𝐝𝐞𝐣𝐚 𝐯𝐮, peter parker

xxxiv. late and late again

chapter thirty-four
late and late again

"THERE ARE some out there that say dreams are the window into alternate realities. Every dream we have━whether it be running naked through the streets, not getting there in time for our exams, the dreams where we are exactly who we want to be━each and every single one of these dreams exist out there as a reality. That there is a world out there where these all come true. Though, I'd much rather the dream where I'm running naked through the streets not to be real in some other universe."

     The chuckles in the lecture room settled a part of Nina's nerves. She smiled, hoping it would bite back how much her fingers shook as they gripped the pointer for her presentation behind her. She saw her friends, her parents (holding proud smiles and grins, waving at her from the front row). There was Harry, sitting with MJ and John Jameson near the edge. Mary Jane sent her a thumbs-up as the joke was well-received. Nina smiled, tense, back at her.

Her gaze scanned the rest of the scattered seats, trying to find a pair of blue eyes that promised they'd be watching with pride. Nina wondered why she had been so hopeful, why she was still waiting, why she was still hanging on a thread for him to show his face.

After his birthday, she didn't catch him for a chat at all. She got his voicemail, didn't see him in the streets, nor was he home when she went to surprise him at his apartment. Nina didn't know why she still hoped Peter Parker would come and surprise her.

But she still did.

Her eyes then wandered to the door, begging for it to open and for him to arrive late. Arriving late would be better than never turning up.

He promised her.

Nina frowned a little to herself, turning around to her presentation with a purse of her lips. Her elective stared right back at her━she has always been a bio-chem girl, but when she saw her university offered an elective in multi-dimensional science theory, she had been more than excited to check it out.

She didn't know whether she did it because she was interested, or because of the strange dreams she's started to have more and more often, but either way, there was something about it that resonated deep within her━like it was giving her a deeper understanding not just to life, but to the universe.

"We all know about the Big Bang," went on Nina, refusing to let Peter's absence get to her. "The start of the universe━but if we look at the extension to this theory: the Inflation Theory, which states that thirteen-point-eight billion years ago, the universe expanded from the size of an atom, to a cosmic proportion in a matter of mere seconds. Why does this express into the Multiverse Theory? Well, there are many cosmologists out there that believe this inflation didn't end just at that, but instead created a domino effect━that while it might have ended in our region, it is still continuing on, starting and ending, in many more ... an infinite many.

"So what's to say we haven't reached an eternal inflation? To which creates an entire ocean of individual universes━each universe with its own laws of existence: its own unique physical forces, natural phenomenas ... left could be right, right could be left. Gravity might exist purely in opposition to how we experience it here. Mirror universes where everything is the same, except for one, or a few certain things. Where you━the individual━might be the same, except you might have blonde hair instead of red, or be a musician instead of a scientist. Where, in your dreams, your subconscious is small enough to experience brief moments in between.