I don’t want to get too much into my job, because it’s heady stuff, and I could take up thousands of words just explaining a fraction of it, and it’s words a lot of people aren’t even going to understand. And I don’t have much time left. So let me just say I’m a scientist, and for the last twelve years, I’ve been on a small team that’s been working to prove the existence of other dimensions. Worlds that lie next to our own. Last month we had a major breakthrough, but I’m starting to think that we didn’t discover exactly what I thought we did. I think we discovered something else, and something terrible.
My name is Richard Smith, and I’m pretty sure I’ve had a hand in dooming the entire planet. I was on top of the world just twenty-four days ago, and now I sit in a locked-down lab that I’m never going to leave, listening to my own blood drip steadily onto the ground, knowing there’s no hope for me. I’m going lightheaded. It’s hard to put my thoughts into words as I sit here at this terminal. But I have to warn you all. I have to tell you all what’s coming.
Doctor Melanie Freel is my boss. Was my boss. She’s dead now, lying out in the hall, a jagged gash across her throat. She was a genius. You’ve never heard of her, but people like me idolized her. Getting to work with her was a dream come true. Under her supervision, five of us spent years building and perfecting, and powering up a gateway.If you were to look at the machine, you wouldn’t think it was anything special. It’s just a big silver metal half-ring built into a wide platform. Like something out of a low-budget sci-fi movie. Wires and cables run this way and that, powered by massive generators. That was one of our biggest obstacles, simply forcing enough power into the ring to turn the damn thing on. It took two years just to figure that out.
But we did it. And last month we finally thought we had it right. We all gathered around the machine, we were going to turn it on right at eight PM. We had all sacrificed so much. This life, this project, it was all-consuming. My girlfriend left me years ago. I have no children. Forty, with no one to miss me. Not that it matters. There won’t be anyone left to miss me soon.
My stomach is on fire, the cut is so deep it feels like my innards are going to spill out at any moment. And that’s how you’re all going to die too. I’ve made sure of it. I didn’t mean to, and I’m sorry, but that’s the truth. Me and the others, we’ve screwed you over big time. Some will be killed outright, like four of us. But some of you will be changed, added to the army, the army that will sweep across North America, and then the rest of the world.
Dr. Freel hit the switch herself, of course. The sound that filled our little underground lab, a series of three rooms and a connecting hallway half a mile under a water treatment facility near Columbus Ohio, was deafening. We couldn’t hear each other cheer, but we all cheered just the same. Because we had done it. A blue shimmering light built up in the middle of the ring, and then it stabilized and we were looking into our lab. Our lab in another world. We had done it, and that was it for the day. We weren’t rushing. We weren’t going to be stupid. We killed the portal, and we celebrated.But we were eager. We didn’t take time off. We wanted to be ready to enter the portal the next morning. We drew straws to see which of us would accompany Dr. Freel into the portal. Two of us were going, and three would stay behind. I drew the long straw, I was going to get to be one of the first two people to step into another world.We dressed in something I can best describe as hazmat suits. We didn’t know what the other world would be like, so we were cautious. We had oxygen tanks on our backs, the suits were airtight.
I stood next to Dr. Freel as the ring was powered up again. We were tethered to our world, so we could be pulled back in. We were taking no chances. The blue light built up, shivered and settled, and Dr. Freel and I took each other’s hand, and we stepped inside.From our side, it was hard to make out the other world. We could tell it was our lab just from the hazy shape of things we could see. The generators, the long desk I sit at now. But stepping through the light, it all became clear.Right away, we knew something was wrong. The lab was half destroyed. Tables flipped, instruments scattered. One generator looked as though it had exploded. The long table was intact, with three computer terminals upon it, and behind the middle one, a skeleton sat, head thrown back in anguish. Neither Dr. Freel nor myself spoke. We walked further into the lab.
The doors were made of glass, and they were yellowed and cracked. In some spots, moss grew on the walls, and the ceiling had caved in over in the corner, and dirt had piled up beneath it. In our world, the doors were pneumatic and opened to a button press next to them. I tried the button, and nothing happened. I leaned against the door and was able to slide it open just enough for Dr. Freel and me to enter the hallway. It was empty, save for a human skull down by the door that led to the elevator back to the surface. I tried to push the elevator doors open and was unable to.We checked the two other rooms and found more human remains. It was eerie. I couldn’t help but think these bones were what was left of our doppelgangers. In another dimension, so closely resembling our world, surely our counterparts had worked on the project as well.
Dr. Freel indicated we should return, and we did so. As we re-entered the main lab I noticed a strange shape in the corner of the room. I made my way to it. It looked very much like a massive wasps nest, brown and papery, and stuck to the wall. I didn’t touch it. I didn’t want to contaminate myself.We returned to the portal and stepped back through to our world. Our team shut down the portal and cheered, but Dr. Freel began to explain what we had seen, and it sobered everyone quickly. The joy we had felt was sucked from the room. And then Dr. Freel began making plans. The next day, she was going to return to the other dimension. Two others would be going. I would stay behind this time, and I was glad for that. I felt uneasy. I hadn’t liked what I had seen.
The next day, I watched as my three companions ventured forth through the portal once more. They were gone for some time. Dr. Harris had stayed behind with me. He was older and jovial, and everyone loved him. He died in my arms last month. We worked hard to keep the generators going in their absence. Finally, they returned.
They had managed to open the elevator doors, and using a ladder that ran up the shaft, Dr. Freel herself had climbed up. What she saw of the water treatment plant was much like what I had seen in the lab. Overgrown, ruined, skeletal remains. She had looked out of a window and seen a barren landscape. Usually, it was lush and green, with a thick wood across the street. The trees had been burned away.
Dr. Liu, a brilliant young woman, had taken a closer look at the skeleton at the terminal and found evidence of an old break that had healed in the tibia. I didn’t tell anyone that I had broken that bone when I was seventeen in a car crash. But when she said it, chills ran through me. That was another world version of me, at that computer, and the realization was almost too horrific for my mind to comprehend.
The next day Dr. Harris and I entered the other world. We had to find out what had happened. We had to find some clue that we had missed the first two trips. I went to the large fixture in the corner. I had taken a large knife, I wanted to dissect it, to cut a piece off and bring it back. I stood in front of the nest-like fixture and slid the blade carefully inside of it. I made a downward cut. The paper-thin walls of the fixture sliced easily and pulled away from one another. I shouted and jumped back.
A humanoid figure was inside, its legs curled up beneath it, its long white arms crossed over its chest. The figure stirred. I stepped back until I bumped into the edge of the stage the ring sat upon and fell backward onto my butt. The thing inside the nest was more horrible than I could ever describe. Hairless and tall, it unfolded its limbs and stepped out onto the floor. Its fingers were tipped in inch-long talons. Its eyes were milky white and it looked right at me. It screamed its jaw opening to an unbelievable length, its teeth many and razor sharp. It rushed toward me and I jumped up and I ran around to the other side of the ring as I called for Dr. Harris. He came running. We rushed through the portal, the beast hot on our heels.
I screamed for the others to shut the portal off, but it was too late. The thing came through with us. It slashed at Dr. Harris, cutting deeply into his back and knocking him down. Dr. Liu and Dr. Greenberg ran forward to help him. I just kept running. I ran for the door, slamming my hand on the button to open it. I turned, the portal had been shut off, but the damage had been done. The thing was in there with us, and it leaped at Dr. Liu and bit into her neck. She screamed, the sound so horrible my eyes tear up just remembering it.
We left her. Somehow, Dr. Greenberg dragged Dr. Harris into the hall, leaving a long trail of crimson behind. Dr. Greenberg was running on adrenalin. Dr. Freel made it to the hall and we shut the door but it wouldn’t shut. I was still tethered by a cable. The thing came for us. Dr. Freel turned me around, cool and collected, and unhooked me. She shoved the tether through the door and it slid shut. She went to a panel on the wall and locked down the lab. The doors couldn’t be opened now. Not without a passcode that had to be entered into one of the terminals in the other room. The one we had just locked the creature inside. Of course in a horrible turn of events, there had been a terminal in the smaller lab next to the larger one, but we had moved it into the main lab as well, needing its computing power near the end of the project.
We were stuck.
The third room in the underground lab was a small sleeping quarters and kitchen area. We moved Dr. Harris there, laying him on a cot. He didn’t make it through the night. I sat with his head in my lap as he died.
Days passed. Weeks passed. We ate our food. We prayed that help would come. Without those terminals, we had no contact with the outside world. And few people knew we were down there anyway.
Yesterday evening Dr. Greenberg called Dr. Freel and me from the hall. We went out to join him. He was standing at the glass door. The creature was near the ring, sitting on its haunches. But Dr. Liu was standing right at the door. So pretty in life, she had begun to mutate. The thing’s bite had changed her. Her face was pale and elongated. Her skin was bloody and torn where her arms had begun to stretch. She smiled at us, some of her teeth had fallen out and were being replaced with longer, needlelike ones. She was turning into one of those creatures.
She turned and moved to the middle terminal. She began to type. With a beep, the door slid open, and I turned and ran. I ran for the living area, it was just a regular door here and I slammed it open and then spun and shut it behind me. I heard Dr. Freel scream in the hall. I leaned against the door. My heart was pounding. The sounds I heard on the other side of the door stay with me, I hear them every moment now. Dr. Greenberg pleaded for his life. The roar of the creature. Splattering, thumping. I leaned against the door and I prayed they wouldn’t come through.I don’t know how long I stood there. It felt somehow like both hours and minutes. Finally, I had no other choice. I had to go out. The hall was covered in blood. Dr. Freel lay by the door, her throat torn open. Dr. Greenberg was in pieces. His arm here, his torso there. I turned and looked to the elevator. The light there on the silver panel next to the doors glowed green. I rushed toward it.
Behind me, I heard the creature. Its feet pounding on the ground. I turned, just as it jumped for me. It barreled into me and swiped its hand at me and I felt its claws tear through my flesh. I screamed and I fell backward, and I saw darkness.
When I came to, I was alive. I don’t know how. I called for the elevator, but it wouldn’t come. I tried to shove the door open, so I could get to the ladder, but I wasn’t strong enough. Even if I was, I don’t think I could climb.
I’m going to die down here.That was this morning. I managed to get here, to this terminal. Right where the other me had died. But I realize something now. That skeleton with the same break in the same bone isn’t me from another world. It is me. We didn’t find another dimension. We didn’t find a parallel world. We found the future. Years into the future. And I know now, because I’m all alone, that creature made its way up to the world. Dr. Liu made her way up to the world. One of them. It can make more. And it will. And the future we discovered, is going to come to pass.
And for that, I am sorry. I am so sorry.