The Static Between Worlds

Chapter 3 Noise in the Signal

The silence pressed in like a second skin.

Ilya sat on the living room floor, knees tucked to her chest, staring at the unplugged television. The last image still burned into her memory—Rhett, reaching toward her through the screen, face distorted like melting plastic. She could still see his mouth moving, but she hadn't heard a word.

Across the room, Moth curled up in a sun-faded armchair, tail twitching every so often like he was dreaming with his eyes open. He looked so normal, so cat, that it was almost easy to forget everything that had just happened.

Almost.

"You were just a cat," she whispered, voice breaking. "You slept in boxes. Knocked over glasses. Tried to eat bees. I mean, you were weird, but..."

Moth's tail stopped moving.

She wiped her face with the sleeve of her hoodie and looked away. "I don't know what's going on. But I think I'm the only one left."

There was a pause.

Then:

"Well, technically, you're not alone."

Ilya jumped.

Her eyes snapped back to Moth. He hadn't moved.

"...Moth?"

He blinked slowly, then stretched his paws forward, back arched like a lazy accordion.

"Hi," he said softly, voice clear and a little awkward, like a child saying their first word. "You okay?"

Ilya stared. "You... you just talked."

"I did." He glanced down at his paws. "I wasn't planning to yet, but you looked... sad."

"You can talk."

He stood and padded to the edge of the armchair, then sat like a statue. "Apparently."

She pointed. "You can talk."

"Yes," he said again, patient and gentle. "And you can scream about it if you want. I'll wait."

She didn't scream. She just sat down very slowly on the edge of the couch and let her head fall into her hands.

Moth hopped beside her. She felt the warmth of him before he spoke again.

"I know it's weird. Believe me. One day I was licking my foot, the next I was glowing and seeing things that shouldn't exist." He looked up at her with his big, round eyes. "You're not going crazy. I promise."

She let out a weak, strangled laugh. "That doesn't make me feel better."

"I figured. Still... you needed to hear it."

⸻

The lights flickered—again. And this time, the television sparked to life all on its own.

Ilya tensed.

"Moth," she whispered, not needing to say more.

He nodded once. "I feel it too."

The screen showed fragments. Like broken dreams stitched together.

Rhett—again. But different every time.

First, he stood in a smoky bar with a trench coat, speaking lines she couldn't hear.

Then, in armor and blood, shouting something behind a castle wall.

Then... a classroom. Hallway lockers. Fluorescent lights. His expression confused.

All of it wrong.

All of it not him.

"He's being rewritten," Moth said gently. "They're pulling him into other stories. Making him into someone he's not."

"Who's they?"

"I don't know their names. But they're part of the collision. Fiction made real." Moth's tail curled around his paws. "Some of them are confused. Some are lost. But a few? A few like what's happened."

Ilya stared at the screen.

"And Rhett?"

Moth's voice softened. "He's still in there. I can feel it

As night crept in, the air grew heavy—colder, stiller.

Ilya walked quietly beside Moth, her boots crunching against the cracked pavement. He padded a step ahead, glowing just faintly, like a flicker of candlelight caught in fur.

They left the houses behind. The fences. The sidewalks.

At the edge of town, the world *bent*.

The grass ahead rippled in slow waves, floating sideways in the air. Trees swayed without wind. The sky overhead shimmered like old tape, glitching and stretching at the edges.

"This is it," Moth murmured. "One of the first tears. A Static Zone."

Ilya stepped forward cautiously. Her body tingled, like she was walking through a current. Sounds didn't echo right. Her breath came back delayed, like she was hearing it from across a tunnel.

They walked deeper, the air around them buzzing with white noise.

And then she saw him.

Not stuck. Not frozen.

Standing in the center of the warped clearing, framed by a cluster of red balloons... was *Pennywise*.

The clown's eyes were too bright. His smile—*too wide*. The ruffles of his costume fluttered in a breeze that didn't exist.

He wasn't flickering like the others.

He was waiting.

"Ilya..." Moth said tightly, low and trembling. "We need to go. Now."

Pennywise turned his head slowly, smoothly.

He *saw* them.

And waved.

One balloon detached from the others and floated toward them, moving in an unnaturally straight line.

Moth hissed and backed away. "Run."

They turned and bolted—out of the clearing, past the glitching trees and warping air. The balloon followed them for too long, bobbing in slow, mechanical pursuit before vanishing like a skipped frame.

---

They didn't stop running until they reached the outskirts of home.

The stars overhead blinked and jittered like they were caught in a loop, unable to settle on a sky.

Back inside, the world was quiet again.

Ilya curled up on the couch, shaking, Rhett's note clutched in her hand. Moth jumped up beside her, curling close, no longer glowing—just solid and warm and *here*.

"I'm going to find him," she whispered. "I don't care what's out there."

"I know," Moth said softly. "And I'll go with you."

She looked down at him.

"You're still my cat... right?"

He looked up at her, eyes shining.

"Always."

---

As the night deepened, and Ilya finally began to doze off beside Moth's steady purring, something fluttered in through the cracked window.

A slip of paper.

She blinked awake, catching it before it hit the ground.

Rhett's handwriting.

Familiar. Urgent.

**"Ilya — 
Don't trust the ones who smile."**

Her heart clenched.

He was still out there.

Trying to reach her.

Trying to warn her