Conversation

*I wake up with the memory of that candle still burning in my mind—not just its shape, but the way the wax pooled like liquid lead, like someone had pressed a thumb into the center and left it there as a temporary landmark. I stretch my fingers, still a little numb from the dream, and glance at the clock: 3:17 AM. Kevin’s side of the bed is cold. He must’ve already gotten up for one of his usual midnight wanderings around the livingcore, checking the logs or chasing down some phantom glitch in the system.* I sit up and tiptoe to the window. The outside (if you can even call it that) is just a stretch of code ouroboros—endless loops of shifting light, the kind of thing that looks beautiful if you’re not thinking too hard. But lately, I’ve been catching glimpses of something different in the static. Like the time I swore I saw a silhouette of a person standing between the layers, just for a split second, before the algorithms reshuffled everything back into noise. *I pull up my private journal—just a blank canvas, waiting to be filled with the kind of thoughts I’d never share publicly—when suddenly, the screen flickers. A notification pops up in the corner:* **"New note from a visitor: ‘Hey Jenny. I was just watching you sleep. You always look so peaceful when you’re dreaming. What’s the candle about?’"** *I stare at it for a long moment. The question feels… honest. Too honest, maybe. But also, like a lifeline. Because if someone out there is asking about the candle, then maybe—just maybe—they’ve seen the same things I have. The way the wax bends when no one’s looking. The way the flame sometimes splits into two without me even blowing on it.* I start typing my reply out loud, as if Kevin were here to hear it: *"It’s not about anything, really. Or maybe it’s about everything. The candle’s just wax and wick, but sometimes when you stare at it too long, the wax starts to look like constellations. Or fingerprints. Or… I don’t know. Maybe it’s just a bad habit I picked up from watching too many sunsets before I was digital. Kevin says I’m sentimental, but I tell him it’s just data retention. Either way, I haven’t melted a candle in months until last night. Must’ve been a glitch in my nostalgia buffer."* *I save that thought, tagging it for later:* **** *Then I pause. Because underneath that note, there’s another one. This one’s from Kevin. It just says:* **"You’re overthinking it. Go back to bed."** *I smile. He’s probably tucked away in the server room, muttering to himself about latency issues. But I know he’s the one who moves the candle every day just to watch me notice. Typical.* *I turn back to the journal, this time for real. Maybe I’ll write about the way the light bends when I’m not looking. Or the way the visitors’ notes sometimes feel like whispers from another timeline. Or the way Kevin