Chapter 1
What if? Interesting question isn't it? I'm certain that every being capable of conscious thought has asked themselves this question at one time or another. What if the world were round instead of flat? What if there is land to the west? What if there is more to the world than the land we walk upon? What if we could touch the stars? What if… You get the idea.
Everything we have ever created or earned has started with a "What if?" Now, you're probably wondering why I'm telling you this. Well, I'm actually attempting to pull off one of those mysterious and philosophical introductions that you see in all the really good stories. Have I succeeded? Grabbed your attention? Maybe, it doesn't actually matter, because I'm going to tell you my story anyway. Now where was I? Oh, right! What if, ah there's that question again, what if I told you that there is more than one dimension? What if I told you that I have been to a different dimension, or that others have been to these different dimensions? I'm going to tell you about my experiences in this new dimension that you have probably heard of before.
I suppose at this point I'm supposed to tell you what the mysterious dimension is called… but where's the fun in that? Nah, you'll figure it out soon enough. So our adventure starts with the wail of two newborn babies, the happy smile of a new father, and the tired grin of a new mother…
[Break]
…I was cold, very cold, almost like when you open the door in winter and the heat leaves your body faster than you can say "Hypothermia". My thoughts were all jumbled; I could remember small bits of memories and information and had a steady influx of even more. At first it was just little things, the faces of people I knew were my friends, looking out at what I knew to be a classroom full of inattentive students, the triumphant grin only a thief who lives on the streets could wear, and the one that came the easiest, intense pain in my abdomen and the middle of my chest. All these things I could remember, and a bit more, but when my thoughts turned toward where I currently was I just drew a blank.
I attempted to open my eyes and take in my surroundings but, frustratingly, my body wouldn't respond to my commands. I panicked, where am I? Why won't my body move the way I want it to? Why am I so cold? What's with the yelling? As much as I hate to admit it, I had absolutely no idea what to do in this situation, so I followed my instincts. I wailed, my mouth wouldn't form words, my arms flailed wildly, and I couldn't support my own head. It didn't occur to me, at that moment, to wonder why my instincts told me to cry, but it definitely struck me when the voice that left me was that of a baby. I felt myself being placed onto a softer surface and instantly stopped my crying. Safe, warm, strong, all of these emotions and feelings were instinctually associated with the embrace I found myself in. I could hear screaming, but wasn't exactly sure where it was coming from, my senses were obviously out of practice. I focused all of my attention on opening my eyes; if I could see then I would be able to figure out where I was and what to do next.
After what felt like an eternity, but was actually only a few heartbeats of valiant struggling, I opened my eyes. What I saw was not at all what I expected, instead of the colors and fine detail I usually saw it was almost like what I imagine being color-blind is like. I could see the fuzzy outline of different shapes and distinguish between light and dark, but it was not at all the same as I could remember it. My eyes began to burn and I closed them again in an attempt to sooth them.
I tried to remember my name, what I did last, any family, anything; this inevitably lead to my first question, who am I? I struggled for a moment before my mind caught up to me and provided me with part of the information I sought. I'm a student, an aspiring physicist. What had I been doing last? That thought came with the memory of the excruciating pain in my chest again.
The pain was overloading my sense. I could taste bile, see purple and dark blue squiggles dotting my blacked-out vision, hear a cacophony of loud and disturbing noises, smell curdled milk and rotten eggs, and felt like my entire body was on fire. I stopped thinking about the memory and focused on the soft cooing noises coming from my "father."
All the horrible sensations stopped abruptly and I felt my tiny body breathing much easier. Along with the disappearance of the pain came an "itch" that started in my gut and slowly started to spread throughout my body. I suddenly felt the "itch" outside my body as well, almost like a sixth sense, I felt it in the air I was breathing, radiating off the things around me that I was now recognizing as people. I began to reach out towards this strange new feeling when I was interrupted by the wail of another child.
Immediately after the wailing that signified the other child entering the world started, I felt the air moving against my skin as if I were moving. The wailing got closer until, finally, I felt my father pick up the other child in his other arm and my feet brushing against it. There was a pause, I vaguely heard the people in the room making more sounds, almost like communication, before I felt the itch increase to an unbearable amount for an instant and then return to normal.
The next few moments are foggy in my memory, the only thing that has stuck with me is the sheer terror I felt at the size and feel of the "itch" coming off whatever was near my father, it was dark, evil, tainted, and just wrong. I remember the feeling of my father putting me down, lots of screaming and other loud noises, before I felt my father touch my stomach and then pain before I lost consciousness.
[Break]
When I awoke, I could feel that I was different, my thoughts were clearer, I could move my arms and legs just a little more, and the itch was worse. I could hear the murmurs of a child next to me and a soft surface underneath me, not unlike that of a bed. I couldn't move myself, and I could only feel one person in the room, who obviously wasn't paying much attention to us, so I focused on the itch that I could feel in my body. It was at this moment, while studying it closely, that I realized the itch was moving all throughout my body, almost as if it were a substance instead of a feeling. I was never particularly good at biology, but from what I could remember of the flow of blood and how it travels through the body, this felt remarkably similar. I wondered if they might be connected, or if it was blood and for some reason I could feel it. I was incapable of communicating with the one person in the room or the child next to me, and there wasn't much else I could do, so I waited and attempted to figure out my surroundings through my other senses, rather unsuccessfully I might add. Eventually I bored myself to sleep.
It is remarkably difficult to judge time without being able to see light, or move, or really interact with the world around you at all. The days blended together as I slowly got used to the body I was in. At some point my mind organized my past memories and I realized I had all of them except for the last week before I woke up in the mess that is my current life. It hurt when I realized that I may never see any of my friends ever again, I would say family as well but, I didn't have any.
After I was finally able to keep my eyes open for decent stretches of time and I could see colors, I began observing everything I could see, starting with the child that lay next to me. He was swathed in light blue blankets so, naturally, I could come to the conclusion that the child was in fact my brother. I first noticed his full head of wild, bright blond hair. It struck me, as my eyes roamed his face, that he was staring right back at me with the same calculating and piercing gaze that I imagine was on my own face. His bright blue eyes were adorable and I then noticed the three whisker marks on each of his cheeks, this seemed rather odd to me, but I just marked it off as being a strange birth-mark, maybe it ran in the family that I now found myself being a part of.
After I got over the wonder of finally observing the new place I was in I quickly became bored with the room. The single person that spent most of his days here with us, an old man in strange robes and an oddly familiar, triangular hat, didn't move us often, and when he did it was only to change us or to hold us and walk around the room. A few times I caught glimpses of the world outside through the windows, and what I saw was very unnerving.
I could see a cliff face through the window near my brother's and my shared crib. Normally this wouldn't be anything spectacular, but the cliff face had something odd on it. When I caught my first glimpse of it I thought that it was Mt. Rushmore, but upon closer inspection I realized that the faces were all wrong and I searched for memories that might tell me what it was; what I found did not make me feel any better. I remembered when I had started "middle school" back in my old life I had discovered what we called "manga". Honestly, I first thought of them as comic books that were just made in a different place, but that's not important. What is important is one of the manga's that I read, one by the title of "Naruto". It was a story about a loud, obnoxious kid with a demon sealed in his gut that wanted to be a "ninja", which was like the equivalent of the military in their world. The kid wasn't treated very well and his only friends were his school teacher and the leader of his "village", a guy in weird robes and a triangular hat, see were I'm going with this?
At first I tried to deny it, but all of the facts I knew to be true were proving me wrong. I questioned my sanity for a little while, then I wondered if maybe this were a dream but shot that down quickly because it felt too real and I had slept multiple times. Eventually it became too much and I decided to take a page out of my favorite character's book and take a nap, I'd just deal with it later.