Worries in Beige

Elorae paced the soft edges of her workspace, the air shimmering around her with uneasy energy. Her world, a realm of muted hues, all beiges and pale browns, felt dimmer than usual, as if her anxiety had sucked the vibrancy from even the faintest of colors. The walls, if they could be called walls, rippled with her agitation, the porous membrane of her reality barely holding together under her erratic thoughts.

How could she have been so careless?!

Again!

Her idea, her beautiful idea, just in its infancy, had slipped through a crack. Across the an unfathomable span of possibility it had been sent, with no knowing what kind of damage, if any, it could do. Elorae’s fingers brushed the edge of her desk, a structure more conceptual than physical, and the surface dissolved briefly into a mist of light before reforming. Everything here flowed, blurred, transformed. Matter, energy, thought—they were all one and the same, and yet, her idea had taken on a shape, a weight, a significance that now eluded her grasp.

She’d tried to anchor it, to contain its brilliance in the sanctioned confines of the Registry, but it was too raw, too vivid. Too... dangerous. She’d taken a risk, again, working outside the system, shaping something unregulated. Her last warning still echoed in her mind: Unauthorized ideas destabilize more than just you. They had a nasty habit of creating a ripple.

Elorae bit her lip, her translucent reflection shimmering in the fractured plane of her mirror,another object only semi-real, its surface shifting between light and shadow. What had become of her idea? By now, if it had found a host, it would have taken root, grown, become more than idea. It would have become an attribute, something ingrained in this new world, a new defining feature that had not existed before. Interacting with a new reality, the rules, the laws, Elorae had no idea what kind of attribute it would be. How it would react to the new universe was a mystery, but it had the potential to be very dangerous.

Or nothing at all. That was another problem. There was a chance that the idea slipped through the crack and found no footing in its new world. It would wither and die, a seed unnurtured, and would blow away with the next reality wind.

Unfortunately there was only one way to find out what had happened to the idea, and Elorae wanted no part of that.

Beyond the cracks, those unstable fissures in her reality, lay the rigid, chaotic confines of other worlds. Alien places with hard matter and fixed laws. The thought made her stomach twist. Her idea, so fragile yet potent, could wreak havoc there, could change everything. Or nothing at all. A part of her wanted it to grow, a maternal instinct that she didn't understand, hoping that her creation would thrive. But that would come at a cost. And it might just draw attention. The wrong kind of attention.

If the Regulators found out, especially after last time, if they traced any destabilization back to her...

She squeezed her eyes shut, pushing the thought away. The danger was real, but it wasn't certain. Right then, past the potential peril she faced, was a sense of loss. Ideas were currency, but also identity. To lose one was to lose a part of yourself. And if someone in that other place, that other reality, had found her idea, if it had merged with their thoughts, their strange, fixed world...

She shuddered.

The air around her buzzed faintly, the telltale hum of an approaching energy stream. She froze. The Regulators? No, they wouldn’t move so quickly, not yet. The stream's hum grew louder, then receded as it passed her by. False alarm. She had time.

Elorae turned to the crack, its jagged edges faintly pulsing with a sickly light. She reached out, her fingers trembling as they brushed its surface. Experimentally, she sent tendrils of herself through, feeling for damage, for change. But there was nothing. No hint of her work, her idea.

Not yet.

It was still too early. Too early for results, too early for panic.

For now, Elorae would wait. She would return to her authorized work, crafting Registry-approved ideas. Bland as they were, they would keep her busy, keep the Regulators satisfied. To anyone watching, Elorae would be a diligent contributor.

But all the while, she would be watching the crack. And waiting.

And worrying.