Kyle walked up the hill. In her hand was basket filled with delicious pastries. Atop the hill laid a strange building, an observatory it was called. It was a house with tubular eyes that lay forever gazing to the heavens.

Her cousin, Jeremiah, lived there. He was a scientist, and he loved to gaze to the heavens and decipher the stars. He used to look through a spyglass to spy upon the glowing pinpricks that were the stars, yet he found them lacking in power to view their full majesty.

And so he built an observatory affixed to his home. It was a large chamber that housed a large contraption of metal and glass. It had lenses large as wheels and could view the most distant objects with ease.

Jeremiah had been obsessing with his viewing with his research of the cosmic phenomena that he hadn't left his house for weeks now. You had to go to his house just to conduct useful business until recently when he'd stopped answering the door.

Kyle reached the door of his cousin. She reached into her pockets and produced a brass key. She inserted it into the keyhole and turned it. The door's locking mechanism clicked open.

Opening the door, Kyle found the house to be dusty and unkept. Dust carpetted every surface as if no one had walked upon these floors for a few days already. Papers illegible handwriting and numerous erasures littered the floor. The potted plant in the corner was wilted, dry and unwatered for days.

"Jerry?" She called, but no one answered. "It's me, Kyle. I brought you pastries." The dusty air remained undisturbed; Jeremiah did not answer.

Kyle set the basket onto the dining table, careful of not making dust land on the baked goods. She looked around the house for her cousin.

He wasn't in the kitchen nor the bathroom. There wasn't any suspicious marks and smears. There were stacks of dog-eared books in the kitchen, regarding the stars, the sciences, and strangely the fae. The bedroom was empty. The bed was unmade and dusty. Dirty clothes had accumulated in one corner and had began to stink.

Kyle went to the observatory and found her cousin there. He was pitiful. Jeremiah hadn't been taking care of himself. He was thin and his bones poked at his skin. He stank and his clothes and body was covered in grime. He lay snoring in his desk, drooling on a large map-like piece of paper. The pencil in his hand continued to slowly scrawl doodles onto paper.

The observatory was cleaner than the rest of the house. All the dust was collected into mounds near the walls. Diagrams and texts Jeremiah had deemed important hung from the walls, almost becoming the wallpaper. Stacks of old books of various subjects scattered carelessly across the room. Dirty glasses and dishes piled on the tables and cabinets, attracting ants and flies.

Kyle brought the basket upstairs and opened the curtains, letting in the setting sunlight. She then softly shook Jeremiah awake. "Wakey wakey."

Jeremiah slowly opened his eyes, but then he scrambled away from the rousing hand. He trembled, and his eyes flew wide open, revealing bloodshot eyes.

"Oh. It's just you," Jeremiah remarked and calmed his racing heart. He smiled faintly. "Thank god, it's only you."

"Uhm, Jerry, is something wrong?" Concerned tinged Kyle's voice.

Jeremiah stood and lightly dusted himself. "Oh no. Oh no, Kyle. I'm just a bit jumpy after uhm... a week of isolation. Happens to everyone."

Jeremiah's stomach then growled like a hungry tiger. He cluched his belly, trying to calm its hungering demands.

Kyle chuckled. "I brought you dinner."

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"Th-thanks."

Kyle only watched him tear into the basket and wolf down bread and cream. The pastries were mercilessly torn to chunks and crumbs. He downed a whole bottle of milk and water afterwards, almost drowning in the fluids. Kyle wore an amused face at the savage scene.

"Sorry, I suppose I haven't eaten for a few days." Jeremiah cringed at his almost shameful words.

"So what did you find out?" Kyle asked.

"Pardon?"

"What did you find out that made you shut yourself for days in your house?"

"Oh. I uhm... Nothing. I found nothing."

Kyle narrowed her eyes at him, not believing him in the slightest. "You definitely found something. Otherwise, you wouldn't be acting this way."

"Oh no. Not like that," Jeremiah nervously said. "I just found the usual stuff. Stars, nebulae, planets. I uhm... got too excited for my own good I guess. Good thing it had been flushed from my system now."

Kyle still had her suspicions, but decided to drop the subject. "Okay."

"Great! Why don't we clean up?" Jeremiah smiled, showing his yellowed teeth. He turned and began gathering the books and dirty dishes into neat stacks. He muttered, "I should have done this awhile ago instead of jumping at slight shadows."

While Jeremiah turned his back and busied himself with cleaning, Kyle slowly inched towards the telescope's oculars while pretending to pick up litter.

Kyle slowly put her eyes to look through the peepholes. The stars slowly came into focus, and Kyle began--

"Get away from that!" Jeremiah shouted loudly and rushed to heavily strike the telescope with a book. The sound of glass shattering filled the air. The telescope's tube bent, leaving the telescope unusable.

Kyle expressed shock and surprise. She fell to her back. "What was that for?"

Jeremiah got on her to help his cousin, hugging her arms and diagnosing any injuries. He shook and shook her, hoping that whatever he believed had latched onto her mind would be dislodged. "What did you see? Tell you saw nothing. Tell me!"

"Yes! I saw nothing. I barely got to a good position to see anything. Get off and stop shaking me."

He sighed in relief. "Thank god." He got off her cousin, and helped her stand.

"So, what am I not supposed to see? Aliens?" His cousin asked.

"No. It's... nothing. I just... don't want to fall into a fugue like I did." Jeremiah answered.

"I somehow don't believe you." Kyle replied.

"Fine. I saw something we're probably not supposed to see."

"And that is...?"

"Not telling."

"Come on, tell me at least a little about them."

"... You're going to pester me until I comply, won't you?"

"Yes."

"Fine." Jeremiah sat down on a chair and began to recount his experience.

"I got too curious for my own good. I looked into the darkness between stars. I hoped to find faint stars or something, but what I found terrified me."

"Beyond the galaxy, I saw a wall-no. The Wall. Perhaps it's the edge of the universe, but I'm not sure. The Wall was made of maybe a hundred glass panes. Ever since then, I've been seeing it in the dark."

"Okay. So the universe is a giant glass disco ball?" Kyle said.

"No. Those panes of glass were empty until last night."

"Last night?"

"Yes. Last night, strange shadowy entities watched behind the glass. They weren't just watching through the glass, they were looking at me. I could feel their gaze pressing on me, telling me that they're attention was directed here."

"Creepy." Kyle shuddered at the thought, and Jeremiah shuddered as he recalled his findings.

"What's more? I feel like they're not merely watching us. I feel they're reading us. Analyzing us. Deciphering us."

Kyle's blood went cold. She turned into the darkness and soon she witnessed a glass pane come into focus. Before the hazy figure behind the Wall resolved, she averted her gaze and returned them on Jeremiah.

"Jerry. What are they? What do they do? What do they want?"

"I don't know, I don't know, and I don't know. I think they look like us, but they never resolve completely. They just watch us, read us, and they don't do anything else; that doesn't bring any conclusive evidence in what they want. Are we an experiment? A simulation and they're the scientists looking down on creation? Or are we entertainment? Are we performing before their audience? Do they want to see our joy or do they relish our suffering? I don't know."

Jeremiah shuddered. He clutched himself tightly. Tears well from his eyes. "I don't know, and they scare me. They're so far away that they don't have an effect over us, but they seem substantial in a way we aren't. It feels like compared to them, we're fake. I feel like a puny mortal in the gaze of gods."

Kyle tried to console him, but the tears kept on flowing. He continued, "I don't know, and I want to understand why they look at us."

Kyle couldn't help but gaze into the darkness and soon a facet of the Wall resolved, and the glass pane, she saw...

You.