End Game Scenario

There was so much else to show you. So much else to tell. I meant to have all of this written up and to let you understand what I have experienced and why I am doing what I am going to do. By the time this post goes up, resolution will have been achieved. Cards on the table, honesty and bluntness. This world has been through political, financial and ecological hell. It is no longer the place I was dropped by this thing, this creature that has come thrice to check up on me since it left me here. This thing that scared me from one side of my home country to the other and back home again.

This world is different... so cards on the table.

The person trying to contact me several weeks ago on this blog was not a member of the groups I had labeled “Spooks.”

It took me a while to figure out that it was Ruyani.

At the time, I and my counterpart were on the other side of the world.

God, I wanted to do you all the service of telling you everything but I don't think I'll ever have the chance now and I fear that when this is done you will never see anything else on this blog. If this works the way I hope it does, I will post on The Commune Voice....

If it works out the way Holmes and Watson say it will, then I will die.

If the Tall Faceless One doesn't come at all, I don't know how much longer before the world is torn apart.

I am living in Ruyani's home now, with her, my counterpart, his brother and Holmes and Watson both. The spooks are defunct, powerless. There have been three different governments in control of this territory in the last month. This world was not technologically inferior to my own but it had progressed so differently. Now it is laid low, so to speak. I haven't seen a car in a week, because it is completely impossible to get gasoline. There are a handful of radio stations functioning and it's all either propaganda or news. Television, rare a thing as it is, is completely useless now, no stations seem to be running. I have no idea what the rest of Terr is like right now. For all that we can be certain about, Terr might as well not extend beyond the borders of Ruya's property.

Ruya is physically well but has not been the same since waking up. I've spent the last three weeks trying to tell her everything I've learned during all of this, especially about her grandfather and what he stood for, who he really was. I wanted to tell you all of this, too. Ewan was an interesting man and as far as I can gather something this world has never seen before. Ruya has only just begun to realize her legacy and what she means.

That's all behind me now.

I'm going to the spot in her yard where she found me, where it dropped me. I am going to wait there until I starve to death or I am taken home.

Watson and Holmes (those are not their real names but I am too lazy to ask them how to spell those) claim that from time to time people get yanked even from this world. Sometimes they come back but under no circumstances are they found alive. A week before I came , a man named Mark was found dead clutching a rewritable CD and a letter. Apparently he was chased by something too. So I recognize that most likely this is the last thing I will ever write.

At the same time, I want to have some hope that I will be able to post over on The Commune Voice some day again.

That being said, I've made some arrangements in case the spooks are right.

Assuming she does not hear from me in any manner, I've asked Ruya to consider making a final post in whatever form. Internet is... well, let's just say Thank God for hotspots.

I had so much else to give you, to tell you, to let you learn what I learned about this world that I have found myself a part of for so long.

I want a chance at seeing my brother and maybe letting this world right itself, balance out.

The universe wants to correct the mistake that is me.

So it now makes me wonder... what is going on back home in our world, where I am missing.

Transcription part... 3? 4? Not sure.

Boat is the absolute worst form of travel imaginable. I'm getting fucking tired of it. Let's just say that airplanes are not as common or affordable here, not that I would be able to afford a ticket back home with about the same amount of money we've got now. I've gotten where I'm going for now. Continuing the transcribing, I need to get this out before we make a decision.

I have decided it's taking too long to transcribe everything. I'm going to ask Svaden to help me. I guess it's time you get acquainted with him.

---

TD: 4:08:3729

...at the top of my lungs, both in my language and in broken Kayani. I also began to run.

I ran to the nearest construction site. The way I figured it, I needed to get around some people who would at least slow these guys down by asking questions. If I could just get a roadblock in their way, so to speak, I could escape across this foreign cityscape and pray for the best. A man near the front shouted something at me which I couldn't translate in the moment, and then “Come on!” He gestured wildly behind him, one thumb over his shoudler.

A second man, this one younger, raised an eyebrow and turned to look. He shouted the same word as the first guy, only there was a notable tone of question to the voice. All I really knew was that these strangers in their bright colors and hard hats were trying to help. I feel bad now, because I may have put them in danger, but neither of us fully knew what was going on in those moments. Anyway, I heard the guy in the back and even a third voice call out that word again, “Svaden!”

When I got to the first man, he grabbed me hard by the arm and I tensed up, thinking he was going to hold me when he literally spun around and threw me to the person behind him. I heard comotion as the first guy was tackled to the ground and with the second person pulling hard to lead me away (if he hadn't, I probably would have been outrunning him anyway) was hurried away before I could even dream of helping.

We hurried through the front door to a building that was in shambles. “Damned steps, Svaden, what did you do this time?”

I was still trying to figure out what language 'Svaden' might be when I heard a voice call in answer from behind us, “I didn't do anything, I've been surveying the east wall.” My hand was released and the man who was leading me—I saw where, there was a full length window broken wide open on the back wall—spun around. I followed suit.

And there I was. In bright red trainers (sneakers), a bright green vest and equally blinding pink shirt, I was standing in the center of the broken remains of a cubicle or rather, Svaden was. Svaden. Me. The other me. The one I saw out of the window of the van on the day of the many sedatives. The one I saw with the other Sean. Only, I guess that I am the Other Svaden, aren't I? This is his world.

What I said next I knew was correct. I know it still, as surely as I know that any given politician is lying at any given time.

“You have to come with me, we have to run right now. Then we need to get your brother and get the fuck out of the city.” During that long, everlong three seconds I wondered what he was thinking, “Me from the future?” “An imposter?” Whatever it was, he was too stunned to argue when I grabbed him by the wrist and hurried toward the window. He followed me without a fucking word and, to spare you a lot of nonsense, we ran for HOURS.

TD: 4:09:3729

We didn't find his brother last night. He didn't believe my story about who I was. I asked why he didn't run away from me if he thought I was lying, my our face (his looks healthier, actually) was plastered all over the news. That is to say, we were in news papers, magazines, on the internet and on the Vidscreens (Television) for the still rather low number of people who had them. (Here they're still mostly used for news anyway, not as much drama.) Svaden says he doesn't know but doesn't accept I am who I say I am. I think he does believe that we need to find his brother, who is also wanted in connection to a (terrorism) case.

Jesus, even on the other side of a dimensional divide, I get to hear that word. Thrown at me, this time.

Whatever. We've been looking around for a few hours now and the fact that neither they nor we have found him makes 'Svaden' (it is odd to put another name to my own face) think that he's in hiding somewhere they used to visit as kids. We're going to stay where we are (that is to say, somewhere that the spooks wouldn't think to look) and then we're going in the morning.

Did I mention that I can't sleep?

TD: 4:11:3729

Svaden's brother was where we looked but he didn't care for me at all. I wish I could say the rational part of my brain knowing that this wasn't my brother in the same way that Svaden isn't me managed to make some of the distaste I was shown not matter, but I am not a rational person or I would have left Svaden out of it. I just got scared for him.

Here's the thing in case I am caught I can't really write down everything or as much. We're leaving this country. Fast. I won't say how, where, etcetra, in case I get caught. I still want Svaden to have a chance to get the hell out of here. I will say that we intend to catch up with Zeke (may be the most Earthen sounding name I've heard since arrival) again in the future, when maybe he or Svaden himself will be more inclined to believe me about who and what I am.

TD: 4:25:3729
Well, I haven't written in a long time. Let's see. We live. This is a lot like I used to live, a tiny little shack of a house. Only he and I live together. Myself and I, I guess. We are running out of money. All of the money is his, of course. Though, I guess what's his is mine. I think he's coming around to the idea that asking me who I am isn't going to get him a new answer he hasn't asked in a while. He doesn't say much.

I think I need to get something that can connect to the internet. I'm sure there are good, free hotspots out there somewhere. And before anyone reads this and thinks I'm in a city, nah. Or am I? Shit, no real good way to continue with that thought. Either way we mostly hide during the day. Shades drawn, so to speak. We've got a cheap little radio that runs on batteries. We're not talked about on the news programs here. It's peaceful. A neighbor's seen us already. Thinks we're twin brothers. It'd be funny if it wasn't terrifying.

I fall asleep to the sound of water. Won't say what kind of water, just water. He doesn't hate me as much anymore. I think he's calmed down, I think he thinks I saved him. I thought I was saving him when I dragged him with me, I was just so surprised to see him there even though I knew he existed that I thought they might hurt him thinking he was me.

There's something I do want to say. There have been earthquakes (which is not the word that is used here, by the way) all over the world over the last few months. The tropics have seen more intense storms than usual given the time of year, some of which sound like hurricanes to me and up in an area about equatable to Earth's arctic circle, well(crossed out) they've lost at least one whole settlement in a freak condition shift.

At first I was dumbfounded and asked Svaden how long this was happening. He said that the first reports of weird weather started on the other side of the planet from where he lives, in a country whose name I may have read once but can't guess how to spell from its pronunciation. (Come to think of it, I don't even know if “Svaden” is spelled that way. Does not look or sound Kayani to me.) It basically just started as unseasonable storms, then sometimes the storms would last unnaturally long and produce tornados in parts of the country that didn't get any before. He said, as it turns out, that this started in the late second quadrant last year.

Funny, because that's about the time I showed up, isn't it?

Anyone reading this may have made the same connection I have, but if not I'll state it plainly.

They featured footage of what looked like the aftermath of a tornado in that video put on this blog.

What if I caused that? There's a theory that comes out of one of the procedural books they gave me that I haven't really wanted to talk about and I hope you'll forgive this.

The theory is about what happens when the law of conservation of matter and energy is broken. It theorizes that the universe itself rebells against the matter and/or energy that upset the balance. In case you're not following: I'm that matter, I'm that source of energy. I upset the universe.

The implication that the spooks were making was that this was the universe's attempt to compensate for me.