MidReal Story
A professor and his assistant discover a time machine but
Scenario: A professor and his assistant discover a time machine but yet they discover that the time machine travels not just in time butin between parallel universes. Professor, his assistant and some of his faithful students that took part in this project travel in different parallel universes trying to find a way back to their original universe. Each universe is a new adventure.
Create my version of this story
“What do you think, Emily?
All the tests are positive,” I said.
Emily Thompson, my assistant, stood beside me.
She was short with curly hair and a perpetually optimistic smile.
At the moment, she was bouncing giddily on her heels, her arms clutched around a pair of clipboards.
The clipboards were right up against her chest and I knew that she had been nervously double and triple checking all the readings for the past hour.
“Do you think we got it this time?”
Her voice was high-pitched and filled with eager hope.
I craned my neck to look down at her.
I’m tall, even for a man, so I have to look down at most people.
It’s not a trait I’m especially proud of, but it has come in handy for scaring off a few grad students in my day.
Emily looked up at me, and I could see the worry in her eyes.
I gave her a reassuring smile and said, “I think we got it this time.”
The project that Emily and I had been working on for all these months was finally complete.
It was a time machine.
The University had granted us money to build it in the lab, and we had an eager team of young students who were willing to work on it.
They were all just as excited as we were to finally see it completed.
Our names had been in all the major papers lately, and our colleagues were all eager to see if we would actually be able to pull it off.
We had assembled all of the parts weeks ago, but we’d been running tests on it ever since.
There were tons of wires and flashing lights and computers hooked up to everything.
We wanted to make sure that when we tested it that everything would run smoothly.
We wouldn’t want to tear a hole in the time-space continuum on our first go-round, after all.
The idea behind this project was simple enough—we would construct a time machine so that we could go back into the past and witness history firsthand.
It might sound like a stupid idea, but imagine if we could actually do it.
Imagine if we could go back in time and watch what really happened during the dinosaur extinction.
Or imagine if we could go back even further, into prehistoric times, and witness the rise of man firsthand.
Imagine what the field of anthropology could become.
We could go back into ancient Egypt, and watch how they built the pyramids.
We could go into ancient Greece, or ancient Rome, or medieval Europe.
The possibilities were endless.
It was true that we could already get a pretty good idea of what happened in history by reading books or looking at artifacts.
But there were things that we just didn’t know because no one had ever thought it important enough to write down.
If we could watch history unfold firsthand, the implications would be enormous.
The machine itself was large, but it wasn’t much to look at.
It looked like an overgrown car engine, with pipes running in every which direction.
It was just a series of boxes hooked together with wires, none of which seemed particularly important on their own.
But I knew what every single part did, how it worked, and why it was important.
I nodded at the machine, as though it were a living, breathing thing.
As though it were about to take its first steps in life.
I leaned over the console, my fingers hovering over the buttons.
“Are you ready?”
I asked the team of students that was gathered in the lab with us.
They all nodded, their faces eager.
They looked like they were about to take the first plunge on a rollercoaster.
The time machine had cost us millions of dollars, but I had been able to build it with the help of our students in only a few short weeks.
“Remember,” I said.
“When I turn this thing on, do not touch anything.
The machine is going to get hot, so we want to make sure that no one gets electrocuted.”
They all laughed, but I knew they also knew that I was serious.
I had been warning them about the dangers of this machine for weeks now.
“It’s finally time,” Emily said, giving me another one of her nervous smiles.
She placed her hand on my arm, and I could feel her heart pounding against her ribcage.
I gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.
I looked at the machine.
We were about to turn it on.
The thing that I’d been dreaming about for all these years was finally going to get tested.
We were going to be the first people to travel through time.
“You did good, Emily,” I said.
She looked up at me, her eyes wide.
“I know,” she said.
She handed me the clipboards.
“Here are the final adjustments.”
I took the clipboards from her and glanced over them.
It was a formality more than anything—there was nothing wrong with the clipboards, or the readings on them.
But it was also part of our routine, and after all these years, Emily and I worked like a well-oiled machine.
I flipped through the pages quickly, my eyes scanning each number and letter.
I didn’t see any problems.
I handed the clipboards back to her and said, “Take your stations.”
The students scattered, each one moving to his or her own computer terminal, where they would monitor the readings and make sure that everything was running smoothly.
Emily moved to the other side of the room, where she would be able to watch the machine itself.
Of course, we were all watching the machine itself.
The room was silent.
The machine hummed.
I turned to Emily, who wiped her hands on her pants and gave me a nervous smile.
She gave me a thumbs up, and then I turned to face the machine.
I pressed the button on the wall next to me, and the entire room was filled with light.
When I woke up, I didn’t know where I was.
I sat up quickly, my hands reaching out in front of me in an effort to stop myself from falling.
I felt dizzy and disoriented, and it took me a second to figure out that I wasn’t in the lab anymore.
The room was small, and everything was made out of cement.
There were no windows, and the only door was made out of metal.
The light in the room was dim, coming from a single bulb on the ceiling that flickered sporadically.
The walls were lined with shelves, and on each shelf there was a different item—a box of crackers, a few cans of food, some books, a few changes of clothes.
It was a small room, but there were five cots set up around it, and there were four students sleeping on them.
My mind was racing, and I was trying to remember what had happened.
I’d been starting the machine.
We were about to turn it on.
And then… And then what?
I couldn’t remember.
I looked around the room again and saw a flash of brown paper out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look at it, and then I realized that it was a note.
I picked it up and read it quickly:
I looked at the date at the bottom of the page.
It was signed: C.
Well, shit, I thought.
Emily was already awake, and she was looking at the note over my shoulder.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
But I had a pretty good idea.
We’d been planning this experiment for years, and when we finally had the machine up and working, I knew that we’d be able to change the world.
And that meant that we’d have any number of enemies—people who would want to use the machine for their own purposes, or people who would want to stop us from using it altogether.
We’d been so focused on getting the machine working that we hadn’t thought about what we would do afterward.
And now we were stuck in some other universe, with no way to get home, and no idea how to get back.
And there was a note from someone telling us what we needed to do in order to get home, all signed with a letter instead of a name?
That sounded like a trap if I’d ever heard one.
“What do we do?”
Emily asked me, her eyes wide with fear.
“We have to find a beacon.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we need to find some way to signal the machine, so it will come back for us.”
“How do we do that?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“We need to find another beacon first.”
“What kind of beacon?”
“I don’t know,” I said again.
“But we’re going to have to figure it out.”
I looked around the small room again, trying to decide where to start.
There were five cots set up along the wall, with five lockers next to them.
There was a table in the middle of the room, with three chairs set up across from it.
On top of the table, there was a computer monitor, a keyboard, and a mouse, and nothing else.
I opened the door and stepped out into the hallway.
It was long and narrow, and there were no lights on at all—not even flickering ones.
I waited for my eyes to adjust, and then I started walking slowly down the hallway, trying to figure out where I was.
It smelled like mold and mildew and something else that I couldn’t quite place.
Maybe it was sweat, or body odor, or something like that.
It didn’t smell like it had been cleaned in a while, anyway.
I walked for what felt like a long time, but when I finally made it to the end of the hallway, I was disappointed to see that there was nothing there.
Not even a door at all—just a wall made out of cement.
I turned around and started walking back toward our room, trying to decide what to do.
There was an entire other hallway that I hadn’t explored yet, but I didn’t want to go anywhere without telling Emily first.
When I got back to the room, Emily was still sitting at the table and staring at the note in front of her.
“Any idea what this means?”
she asked me as I sat down next to her.
“Yes,” I said slowly.
“The time machine didn’t take us back in time at all.”
“It took us to a different universe.”
“Is that possible?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly.
“But if the note is to be believed, then I’d say yes.”
I’d done the theoretical work on the time machine years ago—that was why they’d asked me to come on this project in the first place—so I knew all about parallel universes and the possibility of other dimensions existing outside our own reality.
But as far as anyone knew, those other dimensions were just that: theoretical constructs that might exist somewhere else in space and time, but not anywhere we could access or study.
So how had we ended up in one?
I thought back to the room we’d just come from—the room that was supposed to be our lab—and I tried to remember everything about it.
The air quality was different here—not as filtered as it was in our old lab.
There was a different smell in the air—something a little bit musty, like dust and body odor and sweat.
The layout of the room was different too—it was almost the same size and shape as our lab at school, but it wasn’t quite right.
The door opened differently than the one at school did; there was a step up into the room itself; even the light switch was on a different wall than it was supposed to be!
It was possible that someone could have come into our lab and changed all those things while we were out for a few minutes—but not very likely.
It was more likely that we were in a different universe altogether.
I’d done a lot of reading on the subject over the years, even though my research hadn’t been focused on parallel dimensions.
As far as anyone could tell, there was no end to the number of possible universes that could exist.
There were an infinite number of variables that could change at any given moment, causing a divergent path in the timeline, and leading to an entirely different universe than the one you were originally in.
If we’d found our way into another universe—and if we could find a way to do it again—then who knew how many other universes there might be?
We might never find our way back to our old universe again.
And if we didn’t, would we ever be able to find our way back home?
The implications of our journey were staggering.
We’d thought that we were going to be exploring the past, but maybe we were going to be exploring something much more important than that.
Maybe we would be exploring the very fabric of existence itself.
“I think we should go take a look around,” I said to the group.
The kids looked at me, uncertain.
They were all excited, but also a little bit scared.
I couldn’t blame them—hell, I was scared too!
But this was what we were here for.
We’d been working on building that time machine for years, and now that we’d finally managed to get the damn thing working, we were going to see if everything was as we expected it to be.
We were going to explore the past.
Or maybe the future.
I wasn’t sure exactly where—or when—our journey would take us, but wherever it was, I was looking forward to the adventure.
“I’ll go first,” I said, stepping forward.
I pulled a flashlight out of the pocket of my lab coat, turned it on, and aimed the beam down the long, dimly lit corridor that stretched out before us.
It was so long that I couldn’t see the end of it, even with the flashlight’s powerful beam.
There were no other doors in sight, only a few other people who were making their way up and down the hallway in both directions.
“Come on,” I said over my shoulder.
We made our way down the hallway, stepping carefully over the industrial grade carpeting that lined the floor.
The air was still stale, as I’d expected, but even though we were still underground, I could tell that we were getting closer to the surface.
The higher up we went, the better the air quality would become.
And the less likely we were to be discovered.
“No one’s going to find us down here,” Emily said, echoing my thoughts.
“Not if we don’t want them to.”
“There could be anyone or anything down here with us,” Mark said, in a hushed whisper, glancing around nervously.
“How do we know we’re not in some kind of secret government facility?”
“We don’t,” I replied.
“And we won’t until we take a look around.”
“How do you think we got here?”
Jasmine asked, looking around as she spoke, as though she expected to see an answer written on the wall somewhere.
“I thought we were supposed to be traveling through time.”
“We are traveling through time,” I replied.
“But did we go forward or backward in time?”
Emily asked, her voice rising with excitement.
“I think we did a little bit of both.” The words were out of my mouth before I even realized what I was saying, and as soon as I spoke them, I knew that they were true.
I don’t know how I knew, but I did.
I was sure of it.
“We didn’t just travel through time,” Emily said, her eyes wide.
“We traveled to a different universe.”
I had been thinking the same thing, but I hadn’t dared to say it out loud.
It didn’t seem possible, but there was no other explanation for what had happened.
The only explanation that made sense was that we’d somehow managed to find our way into another universe altogether.
It was a thought that was almost too frightening to consider.
The idea of parallel dimensions had always been the stuff of science fiction, but if we were capable of traveling through time, then why wasn’t it possible that we could travel between dimensions as well?
“If this is a different universe,” Mark said, in a slow voice that sounded much deeper than usual, “then what happened to the one we came from?Did it disappear?”
“I don’t know,” I replied.
I was starting to feel dizzy, and my mind was racing so fast I couldn’t even keep track of all the thoughts that were swirling around in my head.
“If this really is a parallel universe,” Mark said, “then that means that there could be an infinite number of them, right?”
I nodded, not because I agreed with him, but because I wanted him to be right.
If there really were an infinite number of parallel universes out there somewhere, then the possibilities for discovery were endless.
It was an exciting thought, and at the same time, a terrifying one.
The idea that reality might be divided into an infinite number of dimensions, each with its own unique history and future, was almost too much for me to wrap my mind around.
And yet, what other explanation was there?
If there really were an infinite number of parallel universes, then wasn’t it possible that one or more of them might be home to intelligent life?
And if so, what would happen if those other universes discovered us?
“If we’re in a different universe now,” Mark said, “then how do we get back to our original universe?”
I opened my mouth to reply, but no words came out.
It was a question I hadn’t even thought about until that moment.
But now that he’d asked it, I realized that I didn’t have an answer.
If the time machine really had transported us to a different universe altogether, then how were we ever going to find our way back home?
And even if we did manage to get back to our own universe somehow, how would we know that we were in the right place?
For all we knew, there could be an infinite number of universes that were identical to our own in every way except for the fact that we weren’t in them.
As we made our way through the hallway, we finally came to the door at the end.
It opened easily enough when I tried the handle, and when I stepped through into the room on the other side, I saw that it looked almost exactly like our lab back home.
There were tables lined up along the walls with scientific equipment on top of them, and in the center of the room there was a large machine with tubes and wires snaking out of it in every direction.
It looked like some kind of generator or power source.
But even though the room looked almost identical to our lab back home, there were a few small differences that immediately caught my eye.
For one thing, there were no windows in this room at all.
And for another thing, there was no beacon sitting on the table beside the machine.
Without the beacon, we didn’t have any way of knowing where or when we were.
We needed to build another one so that we could get back home.
“I say we go outside and take a look around.” Professor Rodriguez said.
We were all standing around the door, looking out into the hallway.
It was dark out there, and the only thing we could see was the blackness of the hallway stretching away before us and the faint glow of the lights behind us in the room.
We had been debating what to do ever since we woke up in that room, but so far nobody had been brave enough to actually step outside.
Professor Rodriguez was right, of course.
We needed to find out where we were and what was going on.
We needed to look around and try to figure out how to get home.
But at the same time, all of us were afraid to leave the safety and familiarity of the bunker behind us.
This was an unknown place, and we had no idea what kind of dangers might be waiting for us outside.
“Are you crazy?”
Emily said, looking at him like he’d lost his mind.
“It could be dangerous out there.”
“We don’t know that,” he replied.
“We’re not going to find anything out by standing here and waiting around for something to happen.
“We should at least leave some markers behind,” Emily suggested.
“That way if anything happens to us, whoever finds this place will know that we’ve been here before.”
She had a point.
If something did happen to us, it would be good to leave behind some kind of record so that other people would know what happened.
I took some markers out of the supply kit that was sitting on the table beside the door, and I gave them each one to leave behind as they walked outside.
I hesitated for a moment before I left my own marker on the table.
Yes, it was important to leave behind some kind of record that we had been here, but it was just as important for us to make sure that nothing happened to us in the first place.
It was better for us to play things safe and stay in the bunker until we knew more about what was going on before we did anything else.
“I say that we leave markers here,” Mark said, “and then take a look around outside just to see what’s out there.”
“That sounds like a good idea to me,” Professor Rodriguez replied.
“But we should be careful and make sure that we know how to get back here before we go outside.”
We all agreed on that, and Mark and I stepped outside.
Emily gave me a worried look before we went out, and I looked back at her and smiled.
I knew she was worried about us, but I also knew that she trusted me and she knew that I wouldn’t do anything reckless.
I turned and followed Mark as he walked out into the unknown.
“Don’t forget to leave a trail of markers behind you,” I said as we stepped out into the open air.
That way we won’t get lost.”“Okay,” Mark replied, “but how are we going to do it?”
He held up his marker and showed me how it worked.
The tip was a little round piece of plastic that you could pop out if you wanted to draw with it, but if you didn’t want to draw with it, you could just leave it in.
“There’s nothing here that I can write on,” I said as I looked around.
We were standing right in front of a huge metal door that led into the bunker, and other than a few trees nearby, there was nothing around for as far as I could see.
“We could take some pieces of paper from the supply kit and tear them into little pieces,” he suggested, “and then drop them on the ground behind us just like Hansel and Gretel did with their bread crumbs when they were trying to find their way back home.”“That sounds like a good idea to me,” I said.
“Let’s do it.”“And we should also come up with some kind of signal so that we’ll know when it’s safe to come back home,” I said as I followed him over to the trees.
“How about we just walk around for a little while or until we can see what’s going on?”
he asked as he pulled out some paper and started tearing it into small pieces.
“And then when we’re ready to go back home, we’ll come back here and stand by these trees and wait for someone to come and let us in.”
“That sounds like a good idea to me,” I said.
Mark held up his marker and showed me the trail that he had left behind him.
It looked like he had done a pretty good job, but I could see that there were still some places where we could get lost if we weren’t careful.
“Don’t forget to leave some markers behind you as well,” I said as I followed him over to the trees, “just in case we get separated somehow.”
“All right,” he replied, “I’ll do that.”
He held up his marker again and showed me how it worked, and then we walked over to the trees and waited for someone to come and let us back inside.
After we had made sure that we had everything that we needed to go outside, Mark opened up the heavy metal door and we stepped out into a world that was so different from our own that I couldn’t believe my eyes.
The sky was gray, or at least I think that’s what color it was, because there were so many clouds in the sky that I could hardly see anything at all.
The air smelled terrible too, but I couldn’t even begin to describe what it smelled like, other than to say that it seemed very thick and heavy, almost like there was something wrong with it, but I couldn’t say what it was.
Before we went back inside, we had put some batteries in the Geiger counter and turned it on so that we could see if it would work or not, and I noticed that Mark had put it around his neck and was looking down at it with a worried expression on his face.
“Don’t worry,” I said to him as I walked over to his side, “I don’t think that there’s anything to worry about.”
He shook his head and held out the Geiger counter in front of him so that I could see what it read, which was zero, “But if there is something wrong, then this thing will let us know if there is something wrong.”
I smiled at him and nodded my head in agreement, “You’re right about that.”
Then I looked around and saw that the air wasn’t really all that bad after all, or at least it wasn’t bad enough to set off the Geiger counter, so I bent down and picked up a piece of paper and put it in my pocket so that we could use it to find our way back inside if we got lost.
“Let’s go,” I said to Mark as I started walking over to the trail that he had left behind him.
“Right behind you,” he replied with a smile, and then he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, “Let’s do this!”
So I followed after him and we started walking along the trail that he had left behind him.
As we walked along, I couldn’t help but wonder if this was what it was like to be an astronaut who was walking on another planet for the very first time.
It was so different from anything that I had ever seen before that I couldn’t even begin to describe how it made me feel to be here.
But I knew that this was where I was supposed to be right now and that I needed to do everything that I could to find out what was going on so that we could figure out how to get back home again.
As I walked along, I wondered how long it was going to take for us to be able to find our way back to where we were before and if we were going to be able to make it back before it got dark outside.
After all, it was already starting to get dark outside and that meant that we didn’t have much time left before it would be completely dark outside and we wouldn’t be able to see anything at all.
As I looked around, I noticed that the trees were starting to look a little bit different from what they had before and that they were starting to look like they were dead or something like that.
I wondered what could have caused them to die off so suddenly and if there was anything that we could do to bring them back to life.
As I thought about this, I heard Mark laughing off to one side of me and I stopped and turned around to see what was going on.
When I saw him looking down at his feet with a worried expression on his face, I couldn’t help but wonder what was going on.
“What is it?”
I asked as I walked over to his side.
He pointed down at his feet and I saw that there was some kind of white powder lying on top of the ground and that it looked like ash or something like that.
As I looked down at it, I couldn’t help but wonder where it could have come from and what it could be made out of because it seemed like it was really weird stuff.
As Mark shook his feet off and started walking again, I followed along behind him and tried not to think about it too much because it seemed like it was really weird stuff and that he might be better off not having noticed it in the first place.
But when we got back up and started walking again, I couldn’t help but wonder what it could be and where it could have come from because it didn’t look like anything that I had ever seen before and it didn’t make any sense for it to be there.
As I thought about it some more, I realized that it must be what was causing all of those strange things around us and maybe even what had caused them in the first place too.
But as we walked along, everything just kept getting weirder and weirder and I had no idea what was going on or what we were supposed to do next.
After a few minutes of walking along like that, Mark stopped and said that he could see something up ahead and asked me if I wanted to go and check it out with him.
And even though he looked a little bit nervous about it, I could tell that he really wanted me to come along with him so that we could check it out together and see what it was all about.
So I said sure thing and started walking along with him again until we finally got up to the place where he had seen whatever it was up ahead of us.
And when we got there, we found ourselves standing on top of a hill which overlooked what looked like an old city down below us.
The city itself looked like something right out of an old movie or video game from back in the day because all of the buildings were made out of metal and they were all broken down and falling apart too.
The streets were empty as well except for a few small groups of people who were wandering around in search of food or water or something like that.
As Mark and I looked down at them from our perch high above, it almost seemed like they were looking up at us and wondering who we were.
But even though we were a little bit nervous about being spotted by them, we knew that we needed to stay hidden so that we could find out more information about what was going on down below us before we went down there and tried to talk to them about it.
But as Mark and I stood there in silence, I suddenly realized that there was a thin layer of white powder lying on top of the ground underneath us and that it was starting to get deeper by the second too.
And as I looked down at it, I felt something wet and sticky hit my face and I reached up to wipe it away only to find that it was some kind of liquidy substance that was leaking out of my hair and onto my face.
As I wiped it away, I realized that it tasted like metal and that it was starting to give me a headache too because it smelled so bad.
And as I looked up at Mark in horror, he suddenly grabbed my hand and started pulling me away from there as fast as he possibly could until we finally reached a big building where we could hide out in safety until it was safe to go back outside again.
With my heart still racing from our narrow escape, I turned around to look back at where we had just come from, only to find that all of those mutated people were gone now and that there wasn’t any sign of them left either.
And as I looked around in confusion, I suddenly realized that there was another big building standing right beside us which looked almost identical to this one except for the fact that all of its windows were broken out and that its roof was caving in too.
And as I looked up at it in surprise, I knew that this place must be a ghost town now because nobody would ever want to live here in such a dangerous place where they could end up getting killed by those things at any moment if they didn’t get out of here soon enough.
But as I watched from inside the building, I suddenly saw something moving back out in the street again and I jumped back in surprise when I saw that it was one of those mutated people coming back towards us once more.
And even though I was a little bit scared of them after what they had just done to us, I knew that we needed to stay here long enough for us to figure out what was going on out there before we could leave again.
So I grabbed Mark’s arm to keep him from going anywhere, then I looked around to see if there was anyone else around who could help me out with my plan.
But as I looked around, I suddenly realized that I was all alone in here and that everyone else was already gone, so I decided to go ahead with my plan anyway in hopes of finding out more information about what was going on out there right now.
So I told Mark to stay here while I went outside once more, then I climbed up onto the broken down roof of this building and started walking over to where that mutated person was coming towards us from again.
But as I got closer to them, I suddenly realized that they weren’t looking so good right now because their skin was starting to turn a weird shade of green and their eyes were starting to turn white too.
And as I looked at them in horror from my perch above them, I suddenly realized that they must be sick because they were starting to throw up too.
So I quickly climbed back down off of the roof again and ran back inside of this building where Mark was waiting for me, then I told him about what had just happened outside so he didn’t try to go out there again before we knew what was going on with them first.
But as we stood around in silence inside this building, Mark suddenly turned to look at something behind us with a curious expression on his face which quickly turned into one of pure shock as well, as he just stood there staring out into space without saying a word.
So I turned around to see what he was looking at too, only to find that a big portion of this city was completely gone now and that there was nothing but a big empty void left where it used to be as far as we could see too.
And when we looked around some more, we realized that this big void was stretching out in all directions from where we were standing right now and that it wasn’t just a few blocks or even a few miles either, but it was stretching out for as far as we could see in every direction from where we were standing now.
And it was also completely empty out there too, as if this whole city had been abandoned a long time ago now and nobody else lived here anymore either, just like how we had found it when we first arrived in this universe.
But then something suddenly occurred to me while we were standing here and staring out into space like this, as it suddenly dawned on me that we might actually be able to see some other places out there right now because we were so high up in the air like this.
So I quickly ran over to a nearby window and looked out of it, only to find that my hunch was right and that we could actually see some other places out there right now from where we were standing right now.
And they all looked pretty much exactly the same as this place did too, with nothing but big empty voids stretching out for as far as we could see in every direction from those cities, just like this one was now too.
But then something else suddenly happened while we were standing here and looking out into space like this, as we suddenly heard a loud noise coming from somewhere outside which startled us both and made us slowly turn around and walk back over to where we had just come from too.
And as we did this, we suddenly realized that this big empty void was getting even bigger than it already was because it had just swallowed up another big chunk of this city while we weren’t paying attention just now, and that it was now coming towards us faster than it had been before too.
But then something else suddenly happened while we were standing here and watching this big empty void come towards us now, as we suddenly heard a bunch of loud noises coming from somewhere outside which startled us both once more and made us slowly turn around and walk back over to where we had just come from once more.
And when we looked out of the window again, we realized that those noises were coming from a bunch of people who were out there right now and who were running away from those mutated people who we had seen before, as they were all coming towards them right now with even more of them than we had seen before.
And they were all moving a lot faster than they had been before too, which made it look like they were all in a hurry to get somewhere right now for some reason.
So we quickly ran back over to where Mark was waiting for us once more and told him what was going on out there right now, in hopes of finding a way out of here before those mutated people found us again.
But then something else suddenly occurred to me while we were standing here and talking about those mutated people who were out there right now, as I suddenly realized that we were now living in a world full of parallel universes right now and not just in our own universe anymore either.
And we might even be able to explore them all while we were here right now too, as we had all of the supplies from the time machine’s supply kit with us right now, which included things like water bottles and food supplies for emergencies such as this one was right now too.
So I quickly decided that it would be a good idea for us to go outside and explore this universe while we were here right now, in hopes of finding something interesting for us to look at while we were standing around waiting for those mutated people to go away again.
And Emily quickly agreed with me while we were talking about this idea just now, then she quickly ran over to the supply kit and grabbed some stuff out of it while we weren’t looking just now, in hopes of finding something useful for us to use while we were out there right now.
And then she quickly ran back over to where we were waiting for her while we weren’t looking just now and dropped everything off at our feet so we could see what she had found in there just now too.
And it wasn’t much either, but it was definitely better than nothing because it was full of things like blankets and water bottles which meant that we would be able to stay warm and hydrated while we were out there right now at least.
But then I decided that it would be a good idea for us all to grab a couple of things from the supply kit right now before we went outside and started looking around ourselves while we were there too, in hopes of keeping ourselves safe while we were out there right now at least.
And they all agreed with me while I was talking about this idea with them just now too, so they all grabbed a couple of things from the supply kit right now and then they all put them into their bags while they weren’t looking as well too.
Then they all ran back over to where I was waiting for them while they weren’t looking and told me that they were ready for us all to go outside right now too.
So I quickly ran outside and started looking around for anything interesting while I was there right now too, in hopes of finding something that would help us get out of here right now as well.
But then something else happened again while I was standing outside and looking around for things that would help us get out of here right now too.
As I suddenly realized that it had gotten a lot darker outside than it had been before somehow, and I could even see the moon in the sky overhead too even though it wasn’t even nighttime right now either.
So then I quickly ran back inside and told everyone else what I had just seen and heard just now too, in hopes of finding a way out of here before those mutated people found us again right now too.
And they all listened to me while I was telling them about what I had just seen and heard just now as well too.
Then they all told me that it sounded like a good idea right now too because it didn’t sound like those mutated people were going away anytime soon right now either.
So we all started packing up our stuff and getting ready to go outside right now too because it wasn’t safe for us to stay here anymore right now at least.
And then we all went outside and started looking around for anything interesting while we were here right now as well too.
But then something else happened once more while we were standing here and looking around for things that would help us get out of here right now too.
As we suddenly saw a bunch of people running towards us from somewhere else who looked a lot like our own friends did before as well too.
But they didn’t look like our own friends did before either, as they all looked like they had been through a lot of stuff since we saw them last too.
In fact, they all even looked like they were a lot older than they had been before as well too.
So I quickly ran outside and started looking around for something that would help us figure out where we were at just now too.
But when I finally found it, I realized that we weren’t in the same universe anymore either because there was a big tree in the backyard that wasn’t there before either.
So I went back inside and told everyone else what I had found just now as well too because we needed to figure out where we were at right now too.
But then something else happened while we were standing around talking about this idea too.
As we suddenly heard a bunch of loud noises coming from outside once more, and this time they sounded like they were coming from those people who we had seen running towards us before too.
So we all ran outside again and started looking around for them once more too.
But when we finally found them again, we saw that they looked a lot like our friends did before but with some differences too.
Because their hair was dyed in really weird colors and they all even had some piercings in their faces too.
Some of them even had tattoos on their arms and legs too.
So they definitely didn’t look anything like our friends did before, no matter how much they tried.
I mean, their faces looked the same as ours still, but everything else about them was different now too.
In fact, the first guy we saw looked exactly like me except he was dressed in some bright yellow suit with some platform shoes too.
While his hair was dyed in some really weird blue color and he even had some piercings in his face too.
He also had some tattoos on his arms and legs too.
So he definitely didn’t look anything like me at all anymore now either.
And the same thing went for the other guy we saw too.
As he looked exactly like Mark except he was dressed in some really weird outfit with some long rainbow-colored hair and everything else was different about him too.
He also had some tattoos on his arms and legs too.
So what the hell was going on here now anyway?
I mean, how come these people look so much like us but they don’t dress or look like us at all either?
And what the hell are you guys doing here anyway?
As I finally asked them why they came over here earlier when we all saw them running towards us before as well too.
So the first guy nodded his head and said that we all looked like him too, so he thought that we were all clones of him and his friends as well.
But we all quickly shook our heads and told him that none of us were clones of anyone else, so that couldn’t be true as well.
And then the second guy started talking to us too, saying that he felt the same way after meeting us earlier.
So he thought that we were all clones of himself and his friends here.
But we all shook our heads and told him that none of us were clones of anyone else, so that couldn’t be true either.
And then we all started thinking about what we should do next after hearing this idea right now too, as this definitely wasn’t something that we could easily explain away either.
Because these people definitely looked a lot like us right now, even though we knew that none of us were clones of anyone else either.
So how in the world did this happen right now anyway?
I mean, if these people aren’t clones of ourselves either, then how are they able to look so much like us right now?
Is there a scientific explanation for this kind of thing happening, or are we all just looking at some kind of magical powers that we can’t explain away either?
Whatever the case is though, it’s definitely going to be a big topic back at our lab when we get back home again as well.
Because we all need to figure out how in the world this happened to us right now too.
But first, let’s get back to what you guys said earlier when you first met us here today.
Because you both said that you thought that we were all clones of yourselves after meeting us earlier, right?
So does that mean that you guys are also scientists like ourselves here today?
Because I know that’s what I do for a living, while these people who are with me also do the same thing as well.
But do you guys also feel the same way about being scientists like ourselves here today?
Also, how in the world did you guys change your own appearances like that?
Because I know that none of us would ever do anything like that to ourselves either, no matter what happens to ourselves now.
So after hearing what I said, the first guy nodded his head and said that yes, they were also scientists like ourselves here too.
But they were also from the future, so they had already known about who we were and what kind of work we had done back at our lab too.
And they had also heard about this big project that we were working on right now, so they decided to come here and meet with us as well.
But when they first met all of us, they were so surprised by our appearances, as they had never met anyone who looked like any one of us before.
So they had thought that they were all clones of themselves and their friends here as well.
But now they know that none of us are clones after talking to us either, so they were wrong about their theory earlier too.
And as for their appearances, they said that they were born looking like this, so it wasn’t something that they could change about themselves either.
So as you can see, these people weren’t really anything like ourselves here after all.
Because they were all born looking like this, so there was nothing that they could have done to change their appearances either.
So you can see, these people weren’t really anything like ourselves either.
But there was still one more thing that I wanted to ask them about as well before we left now too.
Because now that we knew who these people really are now, I wanted to know more about them too right now as well.
So I asked them about whether or not they knew about the big project that we were working on in our lab right now?
And if so, did they know what would happen to us if we didn’t make it back home in time?
Because if these people really are from the future, then maybe they would know more about this kind of stuff than we do as well right now too.
And after hearing what I said, both of these people nodded their heads again and said that yes, they also knew about this big project that we were working on in our lab right now too.
And since they were also scientists like ourselves here today, they also knew what would happen to us if we didn’t make it back home in time as well.
And since they were also from the future, they also knew more about this kind of stuff than any one of us too.
So after hearing what both of these people said to me now, I knew that these people were definitely not clones of ourselves at all either.
But since both of these people already knew who we are and what we do for a living too, then maybe there could still be some kind of connection between both of our universes after all too.
Because as you can see, none of these people weren’t really anything like ourselves at all either.
So maybe there could still be some kind of connection between both of our universes after all too.
But whatever the case is though, it’s still something that we need to figure out later when we get back home again as well too.
Because we still have no idea how in the world this all happened to us anyway, so it’s still a big mystery to us as well too right now.
Also, let’s not forget about what Dr.Hayes said to me earlier when he first saw his own self here today too.
Because he said something funny to me after seeing himself looking like an actor from a TV show too.
In a parallel universe, a group of strangers appeared out of thin air.
The locals, a group of teenagers, stared at us with wide eyes, and whispered among themselves.
“Look at these oldies,” one of them exclaimed.
“What are you talking about?”
another replied, “They’re so fashionable.”
To my surprise, I noticed that these locals have adopted a much looser dress code than those in the previous universe.
The boys wore tight shirts with their nipples deliberately exposed, while the girls simply wore long overcoats, leaving their skin mostly bare.
Their hair came in a variety of colors and styles, and I even noticed some of them with piercings and tattoos.
All of this was completely different from what I was used to seeing at home.
I turned to glare at Emily and noticed her staring intently at her counterpart.
I cleared my throat as a reminder to get her attention, and she snapped back to reality.
Muttering an apology under her breath, she turned to look at me and smiled innocently.
I shook my head before glancing over at Mark, who stood beside us with his mouth hanging open.
As if he had just been caught red-handed, Mark quickly closed his mouth and nodded his head towards us.
We exchanged glances before turning back to our counterparts, who had walked over to us by now.
They were even more peculiar up close, with their colorful hair and thick makeup.
However, despite their youthful appearance, I could see traces of wisdom and intelligence behind their eyes, which made it clear that they were not as young as they appeared to be.
“You guys look so old,” their leader, who looked exactly like me, but with a different hairstyle, said as he examined us closely.
“Are you sure you’re not cosplaying?”
“Is there a cosplay event happening today?”
another one of them asked.
“Why didn’t any of us know about it then?”
“But that’s impossible,” Mark whispered beside me, “We’re not old.”
I ignored him and turned back to face my counterpart who stared at us curiously.
“Are you guys time travelers?”
he asked, “What year are you from?”
“We’re researchers,” I replied, “And we didn’t travel through time either.”
“So then what are you doing here?”
he asked again, “Did you guys join a research expedition or something?”
He looked puzzled and added, “But why would you do that when there are so many better jobs out there?Like becoming a celebrity or an influencer?”
He laughed and said, “Well, it’s not like it’s a big deal or anything.”
But I could tell that he was looking down on us right now too because of what he just said to us now as well too.
Deep down, I wanted to tell him that I would rather die than become a celebrity or an influencer too.
But we were still in someone else’s universe right now too after all too, so I decided to keep my mouth shut and respect his decision instead.
Because as you can see, both of our counterparts are nothing like us at all either.
As our counterparts finished examining us, they stepped off the platform and waited for us to do the same.
I was the first one to do so too, and as soon as I stepped off the platform, I was immediately greeted by an audacious sight.
It was an audacity that I couldn’t have imagined because despite not being very familiar with myself, I knew for a fact that I would never look like this at all either.
Because if there was one thing that was clear about myself, it was that I had always been a very reserved person who wasn’t very good at flaunting himself around either.
So right now, looking at myself wearing such flamboyant clothes instead, all I could think of was how amusing it would be to see how others would react if they ever saw me dressed like this right now as well too.
But fortunately, nobody seemed to recognize me either and we were able to walk past the crowd without getting recognized by anyone else either.
“So what do you think?”
Emily asked me as she nudged me in the side while pointing towards the altered me, “Do you think that he looks better than you do now?”
She asked me in a teasing tone.
“H-How am I supposed to know what you like?”
I stammered as I felt my cheeks flush with embarrassment all of a sudden.
But I could tell that she was only teasing me and that she didn’t mean anything by it too.
I turned to face my counterpart who was already waiting for us by now and saw him staring straight back at me.
It was then that I realized that he had been waiting for me to finish talking too.
And when I met his gaze, I could see that he was smiling at me too and it was then that I realized that he was only interested in me coming over to talk to him too.
But without any further ado, we quickly caught up with my team and continued walking through the city together.
However, it was quickly becoming apparent to me that we were not doing a very good job of blending with our surroundings either.
Because no matter where we went, people continued to openly stare and gawk at us while we walked past them too.
And it didn’t take long before we finally arrived outside of a fancy building which looked like it was going to be our final destination right now.
“Are you guys sure you guys are researchers?”
I heard someone ask behind us as I turned around to see my counterpart standing there with a look of disbelief on his face.
“So what if we’re researchers?”
I asked him in return as I stared back at him in return too.
“What’s so wrong with being researchers?”
I asked him as I folded my arms over my chest and waited for him to answer me too.
