off as if sliced by a knife. I opened my eyes and, strangely enough, saw not just darkness. The ceiling beam, destined to crush my skull, hovered a yard above my head, brazenly ignoring the law of universal gravitation (I’m not complaining). Tongues of flame had turned into motionless sculptures of light, as if a mad glassblower had exhaled this hell and left it to cool. Sparks froze in the air—a scattering of fireflies trapped in invisible amber.

  In the ensuing silence, familiar applause rang out. Slow, measured, full of condescending approval. Honestly, it felt a bit insulting. Saving a cat from traffic and making a suicidal run into a blast furnace for a child earned the exact same score? Could have clapped a bit louder, to be honest. The stakes had been raised, after all.

  I looked up. The Cosplayer was approaching me, walking through the frozen wall of fire like it was a hologram.

  And the child... the child neatly untangled himself from under my arm, stood up as if woken from a nap, brushed off his pajamas with the indifference of a robot, and serenely dissolved into the darkness of the corner without dropping a single word. I watched him go, then stood up too, feeling my knees crack. The Cosplayer stopped a couple of steps away and threw back his hood.

  It’s always been interesting why we love cats and snakes, even though historically they were the main predators of our primate ancestors. Perhaps those who survived were the ones quickest to spot the patterns of spotted fur or scales in tall grass and couldn't take their eyes off them. The modern brain, devoid of real threats, interprets this fixation as admiration.

  But why are we so devoutly terrified of those who are only slightly different from us? What spawns that deep-seated horror before the almost-human? What evolutionary experience forged this defense mechanism? Did someone in our history try to pretend to be us to get closer with malicious intent? This question had always interested me. To my deepest regret, I just got the answer.

  Standing before me was not a human. My brain—that ancient biological relic polished by millions of generations of surviving paranoiacs—wailed like a siren, refusing to recognize the creature opposite as a brethren. We shared no common ancestors. We didn't crawl out of the same ocean. We didn't grow under the same sun. Before me stood an outsider trying to pass for one of us with all the terrifying power of the Uncanny Valley effect.

  The face was too symmetrical, nature doesn't do such perfect geometry. Weak (almost liquid) light-colored hair is seriously slicked back. The skin was too smooth, lacking any memory of teenage acne, chickenpox, or shaving cuts. The movements were fluid, like a marine predator in dense water, lacking those micro-twitches and corrections that betray the eternal struggle against gravity and muscle fatigue. The pink folds in the corners of his eyes (I don’t know what they’re called, sorry) were too large. Apparently, no one informed him that we got rid of the nictitating membrane millions of years ago.

  "Aren't you going to ask me who we are and what is happening?" the thing dressed as a human inquired. The voice sounded synthesized from recordings of Earth's best orators, with all the breaths, stutter-pauses, and living intonations carefully excised.

  "Why bother?" I brushed ash from my sleeve, hiding the tremor in my fingers. "You won't tell the truth anyway, right? If I were you, I certainly wouldn't. You staged this show, put physics on pause... That means you need something from me. So why deprive yourself of the colossal advantage in the knowledge gap?"

  I have this bad habit: reallocating filter resources from thoughts-to-speech toward other tasks, especially in critical situations. So right now, I channeled everything into cognitive enhancement, sacrificing politeness.

  He snorted almost humanly. Then he raised his hands, and his fingers began to pluck at the invisible strings of space. It’s clear to me now that he was working within his interface. Reality around us dimmed, as if someone smoothly turned down a dimmer switch. A moment later, we were in a self-absorbing darkness where only a simple table and two chairs existed. Our bodies and the furniture were visible, as if emitting a faint light. Minimalism level: "Universe budget exhausted."

  I sat down without waiting for an invitation. The sensation of rough wood under my fingers was frighteningly real. Great, if it’s an interview, let it be an interview.

  "So," I said, examining my palms. "I died, and this is some near-death chimera? The delirium of a fading consciousness?"

  "That is a boring view of the world," he replied, sitting opposite. "No, the structure of the world house is far more complex and paradoxical than its projection in your cranial vessels. If you ever meet a chimera from Noctaer, you will immediately notice the difference. Believe me, neuronal dysfunction is never this structured."

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "Always seemed strange, this rigid distinction between illusion and reality," I agreed. "Illusions are part of reality too."

  "Your manifestation matrix is very interesting," he continued, making absolutely no attempt to occupy his body with idle movements (if he were human, I’d have decided I was facing a psychopath). "You systematically violate the laws of stochastics. Your organism integrity indicators are in direct conflict with your recklessness coefficient. Any algorithm would have predicted the cessation of your vital functions ten cycles ago, yet you function. (I am surprised myself). You are an anomaly. This is a valuable resource for Transcendal."

  "I just..." I tried to speak.

  "Yes, yes. 'Lucky Idiot.' That is exactly how your Intellect tags it, we know."

  "So you... were testing me?" I asked, finally forcing myself to meet the gaze of his overly moist eyes and suppressing a wave of nauseating horror. "For something specific?"

  "Not for something specific. The situations were questions, and your interaction choices were the answers. How does the object solve problems? Does he apply brute Strength? Manipulate through Charisma? Demonstrate Agility? Analyze with Perception? Engage the cognitive circuits of Intellect? Or rely on statistical error—Luck? Success or failure is considered lower priority information. Additionally, we measured your proactivity. It exceeds the standard population norm by thirty-two percent."

  "What an interesting collection of words to call me a psycho," I muttered.

  "The boundaries between heroism and psychopathy in your culture are quite arbitrary."

  "And what is the verdict?"

  "The verdict is simple: admission. We offer you integration into Transcendal. A place where your peculiarities will find application in possibilities. Functioning. Travel. Service. Development. Anything."

  "And if I refuse?" I asked, though I already saw the answer before me as clearly as the fire faces. "I go home, eat, and go to sleep under my blanket?"

  He didn't even smile. Flawless indifference.

  "If you decline the offer, we remove our finger from the 'temporal stagnation' button, and you return to the exothermic environment, beneath the collapsing structure. You will have approximately zero point three seconds to realize your mistake. You’ve never heard of us before, have you? Your Intellect should tell you why."

  It did tell me. The argument was killer. Literally.

  "So those people... Your accomplices?" I decided it was high time for clarifying questions.

  "The feline specimen was authentic; it was the one that drew my attention to you (well thank you, kitty, a royal thank you, I bow to the ground and will never forget). The child specimen was a bio-synthetic dummy; you don't have those yet. You can call them synths or homunculi. Only the pollsters work for us. One is a native Daemon, the second is a human, but from a different sector. The rest was simple probability correction."

  That explained why my brain’s intruder detector didn’t trigger on them... Actually, it explained a whole lot of nothing! Or rather, it anti-explained it.

  "Transcendal. What is it?"

  "You noted our information superiority yourself. We are glad you are so quick-witted and will not insist. Part of your function is to figure out what Transcendal is."

  I’m a mediocre negotiator: too stupid not to try and be smart.

  "But I need to know something. Rules, conditions, limitations..."

  "I assure you, you will be provided with fair conditions to learn them. Just as you will have fair chances of survival."

  Time in my mind seemed to slow down. Well, slow down even more. In real reality, it was probably moving at negative speed.

  A choice between life in the unknown and guaranteed death by fire. I thought of my parents. The old folks would be upset, of course. But my sisters would take care of them—that order had long been established. I had always been the black sheep of the family; they let me go to the most dangerous parts of the world with a quiet sigh and habitual fear. Then there’s Gia... Long-distance relationships are like a bonfire without wood: only the memory of warmth keeps you warm. We both understood that. Now the distance would become even greater. And me? Who was I here? "Not all those who wander are lost," the quote surfaced in my memory. Just about right for me. Maybe I was just looking for the start of a new road. Looks like I found it.

  I also remembered what burning flesh smells like.

  "I agree," I said and extended my hand for a handshake.

  Yes, I admit, that was stupid.

  Instead of this earthly tradition, his too long index finger lightly touched my forehead, right between the eyebrows. It hit like a needle of molten light being driven into my skull. A jolt of electricity stitched through my body, burning out old settings. It resonated especially hard in my optic nerves and fingertips. The world exploded into the white noise of unbearable pain.

  When I struggled back into my body, a door woven of blinding, merciless light appeared behind the stranger.

  "Welcome to Transcendal. The transition behind me finalizes the contract."

  I stood up. My body filled with a vibrating lightness, as if gravity had given me a discount. I headed toward the passage but lingered at the very threshold. One thought wouldn't leave me alone.

  Why did he choose these clothes? The alien couldn't be stupid enough to consider this ridiculous cosplay adequate camouflage. That means... arrogance? He cares that little about how he looks in the eyes of the local fauna?

  I looked back. The stranger was sitting with his back to me, but sensing my gaze, he turned his head. Not his body. Only his head. It turned one hundred and eighty degrees, like an owl tracking a mouse, with a cynical disregard for the human limits of vertebrae. And there wasn't even a sickening crunch.

  He stared at me with his flawlessly symmetrical face and smiled for the first time. The smile was impossibly wide. Much wider than a human jaw allows. A mouth like that is only for consuming. Anything. In large volumes.

  "Good luck with your evolution, Alex," the stranger said.

  Perhaps such a smile and such a parting word were an attempt to encourage me. Yeah, sure. I’m just incredibly full of optimism given my situation.

  I stepped into the blinding light, leaving everything behind. One should always embark on a new adventure travelling light.