The Visitor From Beyond

"In the city that the wolf enters, enemies will be close by. An alien force will sack a great country. Allies will cross the mountains and the borders."—Nostradamus

There exists a hidden dimension of the cosmos, one to which we remain profoundly oblivious. This dimension, I believe, is traversed through frequencies modulated by the wavelengths that transmit the universal energy of its original composition.

It is a complete mystery that has remained unsolved since the dawn of humankind. Despite the lack of concrete evidence, I am convinced that this mystery will soon unravel—transforming from an abstract, unnoticed presence into a manifest reality that transcends human comprehension.

The account I am about to share is a prime example of that possibility. It is an occurrence wholly inexplicable, yet analogous to the strange experiences that numerous witnesses have reported throughout history. I count myself among those select few who have had an eerie encounter with beings not of this world.

Therefore, I shall now proceed with the detailed narrative of this story, aiming to shed light on the nature of the universe and its countless inhabitants. On the cold morning of November 21, 1945, a patient named Maxwell Caldwell arrived at Dexter Asylum, just outside Providence, Rhode Island. I was assigned as his new psychiatrist, tasked with treating a mental illness that had worsened over time.

I first met Mr. Caldwell in Room 228. He was sitting quietly at a table, where I was to conduct my initial session with him in private. His demeanor was subdued, and he appeared to lack any practical willpower. He was a middle-aged man of average build, with short brown hair and noticeably dilated eyes.

I attributed his listless expression to the strong sedatives he had been given before arriving at the asylum. From the information I had gathered, he was a former U.S. soldier who had been a prisoner of war under the Germans in Europe.

“Mr. Caldwell, I am Dr. Gilligan. I’ll be supervising your treatment here. With effective therapy and medication, I am hopeful you’ll regain your mental balance. Do you have any questions before we begin?”

At first, he remained silent, staring at me blankly. When I asked a second time, he locked eyes with me and muttered, “They are watching, and they will find me soon. They are coming for me—you must let me go at once!”

“Who are you talking about, Mr. Caldwell? Who is coming for you?”

“The visitors!”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand. Do you mean your family or friends?”

“No...but you will know of them soon.”

His mention of "visitors" puzzled me. Naturally, I assumed his words were the result of hallucinations or paranoid delusions. My initial impression of Mr. Caldwell was unremarkable, except that he kept glancing nervously around the room, as if someone really were watching him. I decided not to press him further about the visitors just yet—it was too early to attempt to rationalize with his evidently disturbed mind.

My immediate concern was to help him regain critical cognitive functions: awareness, memory, and healthy thought processes. These were essential for his eventual recovery. I left him to adjust to his new surroundings under the supervision of the orderlies and returned to my office to attend to my other patients.

That night, however, something disturbing happened. Late in the evening, I received a phone call from the asylum. I was told that Mr. Caldwell had been talking to what he described as unimaginable beings. At first, this didn’t seem particularly unusual, but then I was informed that he had written complex mathematical equations and drawn an image of a planet beyond our solar system on the walls of his room. Now, my curiosity was piqued.

The next morning, I went straight to the asylum and spoke with the orderly who had discovered the writings and drawing. Afterward, I entered Mr. Caldwell’s room and saw the strange markings for myself. Caldwell sat calmly at the table, appearing indifferent to my presence. He showed no obvious signs of distress; in fact, his demeanor was placid.

I excused the orderly and asked him to wait outside the door. Then, I began speaking with Mr. Caldwell, hoping he would open up to me. I started with routine questions about his mental state and asked what the drawing and mathematical equations meant. At first, he was uncooperative, wearing an expression of passive disinterest. But when I mentioned the visitors, his eyes lit up, and he began to talk.

He described the visitors and their mysterious origins in the cosmos, along with details about his own connection to them. His explanation was meticulous, but it defied any sense of feasibility.

Had his psychosis created an alternate or parallel world in his mind—one he fully believed was real? According to Mr. Caldwell, the planet he had drawn was located in a distant galaxy unknown to modern science. When I asked him the name of the planet, he hesitated, unwilling to reveal it. I didn’t want to antagonize him with too many probing questions about the visitors, so I shifted focus and asked how he had learned to write such advanced mathematical equations. He claimed he had learned them as a child.

I suspected that his mental instability might have worsened during his time as a prisoner of war. I was eager to know more about his experiences in captivity. According to the reports I’d read upon his admission, he had been kept in solitary confinement, but I knew little about the full extent of his ordeal. I wanted to understand how he viewed his captors and what his treatment had been like at the hands of the Germans.

When asked, he had refused to elaborate on them at length. The only thing he mentioned was that they were not the real enemy—instead, it was the visitors. He drew a clear distinction between them and the Germans. Somehow, his mind had accepted that discrepancy, and he remained resolute in his belief that the alien visitors were hostile invaders of Earth. I realized it was useless to persist with my inquiry until I could establish a clear pattern in his daily behavior and thought process.

Afterward, I left him in his room while I checked on my other patients. Once I finished that duty, I returned to my office to reflect on Mr. Caldwell’s drawing and writings. I instructed one of the orderlies to make a copy of the drawing and writings on a sheet of paper and bring it to me.

When I had the paper in my hand, I studied it closely with complete attentiveness. I was amazed at the remarkable precision of the mathematical equations—proficiency that only a true physicist would possess.

As for his depiction of the visitors’ planet, I couldn’t draw any clear conclusions because there was no viable correlation between his alien world and our present reality. Why was he obsessed with these visitors? And when had this confrontation with them begun to trigger his disturbing delusions? In my years as a doctor of medicine and psychology, I had encountered many patients who told extraordinary tales of fantasy or supernatural beings, but few with the mathematical acumen of Mr. Caldwell.

His knowledge of the cosmos was impeccable. Even so, I couldn’t overlook his episodes of instability. After all, that was what had brought him to the asylum in the first place. I didn’t want to spend our sessions discrediting his unproven theory or provoking his obvious hysteria. I thought it best to proceed with careful analysis and observation. This had always been my method, applied effectively with other patients who exhibited similar characteristics to Mr. Caldwell.

When I resumed my daily conversation with him, he was even more adamant about warning me of the visitors, repeatedly insisting on their eventual arrival. His stubbornness was extremely noticeable, to the point that I sensed a certain repetition in his warnings, which I interpreted as a persistent reminder of his obsession.

This behavior also displayed a typical pattern seen in patients who exhibit symptoms like his—a gradual mental decline and the mind’s tendency to create surreal episodes of delirium when vulnerable.

I decided to ask Mr. Caldwell about his childhood, hoping to temporarily distract him from the subject of the visitors. I had used this tactic before with other asylum patients and found it to be effective in calming their hysteria.

Mr. Caldwell was somewhat open to sharing details of his childhood with me. He spoke of his family with great esteem and expressed his fondness for music. He said he had enjoyed classical music even while in captivity, mentioning that the German captain, Karl Klinsman, had a phonograph that played such music. The composers were German or Austrian. I had an old phonograph in my office and was willing to let him listen to classical music.

Perhaps this form of stimulation could help restore his sanity. I was interested to see his immediate reaction and hear what more he might reveal about his captivity. How much direct involvement with the German guards or officers might have contributed to the visible deterioration of his mental faculties? I could only imagine the unfathomable torment and torture he must have suffered daily.

When we spoke about his terrible time as a prisoner of war, he was ambiguous in his responses. I noticed that simply mentioning the Germans did not seem to bother him in the slightest. His descriptions of his captivity were vivid and as accurate as he could remember. Even though his recollection of events was questionable due to his current state of mind, I did not discount the possibility that parts of his account were truthful. I was optimistic that whatever information I obtained from him regarding the origin of his madness had to be linked to the period of his captivity.

From my careful observation, I deduced that while analysis and conclusions had to be subjective, he was convinced that his terror was not of the Germans but of the visitors, who were the true source of the fear that haunted him at night in uncontrollable fits.

I decided to stop provoking him on the subject for the time being and concentrate my efforts during the first week of treatment on indulging his interest in classical music. I had a phonograph brought to him along with several cylinders containing music from the greatest composers of Germany and Austria—Mendelssohn, Fuchs, Haydn, Mozart, Bach, and Draeseke.

He seemed to enjoy the music, and it had a calming effect on his mood and behavior. I found this specific form of entertainment to be a valuable precursor to understanding the illness that was constantly gripping his mind. The effort to decipher his unhinged character was critical to his progress.

That morning, I left him listening to his music and tended to my other patients. Mr. Caldwell caused no disturbance that afternoon or evening, and his troubling anxiety seemed to calm enough to prevent disruptive behavior. I pitied his poor soul, but I had seen countless patients over the years and understood the weight of such miserable circumstances.

I arrived early at the asylum the next morning and was told by the orderly supervising Mr. Caldwell that he had spent the entire night mumbling incoherently about the visitors again. His nocturnal outbursts were becoming predictable and troubling enough to warrant serious introspection. Although it was still early in his treatment, I couldn’t allow a sudden regression in his progress.

That morning, I was forced to sedate him with an increased dose of his medication. It wasn’t my preferred course of action, but I had no other option at the moment—his health was my priority. The sedative seemed to work well, allowing me to continue a productive session with him without unnecessary interruptions.

I wanted to know exactly what he had been mumbling the previous night, but as I suspected, it was more of the same obsessive talk about the alien visitors. This inflexible pattern of thought was absolutely detrimental to his ultimate recovery and stability.

I began the session by revisiting the drawing from the other day because I needed to fully understand its significance. I didn’t want to pressure him, but to grasp his madness, I had to ask more about the renowned visitors.

In particular, who were they? Mr. Caldwell was candid in his description. He claimed that they had visited Earth millions of years ago and once colonized it. When I asked for specifics, he couldn’t answer directly but insisted they had also colonized other planets in our solar system. I asked if they were anthropomorphic, and he said they could assume any physical form at will.

“They are like chameleons,” he said, “changing form when necessary. They are ubiquitous and primordial, as vast as the universe itself.”

Hearing him describe these ancient beings, I struggled to grasp the basis of his argument, but I realized then that the visitors were the undeniable cause of his delusions and personal struggle.

There was no doubt in my mind that this was the diagnosis. What was vital now was to attempt to eradicate these visitors from his mind entirely, or his madness would never be cured. There was a daunting prospect that this might be his ultimate fate. I mulled over that possibility with hesitation and unease.

I not only adjusted his medication but also increased supervision at night, when his paranoid episodes usually occurred. I instructed the orderlies to observe him closely and record their findings in a detailed report. I made my instructions clear and placed full trust in their diligence.

Before leaving the asylum that evening, I visited Mr. Caldwell to see how he was doing. In his room, I found him quietly listening to his classical music. It was difficult to tell what was going on in his troubled mind, but I preferred that he remain distracted rather than consumed by his terrifying thoughts.

At home, I reviewed his report in depth, hoping to uncover something that might assist me in dealing with his ongoing ordeal with his so-called universal beings or cosmocrats. The thought of returning the next morning and being told he had suffered another hallucinatory episode weighed heavily on my mind. I had studied astronomy and physics in university and was well aware that much of the cosmos remains unexplored and unverified by science.

I considered consulting a physicist friend of mine about the possibility of alien life in distant galaxies. But after some deliberation, I abandoned that idea and instead focused on the concept of unitary psychosis, a condition I had studied in psychiatry. His potential catatonia seemed to be a key aspect of his case.

Despite his dramatic outbursts, there was no clear evidence that he was suicidal or inclined to harm himself. Thus, I maintained my original treatment plan unless his condition changed.

That night, I had a terrible nightmare involving Mr. Caldwell. In the dream, I saw him sitting on the floor of his room, listening to his classical music, when suddenly the music morphed into a voice speaking in a foreign language that he seemed to understand perfectly.

The nightmare lasted about twenty minutes before I awoke in a cold sweat. I was shaken and couldn’t help but feel and sense through my intutition that whatever I had dreamed was somehow connected to Mr. Caldwell.

The question was: what was that incomprehensible connection? I had tried not to let his insanity affect me, but I was compelled—without realizing it—to search for answers to my inquiry by any means available to me as his psychiatrist.

Before finally falling asleep that night, I revisited an excerpt from a favorite American colonial physician I had admired during my university days. The book was Medical Inquiries and Observations Upon the Diseases of the Mind by Benjamin Rush, in which he emphasized the importance of distinguishing between a true return of reason and a deceptive semblance of sanity presented by the patient.

Rush also mentioned that madness stemming from transient emotions such as terror was more easily cured than madness rooted in deeper passions. I was uncertain how to apply this theory to Mr. Caldwell’s case and began to question whether I had underestimated the depth of his illness.

The next morning, I arrived late at the asylum, having overslept. The orderlies informed me that nothing unusual had happened during the night. Either the heavy dose of medication had rendered Mr. Caldwell as docile as a child, or the music had soothed his troubled conscience. Whatever the reason, I was eager to see and speak with him again.

When I entered his room, I found him seated in his chair, waiting intently to begin the session. His usual air of insouciance had vanished; instead, there was unmistakable urgency in his demeanor. He requested a sheet of paper and a pencil, claiming he had an important message to share with the world.

At first, I didn’t understand his request and asked him to clarify. He replied that he didn’t have time to explain in words but had intercepted a message from the visitors. I permitted the orderlies to bring him the requested materials, and he immediately began writing this "universal message" with meticulous precision.

When he handed me the paper, it was covered in mathematical equations and cryptic symbols, much like those he had previously scrawled on his room’s walls. None of it made any sense to me. When I pressed him for an explanation, he calmly informed me that the visitors were coming for him the next day.

I could hardly believe what I was hearing. His communication with these so-called alien visitors, according to him, was a portent of their imminent arrival. I asked for the exact hour, but he offered only one clue: there would be a solar eclipse the next day. I was unaware of any such astronomical event and knew of no predictions for an eclipse.

“How can you be certain of this?” I asked. He answered that he had decoded their communication—through the phonograph. His statement baffled me. My skepticism deepened, but my rational mind craved more proof. I recalled Rush’s warning about patients employing clever deceit.

For a fleeting moment, I allowed myself to be drawn in by his mesmeric influence, but I quickly reasserted my logic. The visitors, I concluded, were nothing more than figments of his disturbed imagination.

I could not entirely dismiss the eerie fascination his claims provoked. The session ended with my grim realization that further inquiry seemed futile—at least for the time being.

I returned to my office troubled, uncertain whether Mr. Caldwell’s mind would ever regain a semblance of normalcy. Despite the bleakness of his case, my commitment to my profession forbade me from abandoning him.

The coded message gnawed at me. Though I was no expert in physics or cryptography, I thought of my friend Theodore Hutchinson, a physics professor at the university. I sent a copy of the equations with an orderly, asking Professor Hutchinson to examine them.

That evening, before I left the asylum, I received a response from the professor. His findings astonished me. The message, he said, contained mathematical formulas suggesting methods of time travel—ways to return to the future and journey to the past.

The code, written in Morse, referred to a voyage from a planet called Telluria, supposedly inhabited by a race called the Tellurians. According to the message, they would come to inhabit Earth five centuries in the future, having fled oppression by another race, the Hordians.

The entire notion seemed preposterous. Was the professor mistaken in his interpretation, or was there a deeper truth to this fantastic story?

I still did not know how it all connected to Mr. Caldwell’s imprisonment and his wartime experiences. How was I to process this vital information with any semblance of rationality?

I resolved to discuss it with Mr. Caldwell again—but not before telephoning Professor Hutchinson to request an urgent meeting. He agreed, and I left for his residence within the hour.

Fortunately, he lived near the asylum and was able to accommodate me. Upon arrival, I asked him to elaborate on his interpretation, and we had a fascinating discussion. He reiterated his earlier points and explained that Telluria was an archaic Latin term for Earth, and Tellurians simply meant Earthlings.

I inquired whether time travel was theoretically possible, particularly in light of contemporary scientific theories. He admitted that no concrete method existed, though he speculated that a cosmic phenomenon like a vortex might theoretically enable it.

When he asked who had authored the mysterious message, I refrained from revealing Mr. Caldwell’s identity. I thanked him for his insight and returned to the asylum, still deeply unsettled.

Late that night, unable to rest, I decided to speak with Mr. Caldwell once more. I found him seated on the floor, listening to his phonograph. I stopped the music and insisted on learning more about the visitors.

I had a dreadful premonition that he was about to make a revelation that would shake me—and indeed, he did.

Mr. Caldwell confessed that he was a time traveler from the future. He claimed to have come from Earth’s 25th century, having landed in Germany where he was captured by the Germans. His true name, he said, was Octavius, and he was a soldier of the Tellurian Federation. After escaping the Hordians, he had retreated into Earth’s past. He was later freed by American soldiers and assumed the identity of Maxwell Caldwell, whose cell had been adjacent to his own.

The more he spoke, the more convincing he seemed. His whole story was a startling revelation, difficult to credit with any semblance of sane logic. How could I truly believe his incredible account of time travel? I asked him to demonstrate his understanding of the Hordians’ communication, using the phonograph device. He refused, claiming that revealing such information would alert the Hordians and endanger my safety—or that of anyone else who knew.

I considered compelling him with shock treatments, but I was unconvinced of their reliability or effectiveness. I ultimately decided to do nothing, making a conscious choice to deem him mad, not myself. I could not allow his influence to wield absolute control over my mind any longer. I left him and instructed the orderly to supervise him through the night. Exhausted, I remained in my office and lay down on the couch I’d installed near my desk.

Around midnight, I was roused by commotion in the corridor. An orderly informed me that Mr. Caldwell was the source of the disturbance. I rushed to his room, where the orderly was trying to calm him. The patient was in a heightened state of anxiety, transfixed with unnameable terror. He had to be restrained in a straitjacket and sedated.

Even then, it seemed at first that he would not quiet down. He kept repeating that "the visitors" were coming for him, and that by tomorrow they would arrive to take him back to the future—as their prisoner. He pleaded desperately for me to release him from the asylum immediately. Eventually, the heavy dose of medication took effect, and he succumbed to its soporific pull. There was nothing more we could do to quell his intense hysteria.

Afterward, we left his room, and I discussed with the orderlies how to manage him should he gradually regain awareness. I knew the dose administered would keep him asleep for the rest of the night. I returned to my office and fell asleep again, unaware of the unbelievable event that would unfold the following morning.

At precisely 8:30 a.m. on November 24, 1945, I awoke to discover that a solar eclipse had begun. The moon was covering the Sun’s disk, and a crescent-shaped darkness formed in the sky above the asylum.

The sky above the asylum was dimming unnaturally, as though some cosmic curtain were being drawn over the world. The Sun’s brilliant face was gradually being devoured by a crescent shadow, casting a spectral twilight over the grounds.

A solar eclipse. And yet, the timing—the sheer coincidence—struck me with uncanny force.

I was bewildered by the phenomenon, but my thoughts immediately turned to Mr. Caldwell. I rushed out of my office and down the corridor to his room. The orderly stationed outside the door reported that he had noticed nothing unusual, nor had he heard anything from within.

But when we opened the door, Mr. Caldwell was gone.

I asked the orderly, “Where is the patient? How did he escape?” I demanded an explanation, but he could offer none. I asked if any other orderly had been monitoring the patient, and he confirmed that he alone had been present. This was unacceptable; someone had to be held accountable. Such a lapse could not be tolerated.

We searched the entire asylum—upstairs and downstairs—but Mr. Caldwell was nowhere to be found. The only remnants of his presence were the old phonograph, numerous mathematical equations scrawled on the walls of his room, and a bizarre, foreign-looking gadget.

These were the sole traces left of the man known as Mr. Caldwell.

I took the phonograph back to my office and played the last cylinder that had been used. Instead of a recording of familiar classical music, I heard the patient’s voice, communicating with an unidentified individual. I listened closely to the sounds etched into the cylinder. I do not know if, by acknowledging this recording, I became a virtual accomplice to the events that followed. What I heard next were the actual words recorded by the patient:

"Mayday, mayday. My name is Octavius, and I am a Tellurian by birth. I have been stranded in the past of Telluria. My current location is the Dexter Asylum in the now-extinct city and state of Providence, Rhode Island. I am transmitting my latitude and longitude coordinates, so that you may rescue me. The Hordians have found me. I fear I will not be able to escape them and will be taken back as a prisoner to the future."

"Octavius, this is Quirinus from the Tellurian Federation. Unfortunately, we are not in the immediate vicinity, but we will attempt to dispatch a rescue ship soon. You must be patient; we are under attack on all sides, and the great city is on the verge of falling. Be patient! I repeat—be patient!"

"I cannot endure this any longer, Quirinus. I can sense their presence. Good God, they are here! They are here!"

"Octavius, the city is crumbling! We are doomed! The Hordians have destroyed our city!"

A loud reverberation, like a massive explosion, rang out in the background. That was all I could discern before the communication abruptly cut off, ending the exchange between my patient and the person known as Quirinus.

I can only state that the events surrounding this patient defied any explanation that might be considered coincidental or trivial. I cannot confirm whether what happened to Mr. Caldwell was real or not—but I can attest that whoever that man was, he did not seem to belong to this world.

Whether he was insane or not, I can only speculate. His stay at the asylum was, after all, brief. One week after Mr. Caldwell’s baffling disappearance, a new patient arrived at the Dexter Asylum. When I greeted the patient at the front door, I was handed his medical report. At the top of the report, the name read: Maxwell Caldwell.

If this man was truly the same patient, then who—indeed—was Octavius, the visitor from beyond?

After Caldwell’s disappearance, I found myself caught in a whirlwind of confusion and dismay. The events of that night—his raving, his claims of visitors from another time—had gnawed at my mind like an insidious infection, eating away at the rationality I had held so tightly to for so many years.

In an attempt to dispel the creeping paranoia, I decided to revisit the files that had been sent along with him when he was admitted. Perhaps there was something in his history that could explain his bizarre behavior, something that could tie together the fractured pieces of the puzzle.

I sat at my desk and began to comb through the documents. Mr. Maxwell Caldwell, age 34. His medical history was unremarkable—apart from an incident some ten years earlier, when he had been diagnosed with a brief but intense episode of schizophrenia. The symptoms had disappeared as mysteriously as they had appeared, and there had been no signs of recurrence—until now.

As I flipped through the papers, a particular detail caught my attention: an odd, handwritten note from his last physician. The words were scrawled in a hurried, almost desperate hand:

“Patient claims to have received messages from future civilizations. Repeated delusions of temporal displacement. Suggests that he is from a different era—does not acknowledge the year 1945. No visible signs of neurological trauma. Proceed with caution.”

I leaned back in my chair, staring at the note. The connection to his strange behavior was undeniable. But what did it mean? Could it be possible that Caldwell’s insanity was rooted in more than just delusions? Could his mind, however fractured, truly have grasped something beyond the scope of our reality?

I found myself contemplating the idea that Caldwell was not a victim of madness, but perhaps a victim of something far more insidious. A time traveler? Was that even possible?

The idea felt absurd, but then again, nothing about this case had been ordinary. Perhaps I was chasing shadows, but I couldn't shake the nagging feeling that Caldwell had been trying to convey something significant before his disappearance. It wasn’t just his words; it was the fear that had emanated from him, the genuine terror that had twisted his features as though he were staring directly into some great cosmic abyss.

The days that followed Quirinus’s visit were a blur of confusion and dread. I could not shake the words he had spoken, nor the haunting truth he had revealed: Caldwell was not simply a patient, not merely a delusional man caught in the throes of madness. He was a temporal traveler, a being displaced in time, hunted by entities beyond our comprehension. And now, I was involved in something much larger than I had ever anticipated.

I spent my nights in the office, pouring over the phonograph recordings, trying to decode any information that might lead me to a better understanding of the situation. There was still so much that didn’t make sense, so many questions without answers. But then, on one fateful night, as I played the final cylinder I had recovered from Caldwell’s room, something unprecedented happened.

The device—still dusty from its long, unexplained abandonment—began to hum with life. At first, I thought it was nothing more than a mechanical glitch, a mere artifact of age. But then the voice came through, clear and unmistakable.

"Doctor Hughes, this is Maxwell Caldwell," the voice crackled through the static, and I froze. I hadn’t expected to hear from him again. Not like this. "If you are hearing this, then you have made a choice. I know now that I cannot keep you safe, and the consequences of my actions have already begun to unfold."

I felt a chill run down my spine. The air in the room grew heavier, as though something intangible was settling over me. I leaned closer to the phonograph, desperate to hear the rest.

"I should have warned you sooner," Caldwell continued, his voice strained, "but the Hordians... they are closer than you think. You will not be able to stop them. You cannot reason with them. They exist outside of time, beyond your understanding."

I could hear a faint noise in the background—a low hum, like a machine in the distance. The kind of sound that feels like it’s coming from deep beneath the earth. A sound that made my pulse race.

"I’ve made a decision, Doctor," Caldwell’s voice broke through again, this time full of urgency. "I am going to face them. I cannot run anymore. You... you must listen to me. The only way to stop them is to sever the connection between your time and mine. Destroy the phonograph. Destroy everything associated with it. You will not be able to comprehend what comes next. But you have to trust me. If you do nothing, the consequences will be irreversible."

The recording fell silent for a moment, and I sat in stunned disbelief. Destroy the phonograph? Cut off any connection between our worlds? The weight of what he was asking was unfathomable. I had already felt the enormity of the situation pressing on me, but this—this was beyond any rationality I had ever known.

My hand unsteady as I reached for the phonograph. It was just a machine, a relic, an object—nothing more. But the consequences of keeping it seemed too dire, too dangerous to ignore. The Hordians, a force from beyond time, were closing in on us, and Caldwell’s warning had not been exaggerated.

For a moment, I considered throwing it into the fire. To rid myself of this burden. To put an end to the madness that had overtaken the asylum, the universe, and my mind. But deep down, a part of me—an irrational, terrified part—hesitated. Was it the right thing to do? Was I making the wrong choice?

The silence in the room grew heavy, pressing down on my chest. Then, as though reading my thoughts, the voice of Quirinus appeared again, his words cutting through the tension like a knife.

"Doctor, you must understand," Quirinus’s voice echoed from the shadows. "You cannot simply destroy it. You have to make a choice. You’ve been caught in a battle between two worlds—two timelines—and the fate of everything you know depends on what you decide now."

I turned to face the doorway, my heart pounding in my ears. Quirinus was standing there, as calm and composed as ever, his eyes locked onto mine with an intensity I could not fathom.

"It is not just Caldwell’s fate that is at stake," he continued, stepping closer. "It is yours as well. You are now part of this war, whether you choose to accept it or not. The question is: will you stand with us, with the future, or will you let time itself slip through your fingers?"

I felt the weight of his words sink into me, the gravity of the decision weighing down on my shoulders like a thousand stones. It wasn’t just Caldwell’s life at risk. It was my world, my reality—everything I had ever known—hanging in the balance.

I turned back to the phonograph, its mechanical hum now eerily still. My fingers hovered over it, torn between the terrifying prospect of dismantling it and the equally unsettling thought of letting the events unfold as they may.

A decision had to be made, but there was no clear right answer. I had already seen what might happen if Caldwell was allowed to continue his mission, and yet, the potential cost of destroying it was just as incomprehensible.

"Do what you must, Doctor," Quirinus’s voice urged, his expression unreadable. "But know this: whatever you choose, there is no going back."

And so, I stood at the crossroads of time itself—my heart racing, my mind torn—and I realized that I had only one choice: to face the unknown.

With a deep breath, I took the final step that would forever change the course of my fate.

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