Journey To The Perfect World

The First Travel

“Ready Aiden?” said Sierra as we stood in front of the practice portal so that I could learn how to transport through parallel realities. “This is the practice portal, it is of no relevant time sequence. We very rarely use this portal to brush up our abilities and to hone our skills. Here, you will get your first ultra-travelling experience. Ready?” she said, to which I nodded and braced myself.

We were standing in the passage where I had my near-death experience. In front of me, was a hand-print, on the dark wall which I knew was going to disappear when I’d put my hand on it. So I raised my hand and started taking my hand towards the print and I started feeling this attraction from the print, as if it was pulling me towards itself. I glanced backwards and Sierra was standing there, and then she said “It’s go time kid.” And so I pressed my hands towards it, knowing in my mind what was going to happen. As my hand was fully pressed, the wall started disappearing, I could see the light, the vacuum was pulling me, and so I let go. The next 3 seconds were excruciating. I could not feel my body, all I could feel was the force, pulling me, dragging me towards what seemed like hell to me. Everywhere I saw, there was just white, plain white. After this three seconds, I fell hard on solid ground. The white then started fading, my eyes were hurting from all the light that I took in. I had reached an empty warehouse. I was laying on the floor, trying to gain control of my paralyzed body. After a minute or so, I could get on my hands, then on my knees, and after a lot of hard work, I stood; barely. There was nothing to do, I was in the middle of nowhere, in a warehouse. A phone rang, I could see the phone oh-so clearly. It was literally in front of me. I took the phone, answered it. “Hello Aiden, if you’re listening to this message then you have successfully reached to the practice arena. You may be thinking what you actually need to practice for, as there is nothing around you. Look out of the warehouse.” So I did, I went to the window, and I saw myself. I was outside, sitting on a chair, with a beer can on the table.

“What you’re seeing is a virtual copy of yourself. You may not get the difference between the real person and the virtual copy, and you don’t need to. We create virtual copies for practice, you do not need to feel any guilt or fear of doing any harm to a copy. Now go to the copy, and kill him. Do not think of this as some murder, this is just like dissecting a lab rat, or a frog; it is for educational purposes only. You have a gun besides you on the wall, take it and shoot him.”

I was confused, as to what will killing a copy teach me. I go and take the gun, it was loaded. I open the door, and I approach the copy of myself. He saw me, but didn’t even acknowledge me as himself. He just said “Yes? What do you need sir?” I did not know what to do now, should I talk to him before I kill him, or should I just shoot his brains out? I thought I’d talk to him at least, he is going to die anyway. “You don’t recognize me? Haven’t you seen me before?” I asked the copy. He replied saying “No sir, I don’t even remember seeing a person before. That’s how long I’ve been here I guess. I kind of forget stuff. Why are you asking that? You know me?” This made sense, because he would not have a memory if he was a testing copy. I could not talk to him more, because I was afraid I’d get attached to him. “I’m sorry Mr… I did not get your name. What was it?” I asked him before I’d put a bullet through his skull. “My name… um… This is kind of awkward, I don’t remember my name. I told I forget stuff. Eh, it’ll come back. Wanna have some beer?” he said to me not having the faintest idea of what was going on around him. It seemed like he was born today. I could not take more. I needed to get this over with. “Hey sir, what is that back there?” I asked him, pointing towards the opposite side to get him facing his back towards me so that he would not see it coming. He turned around to see what I was pointing towards, and I took my gun out and pointed towards his head, with my finger on the trigger.

Out of nowhere he turned around, slapped the gun off my hands, punched me in the face and took the gun in his hands. Holstering the weapon towards me, he said with anger rushing through his veins “You have no idea what you’re getting into Aiden. Do you even know who you are? What you’ve turned into? You were going to kill me just because a lady in white said so. Do you even know who I am? Do you have any idea how many times you’ve come down here you stupid son of a bitch?” What the fuck?! I was laying on the floor, defeated, ready to die. “H…How do you remember? How do you know my name?  What are you talking about? I’ve been here for the first time. You’re a copy, you’re not even real. Tell me what the fuck are you talking about!” I said to him with questions going through my head faster than the blood pumping through my heart. “Do you even know what is real? You know what? Fuck yourself. I’m done.” Saying this, he put the gun in his mouth and shot himself. His blood, my blood, was all over me. As he was lying there, the phone rang again. “It took you a lot of time to kill a single person. This is why we train people for this. You need to get over it and start thinking of copies as copies, not as humans. You’ll be killing a lot of Aiden’s and others in the future. You need to get comfortable with this. Now go find a light source, and put your right palm in front of it wide-open. And then, wait. See you at the head-quarters.”

Alright, so this was the training that these people give on the first field day? Wow. I don’t understand why I wasn’t feeling anything major after I killed myself in front of me. I guess all of this was happening so fast that I could not take it all in at this moment. I found a light bulb hanging over a small cabin a little far off from where I was standing, so I went towards it. I heard a little noise coming from the car that was there behind the cabin. So I went to the car. As I open the door, I see that the ignition is switched on, and the engine hood was hot. The car was driven a moment ago, I could see the tire tracks which seemed fresh. I sat on the driver’s seat, and rested my hands on the steering wheel. I thought maybe I could get a little information as to whose car I was sitting in. So I opened the glove compartment. There was a gun with the serial number erased, some cash, and a torch. This stuff wasn’t useful. The sun was hitting my eyes, so I opened the sun-protector kind of thingy that is on both the sides of the rear view mirror. As I open it, a picture falls in my lap. It was a picture of me and Skye. A picture of me and Skye in a car lying around in the practice arena of the Help, WHAT?! I could not understand what was going on here. I was tired of all the things that were kept from me by everyone. Even Help was keeping secrets? This was making me feel like I was being manipulated by everyone since the start. I did not even know if I ever had a moment that was true, that was not manipulated. I started the engine of the car and I took off on the road that was in front of me. There were clear fields everywhere. No houses anywhere except the warehouse. I was driving and driving, it seemed like there was no end to the road. After driving for five minutes, I ran over something, I felt the bump. So I stopped the car, and it was a corpse. It was my corpse. Another copy? What were they hiding from me? I ran towards the car and I opened the door, took the torch and switched it on. I opened my right palm and hovered it over the light and waited. The light started to grow, the vacuum started appearing, and I was sucked in. I landed on what felt like a floor, but the light wasn’t diminishing. I could walk, but the ample light was still there. I heard someone who was nervous and afraid saying “You’re not supposed to be here. Go, they’ll find me.” The sound was familiar. As I turned around, I was shocked. I could not breathe for a second.

“Skye? What are you doing here? Didn’t I …kill...” I asked her, touching her, feeling her skin. She was warm, she was alive. “Aiden, all you need to know right now is that the Help are not good people. Okay? You need to trust me.” She said. “You tried to kill me, you said you did not love me.” I said to her, re-igniting the bitter memories of the day I dreaded, the day that haunted me in my sleep. “That wasn’t me. I will explain it all to you. First, you need to get out of here, they’ll start searching for you if you don’t return now. Go!” she said as she took my hand and put it flat on the floor. The floor started disappearing, and I was pulled back. I landed on my feet this time, in the headquarters. Everyone was standing there, awaiting my arrival. They made me feel like I was some kind of a hero, who had returned after fighting a war. But in my mind, I couldn’t decide whom to trust. “What took you so long?” asked Sierra. Deciding that my wife was the one I could trust, I said to them “I was taking it in, need to kill many more of me. Let’s go people, back to work.”