'Record…' Jon thought. This wasn't the first time he'd heard Icarus call the book that. 'What does it mean by a record? Does he mean like a journal of some sort?'
Eventually Dinah broke the silence.
"...Did everyone receive one?"
Jon looked down at his summoned book and nodded slowly.
"I think so. At the stadium, I saw hundreds of them when they fell from the sky with the light."
Icarus shook his head. "It wasn't random."
Three pairs of eyes settled on him. He walked toward the dining table and gently placed his own silver book on the table beside Jon's.
"Can you see? They all look identical."
Jon nodded. Following it, the girls reached for their own books and stared, comparing.
Truly, it was similar.
Icarus nodded once. "I don't think it's just a book."
He picked his up carefully. "When I look at it...it's difficult to explain, but," His thumb ran across the silver cover.
"It feels like a record."
Jon's eyes narrowed. "Is that what your eye tells you?"
The girls also took notice. They had seen it but said nothing or asked about it. They had thought it was a condition he had, or perhaps they were the ones seeing things.
Jon's words were only just confirming it for them that his eye had gone through some sort of change after the silver light descended.
Icarus' gaze flickered strangely.
"Yes."
Jon nodded. "So it's a record, but of what?"
"I don't know."
Icarus' answer came immediately.
"But..." He slowly opened the cover, revealing familiar silver runes that covered the page.
None of them could read a single symbol it said.
"It feels as though it has always belonged to me. It feels like it always belonged to me."
Jon folded his arms. "You mean our nature?"
"Maybe."
Icarus shook his head slowly.
"Or maybe it's only part of it."
Silence lingered. Finally, he said the word that had been forming in his mind since he'd first opened the Record.
"...Trait."
He quickly added, "I don't know if that's what it actually means, but it's the closest word I can think of."
Jon looked at the silver book in his own hands. "So you think these books..." He tapped the cover lightly. "...have something to do with that?"
"Yes." Icarus nodded. "I think they reflect who we are."
He paused. "…Or perhaps who we have always been."
The room fell silent once more.
…
"Has anyone opened theirs?" Dinah asked.
Then, Jon realized that the girls had been avoiding it. Probably not because they weren't curious, but because, opening it somehow made everything real.
"I did."
The room turned toward Jon.
"It was only one page."
"What was inside? What did you see?" Dinah asked.
"...A rune. But I couldn't understand it at all."
Then he looked toward Icarus. "What about you?"
Icarus lowered his eyes. "...I saw the same. Just one rune."
"So there was no sort of explanation or instructions?" Dinah asked.
Icarus shook his head. "Nothing."
Seeing Trudy about to open hers, Dinah stopped her.
"Trudy, what are you doing?"
"We need answers," Trudy said between a wince. "We can't run away from this anymore." She turned to Icarus. "He already said it. No help is coming for us. This is the only clue we have as to whatever is going on or how to stop it."
"…Even though," Dinah argued.
"Do you really believe everything can return to normal?" Trudy raised her voice amidst the silence. Suddenly it felt like she wasn't only speaking to Dinah.
"And let's say things really can return to normal, then what next? The way I see it, this world is now all about survival, and it wouldn't wait for us to understand it."
She said nothing more and opened her book.
Dinah gave Jon and Icarus a brief look before sighing in surrender. That settled it.
One by one they picked up their records and opened them.
…
Jon's thumb brushed the edge of the cover, a familiar calm already settling.
Then, slowly...he opened it.
The first page contained a single symbol, with no diagrams or sentences explaining it.
It was a circle.
It looked simple at first glance, except that it resembled the same intricate rune on the cover, formed from countless silver lines that folded into one another like a living, flowing ink.
'It's…beautiful.' He thought as he stared longer. 'It's almost like…almost like moonlight.'
Then, one rune seemed to shift. It wasn't physically, but his perception shifted around it.
Something pulled his awareness.
Suddenly, the room became distant.
The sound from the overhead fan had dulled; Trudy's breathing disappeared.
Even the wind around him and outside.
Everything remained the way they were, yet it sounded impossibly far away.
Jon blinked, and the living room disappeared.
...
Darkness.
Its horizon stretched infinitely before him, yet to nowhere at all.
Jon slowly looked around.
There was no floor, yet he stood. There was no sky, yet light existed.
Nothing here obeyed reason.
Then, a fragment drifted past him. It was silver, similar to the color of the book, and the threads he once felt.
They then suddenly increased in number. Soon, several silver reflections floated through the air. It was as though fragments of shattered mirrors had forgotten how to fall.
He instinctively reached toward it.
The instant his fingers brushed its surface—
Something answered.
A pale crescent appeared embedded within the darkness.
He stared at it for a long time, trying to discern whether it was a structure, a shape, or just a rhythm.
He didn't know, but what he knew was that he never wanted to escape this feeling. It was as though he was standing beneath a full moon reflected upon perfectly still water.
He felt something deeper than calm.
An understanding so ancient that words could never contain it.
Peace.
No…it was something more than just peace.
Then, the pale crescent pulsed once and the surrounding reflections became still.
Jon looked at it. Somehow, he looked at himself.
Tranquility.
The pattern brightened ever so slightly, then the darkness folded inward.
The fragments dissolved, and the record closed.
Jon gasped, and the darkness vanished.
The ceiling fan hummed overhead once more, and the smell of antiseptic filled the air.
He was back in the living room.