Desync

And then it began to spread upwards, downwards, inwards, and fill the air, as well...

He came home from work to find a cube in his living room. The cube was about the size of a large footstool and was covered in fire. The rest of his house wasn’t on fire, just the cube. Blue flames licked up its sides, wrapped around its edges, gathered into a spire over the top, dripping upwards. They jerked and stuttered like buffering video, like a rock skipping across a dark pond. Like a body out of sync with itself. He took out his flashlight and pointed it at the cube. Where the beam landed, there was no fire. It wasn’t really there, he realized. It was just a projection. When he reached into it he felt slight warmth on his hand, but that was all. The cube itself was cold. Welded steel, he guessed. The flames continued to pass through his hand. If he concentrated, he could almost make himself believe they were painful.