Dahlia Black Read online

  We returned to my hotel room. It was locked into place, no shifting light, no doubling of images. Jon tucked me into bed and kissed me gently on the forehead before he took a spare blanket and a pillow and curled up on a love seat in the corner. He looked uncomfortable but he insisted he was not. So sweet.

  “Good night,” he said. “You’ll be here in the morning, right?”

  I said nothing. He fell asleep.

  I’ve been writing this, staring at the wall.

  Trying to see through it.

  From the bed, I can hear Jon’s heartbeat.

  It sounds as sweet as insect wings . . .

  * * *

  I. It is curious to note that one in ten pilots became affected by the Elevation. Researchers who’ve dug into the reason why have all come up empty-handed. Sure, they’ve got a few explanations, but all are lacking: it is related to spatial awareness, it has something to do with sleep rhythms, it is the time spent at altitude. None of these suggestions can be effectively proven. Yet another mystery for the heap.

  II. Some of the other names that were considered during the Disclosure Task Force’s marketing meetings were “the Inevitable,” “the Destined,” and “the Dominion.”

  THE FINALITY

  42

  TRANSCRIPT OF JOURNALIST HARUKI ITO’S INTERVIEW WITH DAHLIA MITCHELL

  LIVE ON CNN A DAY PRIOR TO THE FINALITY—12.28.2023

  HARUKI ITO:I Thank you, Dr. Mitchell. We have many questions, but first I want to ask how you feel tonight, being the discoverer of the Pulse and our contact with the Ascendant. A lot of people consider you the face of the Elevation.II

  DAHLIA MITCHELL: I doubt that’s true . . . In terms of the Pulse, I just happened to be at the right place at the right time. And I guess I knew what I was looking for.

  HARUKI ITO: Tell us about how the Elevation has affected you.

  DAHLIA MITCHELL: Like a lot of people, it started with migraines and then visions. I was seeing gravitational waves—things that are normally impossible to see or even sense. That gave way to a new sort of consciousness. I had a . . . well, this is hard to explain on TV . . .

  HARUKI ITO: Just give it a try. (laughs) For those non-Elevated folks like me.

  DAHLIA MITCHELL: You know the feeling you get when you have what they call a spark of inspiration—when everything just comes together and you suddenly know, or understand, something you’ve been trying to wrap your head around? Well, I got that sensation, but a flood of information followed it.

  HARUKI ITO: What sort?

  DAHLIA MITCHELL: Math. The most highly advanced, abstract mathematics I had ever even conceived of. It was like the math at the heart of the Pulse but even more powerful. Really, it was beautiful. And then . . . then I started to see the other side. That’s what I call it.

  HARUKI ITO: We’re talking about the Finality here.

  DAHLIA MITCHELL: Yes. That’s not . . . That’s a term that was thought up by someone, and maybe it’s true, but it isn’t exactly what I’d call what I’ve been seeing. The Finality, that’s an ending. It’s the way that people here—the people who aren’t Elevated—will see what’s going to happen.

  HARUKI ITO: We’ll come back to what’s going to happen, but tell us a little more about the “other side.” What have you been seeing there?

  DAHLIA MITCHELL: I’m going to get a little technical again but I can’t help it. I have been calling this place the other side, but, really, it’s here. It isn’t a world apart but one that overlaps our own. And it’s beautiful. I want everyone to know that. For those of you who are Elevated, know that where we’re shifting to is like here. It is sunny, warm, and it is designed. That’s a weird choice of words, but there is an organization there, a purposefulness. For those of you who have family members, loved ones, friends, who are Elevated, I want you to understand that we’re not leaving. It’s true that you won’t see us or hear us or be able to touch us. But that doesn’t mean that we won’t be alive and near you. We’ll still be here, just on the other side of here . . .

  HARUKI ITO: That’s beautiful.

  DAHLIA MITCHELL: I believe it’s true.

  HARUKI ITO: Dr. Mitchell—

  DAHLIA MITCHELL: Dahlia, please . . .

  HARUKI ITO: Dahlia, what can you tell us about the Ascendant? Do you see them in the other place, the other side, where you describe the sun and warmth?

  DAHLIA MITCHELL: I haven’t seen them. I don’t know if they’re there. I only know the Ascendant from the code they wrote, the Pulse they sent us. They are engineers, builders, and creators. Space travel with machines is archaic to them. They travel without moving, in a sense. The Ascendant are so pure . . . I . . . I don’t know how to put it in words, but . . .

  When I watch this interview, the last that Dahlia Mitchell ever gave, I freeze the video on this moment right here. Dahlia’s expression is one of both awe and sorrow. She knows something that she doesn’t want to tell Haruki Ito. She is hiding a truth that would only emerge much later. When you learn it, you understand why she holds back, why she is tongue-tied . . .

  HARUKI ITO: Moving on. Tell us about the Finality. What can we expect?

  DAHLIA MITCHELL: No one knows when it will happen. That’s the first thing to understand. It could be in the next hour or the next month. Though I have a feeling it will happen soon. The Finality will not be frightening. It won’t be loud. There won’t be fireworks or lightning. What is going to happen will simply . . . happen. I can’t explain it any better than that, really. You know how you sense a difference in the light when a cloud passes over the sun? The shift to shade isn’t unnerving or shocking. It happens, we understand it, and then it is over. This will be the same way. I will say this: from what I’ve learned looking over the math that’s filled my mind, the Finality will be quite short. Like the Pulse itself, it may also happen in waves.

  HARUKI ITO: Waves?

  DAHLIA MITCHELL: There might be a few places where it happens first. Or perhaps it will happen to only a handful of Elevated before the rest. Regardless of the rollout, the result will be the same. We’re moving on . . .

  HARUKI ITO: Some people have suggested this is the end of the world—the apocalypse . . .

  DAHLIA MITCHELL: Yes and no. Yes, this is the end of the world as we know it. The word “apocalypse” conjures up all sorts of very negative imagery. It will not be that. We need to come together as one people, as one voice—

  This is the moment most everyone watching that day remembers best. It was extraordinary. Depending on which country you were watching the broadcast in, Dahlia began to speak in that language directly to the camera. If you were in France, she shifted from English to French. If you were in India, she switched to Hindi. She spoke in each and every language simultaneously. It cannot be explained, though everyone I’ve spoken to has said the same thing: she was Elevated; nothing was off the table.

  DAHLIA MITCHELL:—and accept what is to come. When the Elevated leave, our world will remain, and those who stay with it will need to rebuild. You have an opportunity that will never come again. Rebuild society to be stronger, better, than it was. Allow the emptiness of the world to fill in naturally. Take your time and do it right, so that it lasts and it is meaningful. The future is unwritten and only you have the tools to write it. Know this: we will be here as well, around you, ineffable but alive, watching but not seeing. It begins . . .

  * * *

  I. Haruki Ito (1965–2027) was a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist known for his series of groundbreaking interviews with Elevated individuals. These interviews were collected in his 2026 book Talking to the Other Side. He died in a car accident in Tokyo shortly after the publication of Talking.

  II. Dahlia’s face was literally on the cover of nearly every magazine in print at the time. She was featured on TV, interviewed online, and appeared on over two dozen radio call-in shows. Though these appearances were brief, they left a lasting impression: Dahlia, discoverer of the Pulse, was the Elevation.

/>   43

  TRANSCRIPT FROM A 911 CALL

  RECEIVED BY LOS ALAMOS, NEW MEXICO, POLICE DEPARTMENT ON 12.28.2023

  The small town of White Rock, New Mexico, sits approximately thirty-odd miles northeast of the city of Gallup. It was the location of a very unusual case related to the Finality.

  While conspiracy theorists have used the incident at White Rock as a rallying cry around a suspected false flag operation to silence people who “knew too much about the truth about the Elevation,” the cause of the mass disappearance there is still unknown. Several experts I’ve spoken with have suggested that this was an incredibly rare instance of mass Elevation, with a whole population being Elevated simultaneously. Whatever the truth behind it, I find it unique and fascinating.

  LOS ALAMOS PD: Police Dispatch, what’s your emergency?

  CALLER 23: This is Kate Molavi. I need . . . Did you hear what’s happened? Has anyone called you about what—

  LOS ALAMOS PD: Say again? What’s happened where?

  CALLER 23: I—I’m sorry. Just in a panic here . . . I got . . . I got a call from my daughter Amber in White Rock last night about—they were seeing things, okay? Not just a couple people like you hear on the news, the stuff that I’ve read about going on across the country, but . . . but all of them . . . all the people . . .

  LOS ALAMOS PD: Say again? What’s happened where?

  CALLER 23: I’m in White Rock right now and it’s—My daughter called me from here last night . . . Have you been over there? Has anyone called you about it?

  LOS ALAMOS PD: No, ma’am. I’m just trying to understand what you’re calling in—

  CALLER 23: I’m sorry. It’s just . . . I’m freaking out . . . I can’t find her. The house is empty. The windows and doors are open like . . . people have run out . . .

  LOS ALAMOS PD: I understand you’re concerned and I’m trying to listen to what you need to tell me. But I need you to take a moment and just . . . just tell me as simply as you can what you know about White Rock. We haven’t gotten any calls just yet . . . Don’t have anyone down there right now . . .

  CALLER 23: Send someone to White Rock, okay? Send as many people as you can because they’re gone . . . The people here are gone . . . My daughter . . .

  LOS ALAMOS PD: Which people, ma’am? Which people in White Rock?

  CALLER 23: All of them. The whole place . . . My daughter called me last night and said she saw something. An opening . . . But it didn’t make any sense the way she said it, okay? My daughter has had issues in the past with drugs, all right? I know that. I helped her through those times and I saw her high, listened to her acting crazy. I’ve been through that, but this was different. I know she’s clean—been clean for months—and this . . . She said there was a hole that opened outside her house—

  LOS ALAMOS PD: A hole? Like a sinkhole? In a street or—

  CALLER 23: Not a sinkhole. Not a normal hole. She said “opening,” the way she described it. Like a hole in the air right in front of her. Solid but not. Right in front of everyone.

  LOS ALAMOS PD: Where in White Rock are you, ma’am? Can you stay—

  CALLER 23: I’m in the lot of the Baptist church. Sun’s just coming up and this place—it’s just empty. There are cars . . . cars in the street with the doors open and the windows rolled down. All the doors . . . You have to come here now.

  LOS ALAMOS PD: Ma’am, I’ve got several officers on their way over now. I’ve put in calls with the sheriff there—

  CALLER 23: There’s no one here. You understand? This place is empty and . . . Hang on, I . . . Oh my God . . . (rustling sound, then yelling off phone) What is that? What are you doing . . . Please . . .

  LOS ALAMOS PD: Ma’am? Mrs. Molavi, tell me what is happening—

  (Silence on the other end of the line for a few seconds. Rustling sounds and then breathing, rapid, as though running.)

  CALLER 23: I was wrong . . . I was wrong . . . I need to leave . . .

  LOS ALAMOS PD: What is going on? Are you okay?

  CALLER 23: No. No. No, something’s very wrong here.

  LOS ALAMOS PD: I have officers on their way right now. They will be there in a matter of minutes. Can you get to a safe place?

  CALLER 23: I see them . . . (Caller is emotional, crying.) I see them now . . . There is an opening and . . . that is why the doors were open, the windows . . . (off phone) Oh, sweetheart. Oh, sweet . . . I knew I’d see you again . . .

  LOS ALAMOS PD: Ma’am? My officers are a few blocks from the church. Can you wave to them? Can you signal them and let them know where you are?

  (There is the sound of wind, something brushing against the receiver.)

  LOS ALAMOS PD: Ma’am? Hello?

  CALLER 23: (continuing to speak off phone) Oh, sweet heaven . . . sweet heaven . . . I knew that you would come back. That I would be with you again . . . Let me . . . Let me . . .

  (A second female voice is heard faintly in the background, but what she is saying is indecipherable.)

  LOS ALAMOS PD: Please, ma’am. My officers are there right now. Hello? They are by the church and they’re telling me they can’t see you . . .

  (Silence on the other end of the line.)

  LOS ALAMOS PD: Ma’am? Hello? Please tell me where you are?

  CALLER 23: I am gone . . .

  This transcript ends with a note:

  Los Alamos, New Mexico, police officers arrived in White Rock to find the entire town of 1,540 people had been abandoned. At local businesses, cash remained untouched in unlocked registers. At homes, cars, valuables, family photos, were all left behind as though the population had suddenly deserted the town en masse. The case report notes that the cause of the incident was never determined and notes that there were no environmental or atmospheric factors involved. The woman who called the police department in Los Alamos was never located.

  44

  PRESIDENT VANESSA BALLARD

  DETROIT, MI

  SEPTEMBER 18, 2025

  President Ballard walks me to my rental car.

  I unlock it, the headlights illuminating the darkness around us, and there, just a half block away, I see a woman in fatigues with a machine gun. There are probably a dozen more like her in the shadows. Despite President Ballard’s relaxed state, her reflectiveness, she’s still a former leader of this country and one who saw our society navigate its most difficult hour. Needless to say, there are a lot of people who’d like to see her dead rather than retired in Detroit.

  As I close my car door, President Ballard waves good night. She seems to me to be quite at ease with the way things have ended up. It’s hard, at the end of history, to look back and not think: Things could’ve been much worse . . .

  David missed the Finality boat by a handful of days.

  Had he survived past the third stage of the Elevation, I have no doubt that he’d be on the other side now. But his body wasn’t strong enough. I sometimes lie awake at night staring up at the shadows moving across the ceiling and wonder if he was the lucky one.

  We’ll never know, of course.

  The day the Finality began was much like the others that had preceded it.

  Despite Dahlia’s message of hope and my own of courage, the nation was racked by turmoil and despair. A funny thing happens when you tell people that their world is ending: They freak out. Some of them go on sprees: they down every drug they can get their hands on and go out wilding, looking for thrills. That ends badly almost every time. Others do the opposite: they retreat into faith or the forest. At one point there were reports of 3 million people entering Yellowstone National Park and setting up camp.I All those people out on the streets tearing it up or out in the woods looking for salvation—it meant far fewer people manning registers and gas stations and emergency rooms and banks.

  At the White House, we were trying to put out fires where we could.

  Congress had recessed. DC was shut down, under a curfew. Large sections of the city were burning and there weren’t enough f
ire engines to tackle the flames. The electricity went out around noon and never came back on.II

  I was in the Roosevelt Room when a junior staff member on Glenn’s team simply vanished. This was a young woman, someone I hadn’t even known was suffering from the Elevation. She was there one second, sorting files at the edge of the table, and the next . . . she was gone. The files and her clothes fell to the floor. Paper scattered. Everyone in the room turned to me, totally confused. But our bewilderment didn’t last long.

  We didn’t need to say anything; we all knew what had happened.

  At that same millisecond, across the entire globe, several billion people blinked out of existence. A lot of them were in hospitals, being treated—ineffectually—for the Elevation. But the vanishings happened in every situation you can imagine: people walking across the street, people in elevators, people on airplanes, people eating a meal. In a flash, all of them were suddenly gone.

  There was no time for farewells. No last glances or cries for help.

  I have never heard a silence like the silence that engulfed Washington that day. I emerged from the White House and looked out, past the lawn and fence, to Constitution Avenue, where traffic had stopped. Drivers stepped out of their cars and a lot of them were looking up at the sky. It was a crystal clear day.

  That moment, I don’t know exactly how long it lasted, was so heavy with awe and power. The very air seemed electrified, as though lightning were about to rain down on the city. Then the silence passed, the birds started calling again from the trees, traffic started up, and the rest of us went on with our lives.

  I stepped back into the White House, and Glenn Owen and I walked the halls, counting who remained, and assessing the losses. Of the roughly 560 people working in the building that day, 210 had disappeared. Their clothes were gathered up and their valuables—car keys, photos from their desks, wallets and purses—were placed in boxes for their families to retrieve. I don’t think the scale of what had happened really struck me then. It’s hard to quantify that sort of loss, especially when you consider how quietly they all went: there was no struggle, no one called out for help . . . They simply evaporated.