My mom died two years ago of cancer. On her deathbed, she told me one thing: “I hope you meet your father one day. I can feel he’s still alive.”
At the time I thought it was a very strange thing to say, perhaps it was the cancer talking.
And now there he was, smiling again. My estranged74 dad. Did I feel anything at that moment? I can’t say that I did.
“Hello, Lizzy,” he said.
“Hello,” I said, feeling a bit awkward75, not knowing how to address him76. He nodded and looked at Marco.
“We don’t have much time, Marco,” he said.
“Right,” Marco said and looked at me. “Listen, there’s a lot you need to know. You need to eat something first to gain your strength though.”
“What do I need my strength for?” I asked.
“Well,” Marco started, and looked at Peter and then back at me. “I guess there’s no other way to say it77.”
“Say what?” I asked a bit nervously.
“We’re going to travel to another world,” he said.
I spent the next couples of days on an emotional roller-coaster, starting the day with crying over my dead boyfriend and whatever plans I could have been making with him, then trying to persuade Peter and Marco to go to the police to let them handle the matter and then going into a numb stupor later in the day.
Peter and Marco, who was also mourning his loss, were very patient with me. They let me be whenever I wanted to be alone and kept me company when I needed someone to talk to.
Once I pulled myself together, I noticed how well Peter had organized our little camping spot. There were three tents for each of us and food supplies.
When I mentioned that I imagined my dad “exploring the world,” it turned out78 that it wasn’t too far from the truth. We didn’t have much time to talk about it, but he gave me a quick summary79 of the past thirty years.
On the third day, when I could think relatively clearly and there were longer breaks between my crying, I asked Peter to tell me more of his story.
In a nutshell80, and I know how crazy it will sound, Peter found a portal to another world in one of the caves he was exploring for some construction project he was working on at the time. He saw the green light. He got closer to check what it was, tripped and fell inside the ball of light. When he got out on the other side, he didn’t realize that he was in a different place at first. He thought it was just a pit81 that he fell into. When he got out of the cave, though, he noticed that there were two moons in the sky. That gave him a clue82 that he was either hallucinating83 or was in someplace else entirely. “Someplace else” was a major understatement84 in his case.
“That was the day when I disappeared from your life,” he said.
Peter later learned that these portals were openings that were created by crisscrossing85 of mingling86 lines of magnetic force from our worlds. He didn’t know why it was happening and it took him years to figure out the frequency87 and locations to be able jump back and forth88.
When he got to that place in his story, I wanted to ask him why he didn’t come back and look for us, but he answered that himself: “Unfortunately89, it took me too long to understand how they work and before I could jump for the first time, I was already deep in the mission. Most of the portals were closely watched by the people I had to avoid90.”
“The same people who tried to kill me?” I asked.
He nodded. “It’s actually one person.” And before I could ask another question, he added: “I know you want some answers and I’ll tell you everything when the time comes, but back then… I couldn’t risk your lives by showing up at your doorstep. It was killing me, but it was the right thing to do.”
I was not so sure about that, but I wasn’t a little girl anymore and could deal with that for the moment. As Peter was telling me his story, however, I couldn’t help but notice that there were traces of that smart- looking young man I saw in the old photos in this old man whom I had to get reacquainted91 with.
What about that other world?
Well, according to Peter, it is a copy of our planet, except for the two moons. When I asked him how far it was, he smiled and said that it was not the distance I needed to know but the dimension. The place was in a parallel universe. Essentially, it was the world where everything was happening simultaneously with our planet. The evolution of species, the wars, the religions, the languages, the music and even the countries were almost identical, except for slight deviation in the names. It was mindboggling and too science fiction for me to accept as reality. How was it even possible?
It’s funny how Mark and I sometimes had playful arguments about those multiverse theories after watching some superhero movie. I thought they were complete nonsense. Something scientists made up to make us feel that we were not alone in this universe. He thought they were real. As it turned out, Mark was right on the money92.
When I thought about that the funny part did not seem so funny anymore and I broke into tears. Peter had to stop his story for the day.
The next day, after breakfast that I made myself eat to feel stronger, he continued.
The other world is a dying copy of our planet. The people in that world are dying from a virus they can’t find a remedy93 for. There are not many healthy people left there, but there is a man who knows how to fix it. Well, sort of. His name is Dolion Aeneus and mysteriously he did not have his own copy on Earth.
I felt that I already knew the answer to my question, but I had to ask anyway, “Is that the man who killed Mark and Beth.”
“Yes,” Peter said.
Dolion discovered the portals between our worlds long before Peter. He saw our world and found out that we were immune to the disease his people were perishing94 from. He started to control the portals and decided to replicate95 us to populate his world. Why not create a vaccine to save people, you might ask? Well, if you create new people, who are designed to your liking, you become… God.
It was the sixth day of my new life. I woke up and felt that I had no more tears in me, but a dry