He snaps his eyes shut to the materialization of light and heat. It's - it feels - it is a distressingly realistic experience despite the absurdity of it. He will have to invent an entirely new system. He will have to implement it. This is foreseeable in the immediacy. For now - he will succumb to that hellish tangent of pathetically solipsistic determination, organize the degrees to which he can affirm to himself that he and his surroundings are real.

He will need to, first, define 'real'.

"How," whispers Rush, his own subtly shaking frame disrupting the cadence of his speech, "is one meant to differentiate between strata?"