Running towards me as quick as a racehorse, this little girl wrapped her arms around me, squeezing me tightly.
“Missed you!” She smiled, looking up at me.
“Lucille, let go of Alex, you only saw him yesterday,” My mum cut in,
“I’ve missed you too… Lucille,” I said,
I stood there in a daze,
“This doesn’t make sense,” I thought to myself, “Lucille’s my sister?”
Something must have gone wrong somewhere, but I was clueless as to what it could be, nothing made sense, the sound of whispering surrounded me as my vision became blurred, and one voice stood out from the rest,
“You’ve f****d up,” The disembodied voice spoke tauntingly, “You’re pathetic, you couldn’t even do this right,”
I began to see silhouettes walking past me. My vision still blurred as they turned to me, laughing and taunting. The blurred vision and taunts seemed to go on for ten, maybe fifteen minutes as I just stood there covering my eyes and wanting to curl up into a ball. Moving my hands away from my eyes, my vision started to become clear, Lucille was just letting go, conforming to my mum’s request,
“Alex, Alex, mum’s decorated my room, you should see all my new things!” She said, pulling at my sleeve and leading me to the door,
I followed Lucille upstairs to her newly decorated room, the sheer look of glee on her face as she paved the way reminded me somewhat of my childhood and how I would get excited over the smallest of things,
“Look!” She shouted as we entered the room,
“Wow, your room looks awesome!” I replied, trying to sound as excited as she clearly was,
“These are all my new teddies, the dog is called Chester, I haven’t named the other ones, and look at my wallpaper, it’s My Little Pony! Oh, and look, look! Mum got me this My Little Pony candle too!”
“Aren’t you a little young for candles?” I enquired,
“Hmm, no! It was my birthday last week, and mum said as long as I keep it on its little plate and don’t leave the room when it’s on, I can have it,”
“And rightly so,” I laughed “I’m going to go and sit with mum now, are you joining us?”
“No, I’m going to sit in my room,”
“Okay then, I’ll see you in a little while,”
I went downstairs and sat talking to my mum for the next half hour as we watched a game show on TV when my mum then said,
“Right, quiet now, my program’s about to start,”
“Which one?” I asked,
“A Touch Of Frost,” She replied, “The one with David Jason,”
“That’s still on?”
“Oh no, it finished a couple of years back, but they still play reruns. That reminds me, that policeman called round again today, did you not call him?”
“Which policeman?”
“The one I told you about yesterday, that Detective something,”
“Jenkins?!” I exclaimed,
“That’s the one, didn’t you call him?”
“No mum, I must have forgotten, in fact, I’ll go home and do that now,! I said turning around, “I’ll come round tomorrow,”
“Okay honey, see you tomorrow,”
“See you, mum, love you.”
I started to leave the house when I heard Lucille shouting down from her bedroom,
“Are you going home, Alex?” She called,
“Yes,”
“When are you back?”
“Probably tomorrow,”
“Oh, okay, see you tomorrow then, love you!”
“You too, Lucille…”
Leaving the house I walked out into a wall of fog and was immediately reminded of the last time I saw Lucille, my Lucille, laying at the bottom of the stairs, no longer did the fog remind me of my own personal Silent Hill, but the death you would find there. I began to jog home, not wanting to stand out in the cold any longer than I possibly had to and just as I was reaching to open my gate a hand grabbed me from behind, clutching my shoulder, followed by deep, demonic voice,
“You’ve come to the wrong dimension!”
Jumping back and looking round, I saw Ian retracting his hand,
“What the f**k are you doing you moron? I f*****g s**t myself!” I shouted,
“Oh sorry mate,” He laughed,
“Ah don’t worry about it, come in a minute, I need to speak to you,”
We went inside into the kitchen. Ian sat at the table as I began pacing the floor, my mind going into overdrive, I didn’t understand what was going on in this dimension anymore, and the only person I could speak t about it was Ian.
“Listen, Ian, mate,” I started to say, “I need to ask you some things. You seem to know more than me about all this dimensional jumping crap and what I’ve got myself into and personally, I don’t give a s**t how you know, I just need to know what the f**k is going on,”
“What do you mean pal?” He asked,
“Well first off, why did your Alex jump?”
“He said something about being followed by that Detective that had you for running your mum over,”
“Well that explains his urgency, and in that last dimension, I had a wife, Lucille…”
“Oh that f*****g headcase,” Ian interrupted,
“Well yeah, but she was my wife, incidentally, why was it she was so volatile?”
“She was bipolar, wasn’t she? You did know before you married her, your cheating didn’t help either, well not your’s, other Alex,”
“And why isn’t Lucille here?” I asked,
“She is mate,”
“Lucille is here, but she’s not my Lucille, she’s my sister, and she’s just a kid,”
“And she’s going to die,” Ian reminded me, “I mean, you could probably try to save her, but then your mum will die, are you honestly willing to let a child die so you can be with your mum?”
I hadn’t thought of this before, everything that was going on and I never took into consideration that I’d given her a death sentence before I even came to this dimension.
“F**k!” I cried, “No, nope, I’m not willing to… I can’t sa… I can’t do it, Ian, I’ve finally got to meet my mum today, I can’t save Lucille,”
“You could always jump?” Ian suggested,
“Every time I’ve jumped before now, something’s gone wrong,”
“Are you saying nothing did this time?”
“Well yes, I’m about to kill my kid sister. I’m about to kill Lucille… Again” I mumbled hesitantly, “Why the f**k is Lucille my sister all of a sudden?”
“Mirror method man, you asked for it, you explicitly said it, my sister Lucille.”
“No, I said I need to jump to where my mum is alive, Lucille is alive, and my sister dies.”
“No mate, you said you need to jump to a dimension where your mum is alive, and Lucille, then you paused and said the words my sister is there, and she dies” Ian reminded me, “You called her Lucille, your sister,”
“Thinking back, he was right, I turned my wife into my sister, and now I’m going to let her die,”
“Ian, I need to go, mate,” I said, heading for the front door, “Let yourself out, I want to go and spend some time with my family, decide what I’m going to do next,”
Ian followed me out of the front door, and I’d noticed the fog had completely disappeared,
“Strange,” Ian said, “That fog soon went,”
Locking the front door behind me, Ian and I said our goodbyes and I began to run to my mum’s house. Coming up the corner I began to hear the sounds of loud machinery and was quickly surrounded by fog in an instant, only this fog wasn’t cold like it should be, and it had a smell,
“That’s not fog,” I thought, “It’s smoke!”
Quickly running around the corner I saw a fire engine parked up outside my mum’s house, running up to one of the firemen, I began to call out,
“This is my mum’s house, please, what happened?” I shouted hysterically,
“We believe the fire broke out in one of the upstairs bedrooms,”
“Lucille’s candle,” I thought to myself, “Is everybody okay?” I asked the fireman,
“I’m sorry pal,” He said, a look of devastation on his face,
“Sorry? Sorry for what?”
“We carried two bodies out earlier,”