Around the world, billions of people stared at the same broadcast and saw, by every account gathered in the hours that followed, something slightly different from one another.
The valley beyond the torn distortion stretched impossibly far, covered in green that seemed to hold its own light rather than merely reflect the sky above it. Some viewers described it as paradise, unable to find any better word for the sense of rightness it carried.
Others called it a forest, plain and unremarkable except for its scale. A surprising number, interviewed later by journalists who had given up trying to reconcile the discrepancies, insisted quietly that it resembled home — not their home specifically, but the idea of home, distilled into landscape.
No two accounts matched completely.
Kael, reviewing footage from a dozen different cameras positioned at identical angles, confirmed what he had begun to suspect within the first hour.
