Horton is staying behind at my apartment while Nakomi and I get some sustenance. My refrigerator's contents are inadequate thanks to my recent episodes of space-caseyness, and we've worked up quite the appetite after sensory deprivation followed by knowledge overload.

The two of us head to EcoBowls because it's easy, and I tell Nakomi about my journey to the dust speck and the accompanying revelations along the way. She nods silently, taking in each word...but I'm not sure she believes me. I'm not sure she believes anything that's happened since we got to the spa. I have an urge to pinch her and show her that she's not dreaming, as I suspect she thinks she's still asleep.

Once at the restaurant, we each get a bowl. I also get a bowl for Horton, although I'm unsure about his eating habits and food preferences.

On the way back to the apartment, I see the woman who gave me a flyer about lizard people the other night. The conspiracy theist.

If only you knew, I think. Lizard people exist. Don't you, glephkings? You are out there. You know about us. If only you could come here and show yourselves; you'd give people like this one the scare of their lives.

A second later, twelve or more lizard people appear right next to me, each wielding their own hyper-technological staff, startling Nakomi and causing her to drop her gorgeous grain bowl. Its contents now decorate the sidewalk.

The words "Oh no" escape from my mouth, and I remember the scale inside of me. The beacon. Did Horton's scale lead his kind right to me? It only shows me your location if you desire to show me, he'd said. And I had just been wishing more of them would show up. I hadn't really wanted that, not like this, anyway. 

Everything begins to happen so fast. The conspiracy woman sees the glephkings. Her eyes have grown twice their normal size at the sight of the actual lizard people.

"LIZARD PEOPLE HAVE INFILTRATED PORTLAND!" she screams into a loudspeaker. "THEY ARE FROM THE ALPHA DRACONIS STAR SYSTEM, AND THEY POSE AS OR POSSESS HUMANS TO TAKE OVER OUR WORLD. JUST LOOK AT THEM!" She points at us, and the eyes of various passersby lock on us.

People start freaking out. A cacophony of lyrics emerges from the crowd that has suddenly formed. "Oh my god." "What the fuck." "What are those things?" "Lizard people!" "Aliens!" "Possessors!"

Horton, we need you, I think, and like magic, he appears.

He sees the creatures from his world, and I can tell they are speaking to each other telepathically, though I can't hear what they are saying, nor would I understand it if I could hear it. He's probably asking them why they came here; they're probably asking him the same.

People start throwing things. Food, it seems. A shower of contents from what I can only imagine are more eco bowls covers me. Then an umbrella hits me in the shin. I bend down to touch the egg-like bump forming there. "We have to get out of here!"

Horton touches Nakomi and I, and his fellow glephkings link arms. A swish of his scepter, and we are back in my apartment.

In my now-crowded apartment, I try to figure out what has happened.

"Did your scale lead them to me?" I ask Horton. He, Nakomi, and I are surrounded by the other glephkings.

"He should never have put his scale in you," another glephking says firmly. "We are not meant to interact with your kind like this. This is dangerous. You humans are too fragile to accept knowledge of our kind, of the realms beyond your realm."

It surprises me to hear another one of them talking, as I've only ever talked to Horton. But I know that our language has been gifted to all of them, not just Horton.

"I'm sorry," Horton says, looking ashamed. "I know what I did was wrong. But I was so curious!"

My curiosity, I think.

"Why did you come after me?" he asks them. "Did you come to take me home?"

The other crocodile-lizard creatures look at each other, as though searching for an answer. It must be an answer they don't want to give him, or else they would simply telepathize it.

"We were...curious too."

Great, I think. I've infected all of these creatures with my curiosity. Our universe is contained within a virus, and we humans, and our feelings, are like viruses.

"You say that humans are too fragile to accept knowledge of you," Nakomi says suddenly. "But Horton has told Izzy all about the chains of worlds. He even showed her a world on a dust speck. The knowledge hasn't killed her. Hasn't exploded her brain. She's still alive."

The reptilian creatures ponder this. "This is...interesting. We have always theorized that the human mind is a fragile thing, that it is not meant to hold knowledge of the megaverse. The human brain does possess some level of plasticity, but humans who aren't careful can learn too much too quickly and damage it. We have even seen humans damaging themselves on their astral journeys to visit us."

"I think that humans are ready to learn," Horton says, his eyes earnest. "Izzy has shown me that they are ready to learn. They have evolved much since we first began to see them."

I hear a notification on my pocket computer, but I ignore it. Nothing beyond this conversation matters to me right now. The megaverse.

Another one sounds from Nakomi's pocket computer, and she opens it. "Oh no," she says, and she heads over to my living room window, opening the curtains ever so slightly and peering out. "Three Global News vans are here."

"What?"

"Well, I'm not surprised. We're all over the news. There are pics and videos of us over by EcoBowls, and we don't look that great in my honest opinion, since we're cowering, covered in food, and holding hands with lizard people."

She shows me her phone, and I scroll down a thread centering on the topic of "Izzy Belvin and Nakomi Champignon seen with lizard people." Various pictures, news stories, and personal social media takes greet me.

"Perfect," I say aloud, and then I wonder if Horton and his kind understand sarcasm. "You should all go," I tell him and the other glephkings.

"We can't," says Horton. "You'll need to explain this to your humans. Don't you want them to know everything you've discovered?"

"Well, yes, but..."

Horton rests his clawed hand on my shoulder. The gesture is so human I have to wonder if he got it from us, or if it's a piece of body language that has shown up in his world, too.

I look out of my window to see the vans for myself. A large crowd has formed. Someone has doxed me, given my address to all of these people.

Determined, I decide I will speak to Global News, sharing my story with the world.

I tell Horton and the rest of the glephkings to stay inside; if I feel it's safe for them to come out, I will give them a signal. They nod, as does Nakomi, who seems to be on board with my plan.

Nakomi and I head out of my apartment, down the elevator, and into the street holding hands. I've never been so happy that my apartment requires an access code, or else the crowd might have already made its way inside. Police have also set up a perimeter, and they aren't allowing anyone who isn't Global News or who doesn't live here to cross it, it seems. Hand in hand, Nakomi and I make our way to someone at Global News who looks important; as soon as their gaze locks with ours, they ask for a live interview. As I agree, I notice Nakomi waving to someone in the crowd, and that someone, on further investigation, appears to be Simon (AKA Zeus). He looks happy to see her. And part of me is happy to see him. Because his presence makes me believe that this crowd is genuinely interested in my and Nakomi's story, that they aren't merely interested in throwing more food or umbrellas at us.

Global News is broadcasting live, and as my face goes live, I try to exude the same level of confidence I did during my TEDTalk.

"Hello, everyone. I'm Izzy Belvin. You may have heard of me, or at least, you may have heard my nickname: the Queen of Grasshoppers. I am here to talk to you about the lizard people. Or crocodile people. Whatever you want to call them.

"They have come here from another world, but they do not mean us harm. They are not from the Alpha Draconis star system; they are not from any star system in our universe. They are not possessing or posing as humans. As you can see, they are here in their true forms, and they are here out of pure curiosity! Some of us have visited their world before. Different variations of DMT, especially Vivectica™, have given us the means to travel there astrally. But these humanoid lizards have unlocked the powers to travel here physically." I'm speaking the truth, but I'm well aware of how crazy I sound. I look into the crowd. I think they appear somewhat receptive to what I'm saying. I can only hope the people viewing this on their pocket computers or TVs are also open to the truth.

"Again," I emphasize, "They mean us no harm. They know humans can be a wonderful species. They've shared knowledge and love with us before. They just want to know more about us, about Earth, about our universe."

Horton's body suddenly appears alongside mine, his way of telling the world I'm serious. I didn't give him my signal, but he's here anyway. He smiles at the man holding the camera, who I can't help but notice has backed up a few feet. Unfortunately for Horton, his smile is a bit...toothy.

The next moment goes by in slow motion. I hear the shot before I see Horton collapse, but that sound is enough for me to know what's happened. Films mislead you about how loud guns without silencers can be when they are shot within close range, but the close shot makes me feel like my eardrum has burst. The only sound I can hear anymore is a loud ringing noise, which makes me feel so detached from everything else I'm seeing. Sights with no sounds.

Horton's friends suddenly stand over him, having teleported next to their dying friend, trying to rescue him from whatever has happened. They appear to know very little about human weapons, about human violence, about human fears and distrust and anger and hunger for power. Maybe none of my fellow humans thought to bestow them with that knowledge.

Bang, bang, bang. More of them go down. A slaughter of glephkings.

The sight makes me hate humanity. Why do we feel we have to harm that which we don't understand? My body falls on top of Horton's, forming a sort of shield. I'm surprised I don't get shot myself. I'm fully prepared to take a bullet. I'm done with this hatred.

Somebody is pulling me off of Horton's body, and I grab for Horton's scepter and hold on to it as though it's my child. "Get him," I hiss, and I notice the person dragging me is Nakomi. She signals to a nearby man—Simon—to get Horton.

This woman is my best friend. She's manipulative and overbearing, but she'll put herself in the line of fire to save me. And she'll employ her maybe something more than a one-night stand boyfriend to grab my magician. My Horton.

Horton, who helped me hear whos. Who helped me understand. 

We get into a car. Nakomi tells Simon to pedal to the metal. "Lose the crowd," she says. "We'll go into hiding."

I'm in too much shock to register anything that's happening, but somehow, surprisingly, we get away.

subchapter | chaos

Some people believe that chaos is disorder governed by randomness. But there exists a strong distinction between chaos and randomness. Randomness can never be predicted, and many scientists believe that true randomness does not exist: that the world (including humans) is predictable, albeit chaotic. While chaos might seem random, it is never truly random: beneath chaos, there are underlying patterns governed by deterministic laws. Chaos is highly unpredictable, but with the right information, we could predict chaotic behavior. Understanding the factors that determine the behavior is crucial, but there are often far too many deterministic factors for us to make sense of their part in influencing said behavior. Chaos exists in big systems, which are nonlinear. In other words, you can't simply say that A caused Z; that is too linear and doesn't take into account other potential deterministic factors (the combination of A and B, influenced by C and D, affected by the absence of E, etc.). The most popular example used to illustrate chaos is the butterfly effect: the idea that a butterfly flapping its wings in one part of the world might contribute to a tornado in another part of the world. Although this is just an illustrative theory, it is quite true that very small changes made to the initial conditions in, say, a weather simulation will lead to vastly different results.