Bernice Dossal is in a coma, or so her doctors believe. She’s showing all
the signs of it, but they cannot seem to find a cause. She wasn’t in an
accident, she doesn’t have an infection, she was never diagnosed with
diabetes, and there are no unusual chemicals in her system. They also found
no evidence that she had a stroke. Her eyes are closed, and she is
unresponsive. Her body is presently in the long-term care unit of the
hospital, hooked up to life-maintaining machines, her family by her side.
They come in shifts, sitting with her, and talking to her, for hours. There
is never not anyone in there, unless they’re taking a bathroom or coffee
break. What they don’t know is that Bernice isn’t there anymore. She was
whisked away to another world. It looks exactly like Earth, except that it’s
been decimated by some kind of event. She doesn’t know what it was, but it
was pretty bad. She realizes pretty quickly that she doesn’t need to breathe
to survive, but she can breathe, and as soon as she tries, it starts to
cause her problems. Her lungs tighten up, and she begins to cough. She tries
to put a stop to it, but the damage has already been done. The toxins have
entered her body, and they won’t go away, even when she seals her mouth
shut. A small group of people in hazmat suits apparently hear the commotion,
and come to her rescue. They usher her into a nearby truck, take her to a
plane, fly her to a far off place, and escort her into what looks to be a
bunker. They try to treat her medically, but nothing does her any good.
She’s corporeal, yes, but the drugs have no effect on her system. She is not
a ghost, but she’s not completely here either. Everyone is baffled, but she
ends up recovering on her own. All she needed was time in a ventilated and
clean environment. In a day, they’re able to debrief her.
They explain to Bernice that she’s been transported to a parallel reality.
This world is much like her own, except that it exists about a year in the
future. This is not their first encounter with other realities, and one
thing they’ve learned is that, while global events play out differently
across them, it all ends the same. A comet hits the planet, and destroys
nearly all life, either by the impact itself, or the ensuing consequences,
such as the now toxic atmosphere. According to their interactions with the
previous reality, they’ve gathered that the oncoming event triggers some
sort of breakdown in the dimensional barriers which normally maintain the
multiversal structure. Some people are saved by jumping into the next
reality, while others can only send and receive messages back and forth.
They’ve yet to figure out how to stop it, but apparently Bernice has made
contact earlier than anyone ever has before. Perhaps, if she can figure out
how to get back to her real body, she can at least warn her world about it.
They put their best scientists on it, even though they were originally
tasked with coming up with long-term survival solutions. They decide they’ll
be satisfied if they can prevent their counterparts from suffering the same
fate, even if it means surrendering to their own. After weeks of study, they
find the answer, and Bernice awakens, but they were evidently off with their
calculations, because she soon realizes this can’t be her reality. She’s
woken up about a year before she fell into the coma in the first place,
which means she’s actually in the next reality over. That gives her two
years to prepare for the comet, instead of one, and maybe if she can save
the world from total destruction, it will alleviate a little bit of the pain
she now feels from knowing she will never see her true family again.
No comments :
Post a Comment