Working with Stan becomes routine in the way only dangerous things ever do.
Weeks blur into months as we catalogue anomalies, sketch theories, and fill page after page with observations that would get us laughed out of any normal academic circle. We write together often—his handwriting tight and precise, mine flowing and deliberate—but eventually I start keeping a journal of my own.
Not a copy of his.
Something separate.
My journal is messier. More speculative. It holds half-formed theories, impossible diagrams, questions I don't yet have the language to ask. It holds magic-adjacent thoughts I never voice aloud. Glyph-like sketches that feel almost right but lack a crucial piece.
Stan never pries. He just smiles when he sees me writing.
"Good," he says once. "You should keep a record. Ideas decay faster than data."
He isn't wrong.
It's during one of these long research stretches—cross-referencing sightings, old lumberjack folklore, and mineral surveys—that the pattern finally emerges.
The Perceptroom.
A mushroom that doesn't behave like a fungus should. Appearing only in places where reality thins. Absorbing ambient energy not to grow, but to refine. Every source contradicts the last—some call it myth, others a biological anomaly—but the descriptions line up just enough to make my pulse quicken.
We find it deep in the forest, tucked beneath twisted roots where sunlight barely reaches. At first glance it looks unremarkable—pale, faintly translucent—but when I focus, really focus, I feel it responding. Like it's aware of being seen.
Stan is ecstatic.
"This could rewrite everything we know about cognition," he says, already sketching diagrams. "If the legends are even partially accurate—"
"They are," I say quietly.
He pauses, studying me. "You're certain."
"Yes."
It takes days to figure out how to use it safely—if safe is even the right word. Heat destabilizes it. Cutting it wrong destroys its structure. Eventually, we manage to refine it into a smooth, glassy jelly that catches the light like liquid pearl.
We test nothing else.
No animals. No instruments.
I already know what it does.
"I'll use it," I say.
Stan hesitates. Really hesitates. "Elaine, this isn't just enhancement. This is rewriting how your brain processes reality."
"I know."
"And once it's done—"
"I won't be the same," I finish.
That's the point.
I apply the jelly to my forehead carefully, spreading it in a thin layer. It's cold at first, then warm, then… gone. Absorbed seamlessly into my skin, leaving nothing behind but a faint pressure between my eyes.
Nothing happens immediately.
Which is almost disappointing.
I go to sleep that night feeling exactly the same.
When I wake up, the world is wrong.
Not broken.
Sharper.
Light has structure now. Sound carries layers I never noticed. My thoughts no longer drift—they lock into place, clicking together like precision machinery. Ideas unfold instantly, branching into implications, counterarguments, refinements.
I sit up in bed, heart pounding.
Everything makes sense.
Not emotionally—emotion is still there, intact—but intellectually. Problems I once considered complex now feel… shallow. Incomplete. I can see how systems interlock, where assumptions fail, where inefficiencies hide.
I glance at my journal.
In a single breath, I understand what's missing.
Glyph theory. Magic. Physics. Cognition.
They aren't separate disciplines.
They're dialects of the same language.
I laugh softly, the sound shaky—not from joy, but from awe.
"So this is what it's like," I whisper.
Superhuman doesn't mean omniscient. I don't know everything. But what I do know, I understand completely. And what I don't know… I can now learn at terrifying speed.
Power rushes are loud.
This isn't loud.
It's quiet.
Calm.
Terrifyingly calm.
I think of Bill Cipher.Of the Collector.Of the Boiling Isles and glyphs carved into stone by something ancient and clever.
For the first time, I don't feel like prey.
I feel like a contender.
I take a steadying breath and close my journal.
This changes everything.
And there's no going back.