[ TT ] The world is an infinite flat plane . The furthest known points of this realm take days to contact by telegraph . Slowly communication ceases from the far west , and slowly the silence pushes closer and closer to home ...

As far as I'd known the world was flat. There were no horizons - the sky never appeared to touch the Earth. Instead all you ever saw, up in the heavens, was more of the world, almost as if you were living inside a giant clamshell. Look up behind you, and you would see the citizens from the First Nation just waking up to their morning coffee, printed in the sky as if it'd been a giant photograph. Look back up, and you'd see a tiny baby just struggling to sleep, her mother sad and old. And it was all due to gravity. 
 
 General relativity turned the sky into a mirror, bending the light from everywhere into the sky above, a movie that played on the biggest cinema of them all. Some very clever people worked out the world *had* to be infinite this way, or very large, at any rate, to achieve the gravitational deflection needed. Do n't ask me about it. I'm no good with maths. 
 
 As such, navigation was difficult. You never really got used to the movie in the sky. There'd be fixed structures, one for every major direction, six in total, and we'd use them if we wanted to get anywhere. Steam trains ran, once a day, to the furthest realms of the known world. I'd never caught one of them, until now. 
 
 We had n't heard from the Western Union for days. Twelve major companies, out to explore the far west, and not a one of them had sent anything back. I'd been asked to check out what happened, and there being not a worse man to do the job, I went with a heavy heart. 
 
 The train window looked black today. I must've been looking out at the East. The sun did n't shine yet, and briefly I thought back to the world I'd left, and the people I'd slipped past at the station back home. It was such a stupid thing to be worried about, though. Of course I was going to see them again! Why, all I had to do was look up- 
 
 I did exactly that, and through the window on the top of the train, I located what appeared to be my house. My friends were just starting to file out, the last of the leaving party. Yet somehow I felt already lost. And that was without even going into the specifics of this job. 
 
 The train passed Colac. This was the last major signalling post - it was all wilderness from here. Sometimes this meant forests, sometimes desert - and occasionally we found an ocean, like the explorer K'shin did a few years back. In this case the land outside was sand in every direction, linked by a single wispy, wafer-thin rail line. And with each passing second the line was getting thinner and wispier. 
 
 Sometimes I swore the worst part was the waiting. 
 
 At half past thirteen the train pulled into the stop I wanted. This was Simla. I looked out, taking care not to look at the sky, and I saw a few shops outside my window. The platform was on the other side. And there was nothing else. 
 
 Walking off the train made me feel like such an outsider. I'd had the sense to pack heavy, but this only made me look like a tourist. As I waddled off, I decided I'd keep my notebook handy. After all, you never did know when someone would tell you a story. 
 
 And I was pretty sure the locals here had seen everything. 
 
 The bar was called Mitch's. I walked in, and immediately I saw a group of bearded men all sitting around the one table. Detouring left, I sidled up to the counter. My bags immediately caught a bar stool and sent it crashing down. 
 
 Not the best entrance, then. 
 
 `` What'll it be, stranger?'' the barman asked. 
 
 `` Dos cervaza.'' 
 
 He shrugged, then turned back around to make my order. I was just about to pull out my notebook when one of the men behind me interrupted. 
 
 `` You remember me?'' he asked. 
 
 I turned around. His face was wrinkly and torn and reminded me of nothing. `` No,'' I said. `` Why would I remember you?'' 
 
 `` Clive Palmer, Western Union,'' he replied. 
 
 An electric shock ran down my spine. Instinctively, I pulled back, nearly running into the bartender and his drinks. Clive only laughed. 
 
 `` Relax,'' he said. `` I've been meaning to talk with you for a long time.'' 
 
 `` What - what do you mean?'' 
 
 `` Why do n't we go outside for a bit?'' 
 
 I hopped off the bar stool, notebook in hand, and Clive showed me the great outdoors. 
 
 Simla was n't much to look at from the train, and if anything, the town seemed to shrink when I got up close and personal. But Clive was n't interested in any of that. Gently, he guided me to the horizon, where the skies had always been empty. 
 
 `` Exploration has been easy for us,'' he said. `` If we wanted to know roughly what was beyond, we'd simply look up. But take a look yonder, down west, and tell me what you see.'' 
 
 I looked, and instantly something seemed off. Past the orange patches of sky and sand and loneliness, there was a patch of grey void. I'd never seen anything like it. It was n't even the grey of non-existence: it almost felt like what you'd see out of the back of your head. 
 
 `` What is that thing?'' I asked. 
 
 `` That's what I'd like to know,'' he said. `` Some say the world's bending back to its natural shape, which is why we ca n't look up and see other things anymore. It'd just be gravity at work there. Others say it's just temporary, that the storm will pass. Whatever it is, it's coming. And it's headed right this way. We'll need your help to find out how to stop it.'' 
 
 I looked up, to the one patch of sky directly above that was still space black, and wondered how I ever got myself into this terrible tangle. 

