Narrator 1: In the caves beneath the Midst post office, a group of refugees are bracing for impact.

[Eerie underground ambience.]

Narrator 2: A group of terrified, closely-packed people, getting ready to weather the worst storm of their lifetimes. It is echoey down here and the mood is somber. There are hushed voices. Everyone is hurriedly making preparations. Looming above everyone in the cavern, a giant mechanical spool of interisletary cable slowly winds and unwinds, creaking with the strain of maintaining tension in the post office tower cable on the surface above. Saskia and the Postmaster are more or less running this operation. That is, the operation of trying to keep people from losing their damn minds in the face of… well, they don’t know. That’s kind of the problem. With tearrors, anything can happen. And that is a point that the Postmaster is trying to impress on everyone, actually, as a way of comforting them.

Narrator 1: (as the Postmaster) “All right, everybody, we gotta stay calm,” he’s calling out right now to everybody assembled down here in the cave, a gaggle of a few dozen survivors running around in the dark, scurrying around, trying to take cover, trying to gather their final supplies. The Postmaster has lots of prior experience with tearrors.

Narrator 2: He floats, remember?

Narrator 1: And hovering in midair before his compatriots, he holds up his hands to calm his friends and fellow residents of Stationary Hill. [Postmaster:] “Tearrors aren’t necessarily bad. Anything— good things, lots of good things! My sister-in-law, her memory problems were fixed. My nephew turned into a dog and he’s never been happier. He’s a good boy now. I mean, that doesn’t sound great, but it is!”

Narrator 2: And he gestures at his own self, floating there harmlessly in midair.

Narrator 1: Some people are listening to the Postmaster’s statements, some are not. Some people are too scared to pay attention at the moment.

Narrator 2: Saskia is running around making sure that all the supplies that have been brought down here are evenly distributed, they’ve got blankets, they’ve got some provisions, they’ve got water, they’ve got fold-safe lanterns, they have a teletheric so they can try to monitor the situation outside.

Narrator 1: Ettie and Ellie are hunched over the teletheric, dialing in a station, trying to find a clear frequency. The airwaves at this moment are desperately scrambled. The incoming tearror is consuming all communication activity in the airwaves in this region. It’s hard to find a clear broadcast.

[Teletheric feedback fizzing and crackling.]

Narrator 2: Something they all know, though, everyone down here knows that there is no escaping the tearror. They have all fled down into this underground space, not with the hope that it’s somehow going to keep the Fold out. That’s impossible. The whole idea is just that it might be a little bit less severe, a slightly paler version of whatever experience is about to be unleashed on the surface. If a tsunami was bearing down on your city, would you just stand out in the open? Or would you rather go into a basement?

Narrator 1: Well, in the case of a tsunami, going into a basement would be pretty bad.

Narrator 2: Okay, but if you could breathe water. This metaphor is perfect and your understanding has been enhanced.

Narrator 1: The point we’re trying to make is that these people here in the caves right now are those people who were unable to escape.

Narrator 2: It’s not a question of whether they can escape the tearror. They can’t.

Narrator 1: But they might be able to take shelter from its most dangerous and immediate effects, which will be assailing the surface first and foremost. Whatever trailing remnant of that storm finds its way down here will be dangerous indeed, dangerous as hell, but not as dangerous as it could be.

Narrator 2: At least they will be exposed to less of the tearror substance down here than they would be on the surface. The Postmaster is coming over to where Ettie and Ellie are fiddling with the dials of the teletheric receiver. [Postmaster:] “Now, this is actually extremely useful, girls. It’s a great indicator of the severity of the storm outside.

Narrator 1: (Postmaster) Are you getting any signal at all?”

Narrator 2: (as Ettie) “Uh, yes, a bit,” Ettie ventures. “We’ve been getting snippets of an official Trust broadcast, but I don’t really know if anyone wants to listen to that right now.”

Narrator 1: (Postmaster) “Put it, put it on! We need to be able to hear SOMEthing.”

Narrator 2: (Ettie) “Ugh, okay, if you say so.”

Narrator 1: (Postmaster) “We don’t even have to listen to what they have to say, we just need to hear the clarity of the broadcast.”

Narrator 2: (Ettie) “All right, all right.” Ettie switches it back. And the unmistakable, charismatic, resounding voice of Jonas Spahr fills the cavern.

Narrator 3: (as Spahr, voice distorted through the teletheric) “Dear Trustees, this is Prime Consector Jonas Spahr, and I was there when Midst’s moon fell. Wild rumors may have already reached you, sowing fear and discord. But you can trust me, and you can rest safely knowing that all Valorous Trustees at the time and location of the Midst incident were safely evacuated.”

Narrator 2: (as Ellie) “The signal sounds pretty clear. What does that mean?” Ellie is asking.

Narrator 1: (Postmaster) “I wouldn’t describe that as exactly clear.” The Postmaster hovers up into the air a little bit higher. “Could I have your attention please, we’re a few minutes away.”

Narrator 2: (unidentified speaker) “God damn, do you hear that Consector guy?” someone else is saying. “Listen to him. He doesn’t give a shit about what’s going on down here.”

Narrator 1: Emmet, the Black Candle Cabaret bartender, and a couple of the other refugees are huddled in a corner trying to move some blankets and some medical supplies, and setting aside a first aid kit, turn to listen to the Postmaster’s comments.

Narrator 2: Saskia, out of things to do for the moment, has taken an exhausted seat on a pile of old construction equipment, and her two dogs come and take a seat at either side. [as Saskia:] “Hey boys,” she says.

[Dogs whine.]

Narrator 1: (Postmaster) “So we’ve only got a few minutes, um…” The Postmaster gulps, trying to appear confident in front of his fellows and his compatriots, doing his best to set everyone at ease. He is not accustomed to doing this kind of thing. He primarily sends and receives mail. He’s not really equipped to lead people to their deaths, maybe.

Narrator 2: Saskia meets his eyes, gives him a warm, encouraging smile.

[Distant seismic roaring steadily growing louder.]

Narrator 1: (Postmaster) “All right, everyone. So uh, just remember, don’t fight it, whatever happens. You just need to accept it. Some people say you can influence the outcome of a tearror with your thoughts. So just keep positive, that’s what I’m trying to tell you.” The Consector’s broadcast on the teletheric continues, the signal degrading further and further.

Narrator 3: (Spahr, increasingly distorted) “Anyone traveling in the vicinity of the Fold should be advised that a tearror of unprecedented magnitude has been kindled by the abrupt mica immersion of Midst’s moon into the Mediun. While the Trust mounts an investigation into the cause of this calamity, it is vital that we recenter ourselves around what really matters: restoring the Valor that has been lost to the unexpected market upheaval induced by the loss of the Trust’s valued property, Midst. There is nothing to fear. Please keep your thoughts and actions centered on bringing Valor back to our great society. Our trust is in each other.”

Narrator 1: The signal is almost unintelligible now. Everyone in the cavern exchanges a frightened glance. [Postmaster:] “Okay,” says the Postmaster, looking to Saskia.

Narrator 2: (Saskia) “We don’t know what’s going to happen now,” she says, drawing upon all her years as a lounge singer to pour as much warm, comforting, easy hospitality into her voice as she knows how. “But the truth is, that’s no different from any other day, right? We can never really know what the next moment is going to bring. All we can really do is remember to appreciate the present. And right now, we’re here together, caring for each other, standing by each other in the worst of times. You are my neighbors, my friends.”

Narrator 1: In the dim light, she makes eye contact with others, one by one, and smiles.

Narrator 2: (Saskia, voice breaking) “I am proud to call Stationary Hill my home, no matter what happens next. I’m here for you, and you’re here for me, and there’s no other group of people I’d rather be with right now. I’m sorry I couldn’t do better for you.”

Narrator 1: Rocks and dust begin to rattle from the walls.

Narrator 2: Everyone is looking around, waiting for the moment when a simply dark cavern becomes a cavern filled with Fold. It’s going to seep through the rocks. It’s going to pour down the staircase leading to the surface.

Narrator 1: An almost incomprehensible sound begins to mount,

Narrator 2: and they feel the vibrations in the ground around them.

Narrator 1: It is difficult to communicate the seismic power of this sound. It is a full-spectrum sonic nightmare. It shakes the air in everyone’s lungs.

Narrator 2: And they have a nice long moment where they hear this sound and they all get to imagine what it’s going to feel like, what it’s going to be like, to be immersed in that.

Narrator 1: And they don’t have long to wait, because down the stairwell and through the walls of the cavern, there comes a boiling darkness.

[Hissing, fizzing noise. Crowd gasps in fear.]

Narrator 2: Saskia spots the first rivulet, and everyone follows her eyes up to where she’s looking, and they watch together, huddling as one, as the Fold rushes in. The Postmaster is holding his hands out reassuringly, again trying to demonstrate how he’s not afraid.

Narrator 1: (Postmaster) “All right, everyone, here it comes,” he calls out, “and don’t worry, I’ve lived through plenty of these, we’ll be okay. Just remember to keep positive and give all that Fold something nice to think about. Here, I’ll go first.” And with that, the Postmaster turns and floats ahead to meet the storm. He grins back at the crowd. “Come on in, the water’s—”

Narrator 2: And the instant the Fold touches him… he shatters.

[Loud, glassy clattering, like a window breaking.]

Narrator 3: A thousand shards fall to the ground, skittering across the rocks,

Narrator 2: across his friends,

Narrator 1: and that’s not really the positive or hopeful note that these people need right now,

Narrator 2: nor the point that he was trying to make.

Narrator 1: Everyone panics.

[Mounting screams of terror, abruptly cut to silence.]

Narrator 1: We’re going to need you to work with us here a little bit. We’re going to put your imagination to work because we need to describe to you the almost unimaginable.

Narrator 2: Are you ready?

Narrator 3: Good. Let’s begin.

[Eerie, semi-musical ambience returns.]

Narrator 1: Mad, spasming darkness consumes everyone. Instantly.

Narrator 2: All the fold-safe lights are immediately devoured, imploded, and everyone is plunged into darkness, into their own private theater of horror.

Narrator 1: Reality-bending mayhem spawns wildly through the cavern. In an instant, there is the sound of a full orchestra, then screams, then birds,

Narrator 2: then something really wet and really gristly sounding.

Narrator 1: Something is melting. Suddenly Saskia is half-immersed in fluid, then it’s gone,

Narrator 2: the taste of cheesecake in her mouth.

Narrator 1: The ground is suddenly squirming with worms. Then,

Narrator 3: the smell of rosemary overtakes them,

Narrator 1: almost overpowering.

Narrator 2: Hysterical sobbing.

Narrator 1: Instantly the cavern is absolutely packed with thousands of people, then they’re gone.

Narrator 2: Someone is singing operatically. Is that Emmet? He has a beautiful voice.

Narrator 1: Fiona, one of the residents of Stationary Hill, discovers that her left leg is now an entire man named Jacob.

Narrator 2: Both Fiona and Jacob are horrified about this new development. [Two people scream.]

Narrator 1: Emmet no longer remembers his mother, nor will he ever again. And unfortunately, he doesn’t know that he doesn’t remember. It’ll take him a while to figure out what he’s missing.

Narrator 2: Cries echo from around the cavern. “My teeth!”

Narrator 3: “My ears!”

Narrator 2: “My hair!”

Narrator 3: “My taste in music — it’s bad!”

Narrator 2: It’s raining now, in the blink of an eye, a torrential downpour. Lightning that leaves triangular afterimages seared onto people’s retinas. Thunder that sounds like theremin arpeggios and gives all the thirty-four-year-olds explosive diarrhea. In a blaze of daylight the entire cavern is gone now, the hill of Stationary Hill is gone, the shell of rock and dirt that surrounds them just blinking out of existence, despawning, and they see the town, the buildings suspended far above them like they’ve clipped through the ground in a video game and are viewing the environment from an angle no designer ever intended. The unlight and the Fold strobes overhead in a sickening light show. And they’re vulnerable and exposed and the things they can see happening up there on the surface are incomprehensible. But just as suddenly the cave has reloaded around them exactly as it was, enclosing them in their own private hell once again.

Narrator 3: Filaments of skin float through the air like film in water, siphoning toward some distant drain. Eyes unraveling like dry and peeling birch bark witness a thousand quaking leaves in a silent breeze.

Narrator 1: Mr. Pott’s gossamer tinsel-like nervous system is filleted fully-intact out of his body and carried off in a vortex of lightning. It smolders with orange sparks, like burning steel wool.

Narrator 2: A stampede of shrieking needlebacks charges through the cavern upside down, and Maurice, who works at the general store, is just gone, and no one will remember they ever knew him except for a weird feeling they’ll get sometimes when they look at perfectly-arranged pyramids of fruit. Who were we talking about?

Narrator 3: An immense glittering expanse, but only for two people, for two seconds, to see each other briefly from far away. The smell of an old lover’s perfume left on a well-worn pillowcase.

Narrator 1: Giselle, owner of Stationary Hill’s one and only roofing company, has her entire personality removed from her, and into the space her disposition once occupied is instead implanted… just frogs, just a lot of frogs. Giselle is, uh, well, she’s a little different than she used to be, now.

Narrator 2: A hot, humid, suffocating jungle springs to life, vines and flowers bursting exuberantly from every crack and rock and from a few mouths and ears as well. But the trees smell like hot metal and the leaves feel like velcro and the whole ecosystem withers and crumbles into purple glitter that etches gridlike patterns on the cavern floor.

Narrator 3: The slightest tensions in the interisletary cable, suddenly singing with the harmonies of Midst itself in a sonorous chorus, before twanging a rhythm discordant and alarming. That feeling of missing a step going down, and falling through the pain of a twisted ankle into some microscopic space immediately beside another person, in line. To feel your consciousness swirl outward, distributed between you, the shelves, a chair, and a fixed point perhaps eight feet distant.

Narrator 1: Many inanimate objects now have eyes, usually just two. There are some dramatic exceptions. And of course, a few things that are supposed to have eyes no longer do.

Narrator 3: Long sheets of what feels like wool run across a forearm for long minutes, leaving a friction burn. The suffocating sensation of bones squeezing in and around organs that have newly grown.

Narrator 1: The giant interisletary cable spool looming in the grotto of the cave bows, twists, loses shape like a popped balloon, extrudes 10 feet sideways off its x axis, and then — nevermind, it’s exactly the way that it was. We didn’t say anything. And you must remember that all of this? This is the weak shit. The low-intensity underbelly, the flooded-basement version of the tearror currently ravaging the surface of Midst.

Narrator 2: In addition to the sound of the Fold itself — the tearror, we should really be saying — various human noises fill the cavern. Screams, obviously, but all kinds of other exclamations as people begin to react to what’s happening to them,

Narrator 1: and not necessarily always totally horrible things. Oh, yes, there’s a great deal of nightmarish, impossible horror manifesting in the incomprehensible darkness of the caves, but there are also some weirdly gentle and sweet things happening as well.

Narrator 2: Ettie and Ellie, clinging to each other, don’t know it yet, because it’s impossibly inconceivably dark, but they are no longer identical twins, something each of them has secretly wished for. Ettie’s nose is a little longer and Ellie’s jawline is a little broader. The change is no more dramatic than that, and both of them will actually be rather pleased about it once this is all over. IF they survive. We’re not giving anything away.

Narrator 3: To them, the tearror feels like a hot bath, like whirlpool jets spraying every direction around them, creating sort of a whirling vortex.

Narrator 2: Kind of hypnotic, kind of massaging. It’s not unpleasant.

Narrator 3: Cozy, a little.

Narrator 2: There’s Patricia, the owner of Stationary Hill’s finest and only cafe. Her secret lifelong predisposition towards self-hatred and crippling anxiety is washed clean away, replaced permanently with a bright and supportive inner monologue that effortlessly nurtures and supports her. How nice! Saskia is sitting there in the cavern, her dogs snuggled in on each side of her, listening to all this happening around her. She can’t tell if anything has happened to HER yet.

Narrator 1: The darkness is flashing spasmodically before her. Does anyone else see this, or is it just her? She’s seeing bizarre, kaleidoscopic, brilliant light, beaming and glowing all around her, and then nothing. Is it all in her mind?

Narrator 2: Incongruously, jarringly, she hears laughter beginning to break out, more and more people laughing hysterically together as whatever that particular pocket of tearror is does something to their minds that they all think is very funny. There are also long periods of silence, and of dancing, and of screaming. Wave after wave of suggestion and potential sweeps through the cave, creating entire eras of experience. How long does each one last? It’s impossible to say. All sense of time has been warped beyond recognition. This is a shared fever dream with no end and no beginning, a communal acid trip. They have been here forever. They have been here for thirty seconds. They were never here at all. We’ve mentioned how dark it is. So everyone down here, searching for comfort, searching for human contact, is reaching out for other people, and the experience is not always as comforting as they hoped. They feel feathers, they feel oil. Sometimes everything’s normal. We should stress that as well. There is a lot of nothing happening also. That is one of the many possibilities contained within the infinite. Saskia, for example, still hasn’t detected if any particular change has overtaken her yet.

Narrator 1: Maybe she’s unchanged. Maybe we’ll just have to wait and see.

Narrator 2: Her dear, loyal foldhounds — Lloyd and Bartimaeus by the way —

Narrator 1: Good boys, both of them.

Narrator 2: The best boys — utterly unfazed by the tearror itself,

Narrator 1: immune, as all foldhounds are, to tearrors. Bartimaeus nuzzles her affectionately.

Narrator 2: If anything, Saskia realizes, she might feel a little bit dizzy, which is a real lucky break as far as she’s concerned. She feels a slight unidentifiable disorientation, but that’s really it.

Narrator 1: In need of comfort, Saskia begins to hum to herself, and in the warping, convolving darkness, the lilting sound of her voice begins to transform.

[Music swells, blending with the sound of Saskia’s humming.]

Narrator 1: The voice on the teletheric has become something else entirely. It is no longer Jonas Spahr.

Narrator 3: (as the voice of the teletheric, warped almost beyond coherence) “…skies occluded with the substrate aberrant / universe / mat which is the tale of sings…” [continues in the background, unintelligible]

Narrator 1: It is no longer anyone real, and yet it sounds as though someone is calling out to them, taunting them, mocking their suffering. The Trust’s only remaining presence here, mutant soundwaves echoing uselessly around the cavern, broadcast from some faraway refuge of perfect safety and blissful ignorance.

Narrator 3: (teletheric) “…sweet listener going / going u-uch…”

Narrator 2: The tearror has taken this teletheric broadcast, like it takes everything, and spun out of it something new, something incomprehensible and random.

Narrator 3: (teletheric) “…dark trenches where the light cannot glow or go / Arca / balustrade / Caenum…”

[The sound of the broadcast fades away.]

Narrator 2: Saskia does her best to ignore it, the way she would ignore a mean-spirited heckler at a show, but anger begins to boil under her skin. She hopes it’s anger, anyway. With her mind now on the Trust, and what the Trust chose to leave behind, she wonders how Phineas is faring out there on that fool’s errand she sent him on. She reaches out, past her dogs, searching blindly with her hands for someone else, some other person to cling on to.

[Saskia’s humming falters and stops, regressing into unsteady gasping breaths.]

Narrator 1: She feels someone beside her.

Narrator 2: And that someone holds her just as she is holding them, and they wait out the storm together, helpless to do anything else.

[Saskia’s shaky breathing continues for a few moments in the silence.]