I registered a regular beat that might have been the sound of a heart or drops of water falling on a lake. As the milliseconds passed it grew louder until I became convinced I could hear the sound of the universe in its anticipatory state, an instant before it came into being, and that the beat was a countdown.

The rhythm warped into a deep monotone and signified the build-up of a phenomenal amount of energy. Shock had robbed me of the ability to note the experience of my first transit, but the second journey left a profound mark on me.

When the last of myself was gone, there came an instant between non-being and being that seemed to last an eternity. Were we passing through a place without time? Were we at the heart of all things? There was a void, and emptiness that was more than darkness, more than blackness, because dark and black are elements of reality, and this was something else. An unreality, a nothingness that is hard to even conceive, let alone explain. If reality is day, then this was night. It was non-existence, and in the brief moment I experienced it, I was without desire or suffering. I look back on it and think that was as close to contentment as I will ever get. I was beyond space and time.

Then suddenly, as Ben’s poem described it, I was on the other side of night and I saw it all.

I was conscious of galaxies being born and dying, of stars fading in the turning aeons, of the relentless draw of singularity, but from wherever I was, they all seemed small and insignificant. I was part of the whole and for a moment that seemed to last for eternity, I felt acceptance and peace as I passed through the very eye of reality itself.

Then I was.

I came into existence somewhere else. At some other time.

There was no reconstruction process. I simply manifested elsewhere, like a rapid and sudden birth.

I still held Beth’s hand, and Ben had the other.

‘Where are we?’ I asked, a little dazed.

‘Somewhere they can help,’ he replied. ‘Come on.’

Chapter 55

We were in a small room. A strip window ran the length of one wall, near the ceiling, allowing hazy light to fill the space. Wherever we were, it was daytime, and there was a warmth to the light that suggested summer. The walls were bare, devoid of power sockets or switches, just plain white panels made of a translucent plastic. Behind me was a thick door with an air seal.

Ben picked up Beth’s body. She seemed so insubstantial it was as though he was hardly carrying anything.

‘There’s a keypad on the left,’ he said. ‘Just touch it and press the open button. It shouldn’t be locked.’

I did what he asked. There was a three-inch square cut into the wall beside the door, and when I touched it, a display appeared, showing a red lock button above a green open. I pressed the latter, and the air seal deflated and the door slid back.