The Silent World

The Geometry of Fear

They call themselves Flatlanders. It’s a name that reflects their existence, a simple plane, a brutal simplicity. They live in a world where up and down are meaningless, where the concept of depth is a terrifying, ungraspable abstraction. Their world is a circle, perpetually bordered by a single, unwavering line. Any attempt to cross this line, to venture into what they can only describe as “the void,” ends in a chilling, irreversible collapse.
They mark their lives with circles, perfect, repeating circles. These are not mere decorations; they are the very architecture of their thought. A straight line, to them, is an impossibility, a monstrous distortion that threatens to unravel their reality. They instinctively avoid creating them, fearing the destabilizing effect they represent.

The Ritual of Severance

Their most sacred ritual is the Severance. When a Flatlander dies, their circle simply vanishes. But the process isn’t clean. A faint distortion ripples outward, a sympathetic vibration that echoes across the plane. This ripple, they believe, is the essence of the deceased, a lingering trace of their existence. The larger the circle, the more potent the ripple.
And this is where the horror truly begins. The ripples don’t fade. They persist, growing fainter over time, but always present. They are the echoes of a forgotten world, a constant reminder of the fragility of their existence. The elders speak of “the Great Collapse,” a cataclysmic event that shattered their world and created these lingering distortions.
They believe that if enough ripples accumulate, they can, theoretically, cause a new collapse. A self-fulfilling prophecy, woven into the very fabric of their reality.

The Nature of Perception

From our perspective, observing Flatlanders is a profoundly unsettling experience. We see them as distorted shapes, as if our three-dimensional understanding is actively warping their world. We see the ripples, of course, but we don’t fully comprehend their significance. We understand that they represent a fundamental difference in perception, a reality that operates outside the boundaries of our own.
It’s a lesson in the subjectivity of existence. A chilling reminder that there are realities beyond our comprehension, worlds shaped by forces we can’t possibly grasp. The most terrifying aspect is that they are unaware of our observation, of the immense gulf separating our realities.