Here are the next chapters of Enanika. They are the last chapters of Part 1, and the last ones to be shared until Enanika is published later in 2026. You can currently read all of Part 1 here.
Chapter 17: The Falls
When Anu woke, she stood and moved with ease. Her body, she realised, was unnoticeable — as young bodies generally are.
After several weeks of being sixty-six-year-old Anna, she had returned to thirty-three-year-old Anu during the night.
Which was just as well, because she and Enlan had decided to go back to Fat Cow Falls that day. Enlan had been feeling very Earthbound and hoped he could connect with Enanika again in the pool. The cliff would be far easier for Anu to navigate than Anna.
“Have you lost something?” Enlan asked when they met at the entrance to the falls.
Anu frowned slightly and tilted her head.
“No. I don’t think so.”
He smiled, waiting. “A few years, maybe.”
She laughed. “Oh. Yes. That. It happened overnight.”
As they climbed over the fence with the No Access sign, sunlight played between the trees. Anu thought of one of Enlan’s favourite sayings back on Enanika: The rules don’t apply to me. He carried the sense that rules were more like suggestions.
She wondered if she might try the pool herself today. She’d assumed the hot mineral spring at the hermitage of Ling-Shi-La was her point of access to Enanika, but perhaps that wasn’t the only doorway available to her.
It was a mild morning before what promised to be a hot afternoon. The pool would have warmed from a week of hot weather, making it more inviting than before.
She managed the track more easily than on her last visit, and Enlan hurried ahead, anxious to get into the water.
The falls were bright. Sunlight flashed off the water. The pool did indeed look inviting, dark and still at its centre.
Enlan didn’t wait. He kicked off his shoes, tugged his shirt over his head, and let it drop onto a large flat rock. Already in his bathers, he stepped into the water and waded to the middle.
Anu was nearly down. Just a little further.
She watched him from above. He sank beneath the surface, reaching for home.
Then came a sound.
Low at first. A deep shifting, like the earth clearing its throat.
Anu stopped.
The cliff moved.
There was no time to react. No moment for fear. The ground simply gave way. Rock, dirt, and heavy slabs of earth broke loose, pouring downward in a sudden, overwhelming rush.
Part of the cliff had collapsed. A thick, brutal fall of stone and soil slammed into the space where she was standing.
Enlan surfaced at the sound, eyes flying upward.
“Anu?”
There was no answer.
He couldn’t see her. Where was she?
“Anu! Anu!”
Only the newly broken face of the cliff, and the heavy silence that followed.
Chapter 18: Oh Damn!
In Enanika:
Anu was gone before her body could register pain. She opened her eyes.
“Damn,” she said to herself. “Oh damn.”
Light body. Not light like this morning when she got back her thirty-three-year-old human body, but light like no body. No weight. No gravity.
“Well,” she muttered. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
Her Enanika body began reforming around her spirit. She could hear the hum of her home planet.
The Seed of Life sculpture came into focus. Soft, spiralling forms, its surface shifting with slow pulses of colourful light. She placed her hand against the curve of the sculpture and felt its recognition answer her touch.
“So,” she murmured, glancing around. “That was… earlier than planned.”
The air shifted. Nadhir, the head contact caller, stood a short distance away, present and attentive.
“Anu,” he said telepathically, with a trace of smile. “Back so soon?”
Behind him, the space deepened. A quasi-visible assembly stood, contact callers from many generations. Some were clearly defined; others shimmered at the edge of perception.
Anu jumped up.
“You completed a timeline,” said Nadhir more seriously.
“I think the timeline collapsed,” said Anu, scrunching up her face.
A ripple of energy moved through the assembly.
Remembering Enlan, she asked, “Enlan?”
“He remains where you left him,” said Nadhir.
Anu closed her eyes for a moment.
“Hmm,” she said with concern.
“We have the cube,” said Nadhir.
The cube moved without being carried. It emerged from the depths of the assembly, gliding forward until it hovered between Anu and Nadhir.
It was transparent like glass, but filled with light. Within it, layers of possibility. Forms moved — worlds, paths, outcomes.
It was not like looking at an Earth screen, where reality is flattened into a 2D simulation. Nor was it like the most advanced human 3D simulations, which still communicate information through sight and movement — by turning one’s head, walking, leaning closer, stepping back. Nor was it even like 4D, where humans briefly sense time and space together, through life arcs, foresight, or déjà vu.
It was 5D. Time was no longer something to be moved through. The entire structure of the situation was delivered at once. Perception was lifted out of space and time and placed inside the architecture of reality itself.
Anu stepped closer.
Chapter 19: Too Close for Comfort
The cube darkened, its inner light rearranging.
“This,” said Nadhir, “is what has happened in Milkwood.”
Anu peered into the cube. She saw Fat Cow Falls — the moment she had just left. She saw the cliff gave way. There was no warning, no drama, no cruelty. Just gravity and stone, doing what they do. Her body was caught beneath the collapse. Instant death.
The scene widened. Enlan stood at the edge of the pool, staring in disbelief.
The town mourned. Not for long — Anu had only been there for a few months (and a few weeks of that were as Anna), and she had mostly kept to herself. Nevertheless, people were sad, unsettled, and sorry. Then, they continued.
Enlan did not.
He was shocked and distressed. And felt responsible. Yet instead of it plunging him further into Earth dysfunction, it did the opposite. It woke him up.
In the weeks that followed the “accident”, Anu saw him change. He started to remember more of Enanika, and some of his Nanik skills returned.
One night, under a clear sky threaded with stars, he walked back along the track to Fat Cow Falls. There were more signs now, more red tape strung where the cliff had collapsed. He climbed over the tape, down the unbroken side of the ravine, and made his way to the pool below.
He did not remove his clothes. He stepped straight into the dark water and walked forward to the centre of the pool. Calm, centred, content, he sank to the bottom of the pool, reconnected with Enanika, and left his body there.
Once again, the town grieved. A bit longer this time because Enlan had been there a year more than Anu. But then life reorganised itself.
The cube dimmed.
“That timeline is complete,” said Nadhir.
Anu was pensive. The cube had shown her the timeline she had just left — the reality she had exited moments earlier.
“What about my mission?” she asked when she was ready.
Nadhir did not answer, but the cube brightened again. The scene re-formed.
Fat Cow Falls. The same morning. The same descent toward the pool. But something was different. The collapse came a fraction later. Just enough to change the outcome.
The cliff fell where she had been, not where she was currently standing. One step removed. One small step.
She saw herself scramble clear. Heart racing. Hands shaking. Alive. Phew!
“This parallel reality timeline,” said Nadhir, “is, however, not yet complete. You will enter here.”
Then, without further explanation, the cube dimmed. The assembly of contact callers loosened around her. Enanika receded. Earth reformed.
Fat Cow Falls. Same morning. Same track. Same descent. The cliff shifted where she had been standing a second before. She screamed and stumbled. Unharmed.
“Oh my God,” shouted Enlan.
They stood at the pool edge, stunned.
“We’d better get out of here before the ranger comes,” said Enlan.
They steadied themselves for the climb back up, in a different section of the cliff.
At the top, Enlan turned to Anu and said, “That was a close call.”
Anu smiled and said, “Indeed, it was. It could have gone very differently.”
End of Part 1
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