OTHERWORLD
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He was in a weird lab of sorts. One moment, he’d been on the brink of death, in fact, he was sure that the sentinels had actually killed him. Now though, he was in a lab and there weren’t any damn machines around.
The lab was, for lack of a better word, surreal. The floors were a silvery-gray and made of something that made it look like and odd liquid that he could sink into at anytime. The walls were paneled, padded, and they were tall, extending about fifty feet into the air before connecting to a domed glass ceiling that had little rays of sunlight piercing through.
The lab was a vast space. In one section of it was some sort of platform that resembled a launch pad. In the other section were tables, weird supercomputers and odd tube. His gaze fell onto a man standing by some sort of control with a grim expression on his face. He had dark hair, and looked to be donning some sort of silvery armor…no, it was far too thin to have been armor. Unless, of course, it was some technology he hadn’t yet seen.
Outside the lab, Dang could hear the sound of ensuing chaos. It wasn’t by any means loud, in fact, it sounded like there was some sort of barrier between him and whatever the chaos was that dulled the sound, quieted it.
“Hey!” Dang called out. But the man by the console paid him no attention. Dang watched him drag a dial on the console, watched him push a button, saw odd tentacle-like things emerge from his back and connect to the tubes, tubes that immediately began to fill with some odd energy, almost like they were being charged up.
The blue energy in the tubes pulsed around the stranger for a moment, and then the stranger glanced in his direction. Dang’s heart skipped several beats.
The person standing by the console, It was as if Dang was looking in a mirror because the person standing by the console had his exact face. He looked a little younger but he was the spitting image of Dang. The same eyes, same hair, albeit a little rougher…and he was certain that in that instant, this other him had seen him too.
He waited, hoping this lookalike of his might provide some explanation. But none came. His doppelganger glanced away from him, to the tubes he was connected to.
“Come on, come on,” Other-Dang said impatiently, biting his lips hard, some anxiety reflected in his eyes.
“Hello?!” Dang yelled. “Can you hear me?!”
No response.
He tried to move toward his doppelganger but there was an odd force keeping him in place, keeping him rooted to that one position. He couldn’t move.
Panic started to set in.
The panic only got worse when there came a monstrous roar that sent chills down his spine. Other-Dang’s eyes wandered in the direction of the roar and they immediately filled with concern.
A hulking monster, terrifying to behold, charged at Dang. Dang’s eyes widened and he attempted to duck or leap out of the way, but he couldn’t. The monster was going to slam right into him and potentially cripple him. Or so he thought.
Much to his own shock, the monster ran right through him, passing through Dang as though he weren’t there at all, as though he were a ghost.
What was going on, Dang thought?
Was he dead? Had the sentinels killed him?
He saw Other-Dang put up some sort of protective shield around himself and the console. He watched the monstrous brute demolish the shield with blows that generated shockwaves of such force that he worried the entire lab might collapse.
The final blow that took apart the shield sent Other-Dang a couple steps backward. The monster lunged at the doppelganger but was met with downward blow; one that knocked the beast into the ground. And then a powerful kick sent the beast flipping through the air.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
His doppelganger was frighteningly strong. Dang got the sense that he could have easily won this contest but for some reason wasn’t doing so. It was only after a few seconds that Dang realized his doppelganger was trying to protect the console and the charging tubes. He couldn’t go all-out in the fight without sacrificing whatever it was that he was intending to do with the energy within the tubes. Was it nuclear energy?
No, it didn’t look nuclear. But it was different. Dang had seen something like it somewhere before…but he couldn’t quite place a finger on it.
His thoughts were interrupted by the monster charging at the doppelganger once more. This time, the doppelganger deployed little bots that flew right at the beast, swarming around the monster’s face, firing off little blasts that might not have looked like they must have stung.
The monster roared angrily as he swatted at the bots, desperate to get them all off. When he did get them off, his face was red from their blasts.
He spat blood from his mouth, his eyes murderous now. He charged again.
There was something different now. For a split second, there’d been a look of realization in the monster’s eyes. Dang saw it and immediately got a bad feeling, knowing that whatever happened next would be bad. He tried yet again to move, to help, to fight this thing, but he found himself unable to do so.
“HEY!” he yelled as loudly as he could, hoping he might get the beast’s attention. “Over here, ugly!”
The beast didn’t hear him. Neither did his doppelganger.
Dang watched as the monster charged, seemingly at his doppelganger, but then just at the last moment, it swerved, changing direction. The beast slammed into the console and sent sparks flying in every direction. At once, the quantum energy tubes flickered, the energy within them starting to thrum dangerously, cracks forming in the tubes.
Immediately, Dang felt his skin tingle, a weird warmth spreading through him. Whatever force had been holding him in place seemed to loosen and he found himself not quite able to move forward. He was able to turn around to behold the entire lab that he was in.
He felt a sudden jolt that was sharp and painful. He yelped in response to it and then not long after that, he started to feel something humming against his skin, like the air around him was vibrating. The world glitched like a faulty television might have, jagged lines of neon color flashed across everything.
“Where am I?!” Dang demanded. This couldn’t have been real. “What the hell is this?!”
His doppelganger looked in his direction and there was no mistaking it, he’d seen him that time or at the very least, heard him. A look of confusion swept across Other-Dang’s face, his attention no longer on the raging monster.
“What--,” Other-Dang began but he was cut off by the monster who let out an animalistic roar as he began charging.
But the monster never reached the doppelganger.
Just when he got close enough, the ground tremored frighteningly beneath them and he lost his balance, crashing to the ground. Other-Dang staggered but remained on his feet.
The doppelganger stared at the tubes and a look of horror formed on his face as though he had an idea of what was about to happen. The odd energy that had been charging within the tubes exploded causing a wave to ripple through the room like a shockwave. The world started to glitch horribly again.
The energy seemed to begin to be sucked in one direction.
Toward him.
Dang’s eyes widened as the blast rippled toward him and he instinctively shielded his face with his hands, but that wasn’t enough to stop the world from dissolving into white light around him.
The energy consumed everything.
All of a sudden he was back at the construction site. His body was sprawled across the ground, his skin felt unnaturally warm and his heart was pounding against his chest.
For a moment, he was disoriented, confused. Until the sentinel appeared above him and aimed a hand right at his face, glowing as it charged up a blast. Dang’s mind went blank. For the first time in a long time, instinct failed him.
He had no idea what to do.
He was about to die.
And then, seemingly for no reason, the sentinel exploded, pieces of it flying through the air harmlessly before dropping to the ground, smoke dispersing from them.
Dang heard the sound of footsteps approaching him, and then someone’s face came into view, standing just over him with a bewildered expression.
The person had his face. It was the same person he’d seen in the lab.
Other-Dang extended a hand toward him, a grim expression on his face. Dang was wary of accepting the gesture at first, paranoid it might have been some sort of sneak attack. None of this seemed right.
But then his doppelganger’s face softened and somehow, Dang knew they were on the same side. At least, at the moment. He accepted the hand and let his doppelganger pull him to his feet.
Once back on his feet, he dusted himself off and stared straight at his doppelganger, he stared straight at what seemed to be his own his own face on another man. A million questions popped into his mind but he heard the sentinels around them and knew now was not the time to ask those questions.
“I’m not sure what’s going on here,” his doppelganger spoke, his voice identical to Dang’s. “But it does look like we’ve got pressing matters to attend to. Shall we?”