Excerpt: Muted

Early spring sunlight poured through the window, highlighting a small prism. Colors played out on the wall by the desk, dancing in front of Jacob’s eyes. Giving a glance back to the papers spread across the desk top in front of him, Jacob decided to instead watch the rainbow splashing across his wall. The colors seemed so vibrant to him, unlike the drab shades of the rest of his house. With a sigh he stood up, walked over to the wall. Passing his hand in front of the prism’s path, he stared at the colors resting on his hand. Feelings of frustration welled up in him. The research he had done gave too many conflicting stories. Somehow he needed to riddle out this puzzle for himself, but the task seemed so daunting. Picking up the prism, he toyed with it for a minute, thinking of the theories he had read about it. As he absent mindedly played with it, he walked around the room lost in thought.

It wasn’t a large room, and he easily made several circuits while the gears were churning in his brain. A small desk sat in front of the large window that faced out across a field that ended where the forest began. Bookshelves lined the rest of the walls, all filled with a collection anyone else would find disconnected and eclectic. For Jacob these books were all invaluable in his line of work. He was a Researcher. It was considered a rather prestigious line of work, few were able to pass the tests required to become a full fledged Researcher. Most were only able to reach the level of Information Seeker, which was a couple of levels below Jacob. Through hard work and perseverance he had risen through the ranks and had become the town’s official Researcher. His mentor had passed that position to him about three years ago, shortly after he had turned twenty-five. Some of the townspeople were surprised that he had obtained the title at so young an age, although it wasn’t unheard of.

Jacob gained the position because he deserved it. The answers the townspeople needed were there to be found, and Jacob was good at finding them. He could tease out the trail and compile the facts to come up with a complete and accurate answer. Things that would stump other members of the research community, Jacob could solve. He didn’t consider himself anything of a genius. The information just seemed to fall together for him, once he put in the work to find it. When he managed to find a particularly challenging answer to ferret out, he relished it.

The current problem was too serious, and too frustrating for that same kind of zeal. All the information was conflicting, and nothing was factual enough to be taken for granted that it was true. Jacob wasn’t sure if he even needed to find a solution. Either they were being led into the Beyond and granted an existence unlike any they had known, or they were slowly dying without realizing it.