Twin Earth

“We stand back, that’s what we do,” my father shouted as the black mass continued to grow around us and the weather turned an ominous grey.

“Was this what happened on the other Earth?” James shouted at me as the wind began to howl around us, blowing us backwards even as we stumbled.

“No,” I shouted back nervously.

Slowly the sparkling coloured lights out numbered the black void and turned the view around us into a rainbow of colour, swirling and blending into groups of white space until it reached the entire stone circle. Even the stones themselves glowed an unusual golden hue as if the sun was reflecting upon their surface, but the weather around us was now stormy and violent. I realised too that time itself was fluctuating between day and night and for a moment I was worried I would skip another ten years within this void.

Then a flash of white enveloped the stone circle and the wind died instantly. All was silent, even us.

We stared at each other in the pure white bubble, which was so bright it made me squint in pain. The stones were still glowing, almost vibrating around us now as we all stood, too scared to move. The Scottish landscape faded in and out around us, but had seemingly settled on a night sky because I could see stars above us. Then everything went black.

Breathing heavily at the sudden change in light, I blinked repeatedly to try and see something again. Blinded by the previous white light everything just looked green, but I could see the stones had vanished and there was nothing above us now but black.

“Is anyone there?” I shouted, realising I couldn’t see any people either, my voice causing me to jump as it echoed around what sounded like a cave.

“Yes, we’re fucking here Tom. Did you have to do that?” James whispered back, clearly annoyed at the sudden loudness of my voice.

“Does anyone have a light?” my father whispered.

Suddenly, I could hear someone flick what sounded like a cigarette lighter and Hayden’s face lit up the room.

“Where are we?” Yuki muttered from the darkness, as the orange glow of the lighter slowly grew brighter.

“It looks like a cave of some sort,” my father replied, carefully examining the stones walls around us. “There are markings on these walls too.”

As our eyes grew used to the darkness I noticed a misty image of Scotland fading in and out around us. It was strange because I felt I could walk back out to the stones, but also I could touch the walls of whatever this cave was we were in. I was literally in two places at once.

Switching off his lighter as the rest of us grew accustomed to the darkness, Hayden joined my father in studying the walls.

“These are the same markings on some of the coded messages we received. I can only assume that we have entered one of those worm-hole things from the map, which has joined us somewhere else in space or time. Is this like any of your ellipses you spoke of Tom?” Hayden asked, looking over at me.

I had to shake my head. Whatever we had done it didn’t feel like any ellipse I had been through before. On those occasions I had felt like I had been travelling through some kind of tunnel over a huge distance and the place I had left had never been visible in the same space as where I had ended up. The only thing that did seem familiar was the cave.

“This does look like one of the monuments I’ve seen on Mochuvia, but there was always a door or an opening out to somewhere. This is like being buried under ground,” I replied.

“So what do we do?” James asked. “Do we dig a way out to wherever we are?”

But before I could reply a huge explosion caught us by surprise and knocked us all to the floor, causing us to cower and cover our heads as the cave around us began to crumble from the ceiling above and huge plumes of dust filled the cave like room.

Coughing, we immediately clambered to our feet and pulled ourselves as far back as we could from wherever the explosion had come from.

“What the hell was that?” James shouted nervously.

Then another loud explosion rang out, but this time it was much closer and the walls in front of us smashed open and towards us. Knocking us to the floor once again.

“Stop!” I shouted, to whoever or whatever was causing the explosions. Then, as light poured in from somewhere outside I noticed a man staring at us in disbelief.

“A Mochuvian,” I whispered, staring back at him in surprise, but before I could say anything further he scrambled away and fled the scene.

“Who the hell was that?” James coughed at me, rubbing his head and sitting up. “Is everyone okay?”

“Yuki is hurt,” my father replied, tending to a huge gash on her head as she lay motionless on the floor.

“Yuki!” James shouted, scrambling over and taking her hand. “Is she okay?”

“We need to get her to hospital. We need to get out of this place, it’s not safe,” my father replied.

”No,” I replied, surprising even myself.

“What do you mean, no?” James replied angrily. “Yuki is hurt. This place could crumble down on us at any moment.”

”Because I know where we are, we’re on Mochuvia!”