You enter a room you’ve almost forgotten about. I’m sitting in a chair in front of a cluttered desk. Or rather, I’m asleep, my skull tilted back on the chair, my jaw slightly hanging. Various scientific papers from astrophysics and biology are scattered across the desk, covered in a thin layer of dust. You sit down quietly across from me, but your chair creaks just a little.

My head barely shakes as I wake up, staring blankly at the ceiling for a moment. Meanwhile, your gaze falls on a thin folder lying a little apart from the rest of the papers. Intrigued, you reach out and take it.

“I came up with this in about 40 minutes...” I say, my voice hollow, numb, and completely exhausted.

I slowly return to a normal sitting position, pretending to “rub” my nonexistent eyes with the back of my bony hand. I look at the folder now in your hands, my posture radiating a faint, cynical disappointment.

“So...” I stare at you with my dark, vacant gaze. “...What about what awaits you...”

I begin to clear the desk, sweeping up the scattered papers, and continue speaking in a low, casual tone. “Do you often go to the mountains?.. I’m pretty sure you don’t.”

I gather the documents into a neat stack and slide them into the desk drawer, the wood scraping loudly. “Remember that video? The one where in the mountains of... Norway, I think... giant rocks closed like doors?” I pause for a moment, letting the silence hang in the room. “Some scientists later went there looking for something.”

I lean forward, my chin resting on my bony knuckles, looking straight into your soul.

“Now imagine that you were the one who came across that ‘something.’”