I couldn’t believe I had done it again, I had killed my mum for the second time, but this time it wasn’t just a case of hitting her with a car, I had killed her with my own hands! I crawled across the floor to where my mum was laying and kissed her on the cheek,
“I’m so sorry mum” I whispered softly as tears ran down my face, “I promised you I would make this right, and I swear,
I will, I’m sorry,”
Standing up I wiped the tears from my eyes and headed into the kitchen to grab a candle from the kitchen drawer,
rummaging around I found an old tea light,
“This should work,” I thought to myself, leaving the kitchen,
I headed upstairs to the bathroom and hung a couple of towels up over the window to block out all the light from the lamp post, I then turn the bathroom light off, closed the door and sat in front of the mirror, some big, standing mirror I don’t remember having in my dimension, but it perfectly suits my needs so I’m not going to complain. I lit the candle and placed in between myself and the mirror, everything around me was dark and I could just make out my face in the reflection. I tried my best to clear my mind, which given the situation, was a little harder that I would have liked. After about five or so minutes of sitting, staring into the mirror, I managed to clear my mind before focusing on my reflection, I started to view my reflection as another version of myself, one from another dimension, one from a dimension where I hadn’t killed my mum, a dimension where this no possible way I will kill my mum,
“Alex,” I called out, “We need to switch places,”
I felt kind of stupid talking to myself in the mirror, but according to everything I have read on the internet, that was the way to do it, I sat there for several minutes focusing on swapping places and talking to my own reflection, when I saw the other version of myself blink,
“Alex?” I whispered, “Can… Can you hear me?”
My reflection tilted his head sideways and looked at me as if I was speaking a foreign language,
“Alex!” I called out, “We need to swap places! Do you understand me?”
“Yes…” He replied, as his voice echoed around my bathroom,
“And… We can swap, right”
He nodded once, then got up and began to walk away,
“Go to bed, Alex,” He called from the other side of the mirror, his faint voice still echoing.
I couldn’t help but wonder if it had worked, but sitting staring at the mirror and not seeing my reflection looking back at me was freaking me out. I stood up and did as the other version of myself had said, and went straight to bed. Laying there, my mind started to drift,
“Will it work?” I wondered, “I can’t just leave my mum laying there, can I?”
“Go to sleep,” A voice whispered in the darkness, startling me,
“Who’s there?” I called out, but I got no reply,
I jumped up from my bed and turned on the light, looking around, there was nobody there, and I put it down to being a figment of my imagination,
“I’ve just killed my mum and then saw my reflection get up and walk away,” I thought, “It’s just stress,”
I turned my light back off, climbed into bed, and tried to get some sleep and let the jump take place. I woke up the next morning as the sun beamed through my open window and birds were chirping in the trees outside, stretching out in bed something didn’t feel quite right, the other side of the bed was warm and I was sure I didn’t sleep with the curtains or the window open last night. That’s when I heard the toilet flush, the bathroom taps turn on, and somebody walking down my stairs. Suddenly, there was a loud scream,
“Alex!” A woman’s voice called, “Alex, quickly, come here!”
I dived out of bed, partly wondering who the hell was in my house and partly wondering why she was screaming like that, I threw on a t-shirt and some joggers then ran down the stairs, it became apparent the jump hadn’t fully worked, there was still blood all over my carpet and a woman was kneeling beside my mother’s dead body, holding her and shouting at me,
“Quickly, grab my phone from the kitchen table, call an ambulance!” She screamed,
I stood there staring at her, confused at how my mother was still here and how this woman had gotten into my house,
“Why are you just standing there, get my phone, now!”
I snapped out of my daze and ran to the kitchen to get the phone that was sitting in the middle of the kitchen table, but when I ran back into the living room, the blood was gone and the woman was staring up at me,
“Why have you brought my phone? I said grab me a damp cloth!” She stated,
“No, you…” I began to say, before I was interrupted,
“Your mum has taken a fall, just get me the cloth,”
I went back into the kitchen, putting the phone back on the table and running a cloth under the cold tap before taking it back to the woman, when I walked into the living room, there was no sign of my mum anywhere, and the woman was
sitting in the middle of the sofa watching some early morning talk show on TV,
“Happy anniversary honey!” She exclaimed, jumping out of her seat and hugging me tightly, “This is for you,”
“Anniversary?” I thought, “She’s… My wife?”
I opened the card and it read,
“To a wonderful husband, every anniversary makes me look back at our relationship and realise that I had the best twelve months of my life, all my love, Lucille”
Looking around the room I finally started to take in my surrounding, the birthday banners that I had seen just hours before were now anniversary banners, the blood-stained present bag was no longer there, in its place, a small present that read,
“To Alex & Lucille, Love Mum xx”
“I… Am married?” I thought to myself, half in shock,
“This is also for you darling,” The woman I now know to be my wife said, handing me a small present,
“Aww thank you,” I replied, unwrapping the present,
Discarding the wrapping paper, I saw that I was holding a steel cased photo album with my name engraved on the front,
“It’s the photo album you thought you lost, I had the cover encased in steel and engraved,” Lucille said excitedly, “None of the pictures are there though, I saw expecting them back by now, but I supposed I best tell you, I’ve had them sent off to be redeveloped, they should be here next week, hey, you’ll have that picture of your dad in perfect condition again!”
“My what?” I asked, baffled
“You know, the picture of your dad, before he… before he died, Alex,”
“Oh…” I muttered, “OH! Thank you!”
I stood the photo album on the fireplace and saw a small present for Lucille from me,
“Here, this is for you,” I said, handing the present to her, “Look, I need to take a walk, I’ll be back soon,”
“But, where are you going?” Lucille asked,
“I’ve just said, I’m going for a walk, what does it matter to you where I’m going?” I replied, putting on my trainers,
“But Alex…”
“But nothing! Do not question me, I am going out!”
I grabbed my coat on my way to the front door and stepped outside into the harsh winter air as the icy chill gripped my exposed arms and face, quickly putting on my coat I took in a deep breath and began to walk. I didn’t know where I was going, I didn’t have a plan or any idea of what I was hoping to achieve, but waking up one morning and being married to someone I’ve never met in my life, and then having her tell me I’ve got pictures of my dad, and that he’s dead, came as quite a shock to me, I couldn’t be in that house any longer.
I began to walk down the street heading towards heading towards the local canal, I had fond memories of going to feed the ducks with my nanna and I felt that the nostalgia would be good for me, I needed something to keep me grounded while I was feeling lost in a dimension where I knew nothing about my own life. After a short while, I reached the canal and it occurred to me that the walk there seemed shorter than normal, whether it was due to my lack of attention or because of a change in this dimension that I was unaware of I had no idea, but something didn’t feel quite right.
I went and sat on the bench where I would sit with my nanna on hot summer evenings, throwing bread to the ducks and eating sandwiches out of a hemp bag she would call her picnic bag, I sat there taking in the smell of the winter air mixing with the surrounding woodland and skimming stones across the iced over water when I heard a voice,
“Lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it?” An old gentleman man said from the seat next to me,
“Jesus!” I called out, “Where did you come from? I didn’t see you there,”
“Sorry about that,” He laughed, “I’m a silent walker,”
“Care to explain what’s lovely about this weather? It’s that cold the canal has frozen over and I can see my breath, that isn’t lovey,”
“You’ve got to look past that,” The man said, “Look at how nice the canal looks with that layer of ice, the fallen leaves covered in frost and the robins in the surrounding trees,”
“That doesn’t change the fact that it’s freezing, why are you not wearing a coat?”
“I’ve got all I need, can you say the same?”
“What do you mean?” I asked,
The man just sat there silent, staring at the canal, and for the second time, something didn’t feel right,
“Well old man,” I said standing up from my seat, “Those clouds are getting darker and the wind is starting to pick up, I’m heading home to get inside where it’s warm, I suggest you do the same before you catch your death,”
“Looks like you came to the wrong dimension,” The man said, his voice sounding like a child speaking over an AM radio,
“You what?” I asked sharply,
He rose from his seat and stood staring right at me, blank-faced and his eyes were glazed over,
“I said, you’ve come to the wrong dimension, you don’t belong here,”
“And why don’t I?”
“Oh, you don’t get it,” He blurted, “This isn’t your dimension, go back home, go… back… home!” The man shouted, pushing me into the canal,
I fell through the thin layer of ice on top of the water and began to sink, in that moment, something grabbed my ankle, looking down I saw what seemed to be the man with algae coving his skin from head to toe, his dirty brown shirt was missing a sleeve and the body was tattered exposing more algae coving his chest and stomach, his long, dirty black hair flowed like a hundred tentacles wrapping around his face and neck, and a swarm of tiny bugs escaped his mouth as he spoke,
“You don’t belong her, you don’t belong here!” he said, unaffected and unmuffled by the water,
I looked back up to the surface and could see the light shimmering on the layer of ice,
“God!” I thought to myself, for the first time in my life, “Please, help me,”
“God can’t save you now,” The man said, pulling me deeper as the light began to fade,
At that exact moment, I was sure I was going to die, I could feel an immense pressure building in my chest as my body
was fighting for oxygen, I just sank deeper into the ice cold water until everything was completely dark and I could no longer see the surface, and then a thought crossed my mind,
“Surely I am no longer in the canal, canals are not this deep,”
I couldn’t fight my body’s natural responses any longer, giving in I took in a deep breath of… air? I was blinded by a sudden rush of light, throwing my hands up to my face I began to rub my eyes as they adjusted to the light, I was back on the bench. Looking around, initially, I seemed to be alone, but then I noticed something just in the distance by the entrance to the canal, the old man,
“Hey!” I shouted, rising from my seat, “Hey! Stop! Stop!”
The old man turned, gave me a sinister smile and waved, before disappearing around the corner, I began to run, trying to run in my soak and freezing clothes, trying to catch up to the old man, but when I got to where he was standing, he was nowhere to be seen, there was nowhere for him to hide and just up ahead was a straight road, but he had completely vanished. I ran home as fast as I could, my body still feeling the coldness of the winter air hitting my now drenched body, reaching my house I saw a familiar face standing outside, it was Ian,
“Well look at the state of you,” He laughed,
“Don’t start mate,” I said as my teeth chattered together relentlessly,
“Anyone would thing you were cold,” Ian said jokingly as I glared at him,
I walked straight passed Ian and began to fumble around with the door key and my hand shook, finally, I managed to unlock the door and ran into the house kicking my shoes off,
“Come in mate, close the door behind you, I’ll be down in a minute,” I called to Ian while running up the stairs,
Running into my bedroom I threw my clothes off, and onto the warm, laminate floor, going through my wardrobe and seeing clothes I had never seen before, I picked out a pair of black joggers and a grey jumper, threw them on, and headed downstairs. Walking into the living room I noticed all the banners had disappeared and Lucille was nowhere in sight, the only thing that remained was the empty photo album on the mantle piece.
“She left you then?” Ian said,
“What? Who?” I asked,
“Lucille, she’s not here mate, you’ve got s**t luck with women haven’t you?” He laughed,
“She was here earlier, I didn’t even know she existed until I woke up this morning,”
“Ahh yes, when you brutally murdered your mum… again,”
“You what? Who do you think you’re talking to like that, and how do you know about my mum?”
“I’ve already told you, my Alex tells me these things,”
“But that was me, not your… Hang on, how do you know what another you has told me?”
“I have this conversation every time a new you comes along, anyway, enough about that, what the f**k are you wearing?”
“Shut up, I was cold!”
“It’s your own fault for going swimming in winter,”
“I didn’t go swimming, I was…”
“You was pushed, I know…” Ian interrupted,
I could only stand there and start at Ian at this moment in time,
“How does he know all of this? This happened to me, and only me, this version of me,” I thought to myself,
“Let me guess, your Alex told you?” I questioned,
“No, some kid caught the whole thing on video, it’s on Youtube already, look!” Ian said, starting up my computer,
“I’m going to make a coffee,”
I went into the kitchen and turned the kettle on when I heard Ian laughing from the living room,
“Great, laugh it up mate,” I called through,
After making my coffee and heading back through to the living room, Ian was still sat at my computer, repeatedly playing the video he mentioned on Youtube,
“Splash!” He mocked, “This is great, you should see this!”
“I don’t need to, and in all honesty, I don’t think it’s appropriate you sitting there laughing at my expense, you don’t know what I went through!”
“Yeah I do, about two centimetres of ice!” He laughed,
“Think that’s funny do you?” I shouted angrily,
“Come on mate, I’m only joking,”
“Well, it’s not f*****g funny… Mate,” I snapped, “Get up, get off my computer, get out of my house!”
“Alex, come on, I’m only having a laugh,”
“Yes! At my expense, now get out!”
“What’s gotten into you?”
“Get… Out!” I shouted, throwing my cup across the room at Ian, “Now!”
I jumped up from my seat and grabbed Ian by the collar, dragging him away from my computer and throwing him half way across the room,
“Laugh at me, will you?” I screamed,
“Alex, mate!”
“Don’t Alex, mate, me!” I shouted, grabbing Ian by the collar again, “I’ll give you something to f*****g laugh about!”
Ian stood up and I found myself completely losing my temper and punching him in his eye knocking him to the ground,
“Get out of my house now!”
“Fine, fine, I’m going, you f*****g head case!” Ian snarled, heading for the front door,
The door slammed shut and I was left alone, the house fell silent, the video had stopped, and I had spilt coffee all over my floor,
“Great!” I thought to myself,
I headed over to spilt coffee and began wiping up with the sleeve of my jumper before sitting down at my computer, the most recent tab was a video on Youtube titled “Fall In Canal”, but that wasn’t me, that wasn’t even my canal, the water in this video wasn’t even frozen,
“So Ian wasn’t laughing at me?” I thought, “Is there really a video of what happened?”
I began getting myself worked up thing the same things over and over,
“How did Ian know?” I pondered intently,
I closed the tab with the video and went straight over to Reddit to ask everyone on /r/DimensionalJumping what may be going on, and if there was any possible way for one person to know the details of another person’s jump across dimensions, but nobody seemed to have the answers I was looking for. I was on Reddit and performing various Google searches, but I found nothing. One user on Reddit said how it’s not possible for one person to know of another person’s jump without the jumper telling them, to which I replied,
“The person in question has informed me that not only has he spoke with me, he has spoken with various versions of myself who have passed through his dimension”
To which one of the mods on the sub said how there are no other versions of myself, only me, but if this was the case, how would Ian know so much?
Not satisfied with my results I decided to go and get a shower and get changed into something more comfortable.
While in the shower I heard what sounded like talking coming from the TV with intervals of footsteps walking all around my house, but every time I stopped the shower, a sudden silence fell upon my home, aside from the occasional drip from the shower head, every time I called out, I got no reply, and every time I turned my shower back on, the sounds returned, I assumed I was just hearing things but got out of the shower to go and investigate anyway.
After getting dressed I headed out to the to of the stairs and stood there for a few seconds, listening, but heard nothing, nothing but the increasing volume of my own breathing, and then that familiar dial-up modem sound, until the noise became so loud and so intense it felt like my ear drums were about to burst, and then, all of a sudden, it stopped, leaving my ears ringing as if I’d just walked out of a rave. Within seconds, the ringing had subsided and my house was devoid of any sound at all, until I heard a whisper in my ear,
“You’ve come to the wrong dimension,” A voice echoed,
The next thing I remember is waking up on my living room floor in a pool of spilt coffee to the sound of Lucille calling me,
“Alex! Alex! Wake up! Are you okay?” She said, clutching my hand,
“Yeah,” I moaned, “I’m fine, what happened?”
“I don’t know, I went to the bathroom, and when I came back down you seemed to have taken a fall, you’ve got a lovely black eye too,” She explained,
I stood up and went to sit down on the sofa, looking around, all the anniversary banners and gifts were back, I picked
the one up from my mum and stared at it for a while,
“I’ll go and see her tomorrow,” I thought to myself,
Lucille was stood staring out of the window, humming some tune I’d never heard before, and then she turned to me and said,
“Lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it?”
“Pardon?” I asked,
“The snow isn’t it beautiful the way it covers everything in a fluffy white blanket,”
“Oh, yeah, I guess” I replied,
She stood there staring at me for a moment, and I at the present from mum, and that’s when she said something that confused me,
“So, are you just going to hold that or are we going to see what my mum got us?” She asked,
“Your mum?”
“Yes,” She laughed, “I know you’re close but I’ve told you before, she’s my mum and you can’t have her,”
“If this is from your mum, what did my mum get us?”
“What do you mean?”
“My mum, what did she get us?”
“Alex, your mother walked out on you and your dad when you were two, how hard did you hit your head when you fell?”
“That can’t be right, my dad walked out on me and mum,”
“No Alex, your mum walked out on you and your dad, then your dad died when you were five and you went to live with your nan,”
The moment she said that a thought crossed my mind, a single string of words I had heard a few times today, and now, they finally made sense,
“You’ve come to the wrong dimension,”
