The Crossing Dawn

I. Departure

This story contains STRONG language and graphic depictions of violence.

In the dictionary, unknown is defined as "Not within the range of one's knowledge, experience, or understanding." Our story can originate by the protagonist making an unwise decision leading to an odd series of events, or rather, something extraordinary suddenly affecting their everyday lives. Our story begins, sadly, with the first school of thought.

4/17/2016.
The day my whole life changed forever.

I had always been a good kid. I was an A student, had kind, geeky friends and never got myself in trouble. Then came my 14th birthday, and I began to observe the world with clear eyes. I was no longer the good, respectful child I was. To be honest, I had kind of turned into an asshole. I still had decent grades and plenty of "friends," but it was soon evident that these friends were not at all the friendly type. They were very rude and severely brought my self-esteem down the drain. However, I was scared of losing them. I asked myself, "What would have been better, fake friends or no friends?" My 16th birthday came along, and I was failing all of my classes. I concluded that the answer to my question was "no friends" so I decided to take action. I distinctively remember one of them coming up to me and laughing about my lack of fashion sense, then inviting a few of my classmates to make fun of me. I punched him across the jaw as he fell on the concrete floor. His name was Dylan. Needless to say, I got suspended for 10 days. I had realized that what I had been was a shell of my younger self, and I despised it. Thoughts of suicide occasionally flooded my head, but even then, I knew I was stronger than that. I desperately felt that I needed to be alive, but that I did not belong in this world. I looked on the internet for like-minded people, and sure enough, I found a so-called "community."

They weren't spiritual people, but their views were very, very strange. They were not religious, but something about them just screamed "cult." What they had to say was unbelievable. They had these methods of apparently exiting this world without the consequences of taking one's own life. They called it "dimensional jumping" and they claimed that there is an infinite amount of worlds, much like the multiverse theory. They claimed that, when you do "jump," the changes that you see when you 'arrive' to your new dimension are rarely drastic, but almost always positive. Perhaps you get transported into a world where school buses are red, or one where your spouse loves you slightly more. You know, things like that.

But on the rare occasion that you do experience extreme changes, they can be dangerous. For example, a possibility is teleporting to a world where Adolf Hitler never committed suicide, or one where the world fell into anarchy. It seemed as if there was more risk than reward, but it was an interesting proposal nonetheless. The method that they explained involves a mirror and one candle. You were to stand in front of the mirror, preferably a larger one, and stare at your reflection with the candle illuminating your face. You imagined the "you" in the reflection as the "you" from another world, and you would focus all of your energy into "switching" with this version of you. The more drastic this world would be, the bigger the change you would see in the mirror. A minor change would be seeing your reflection blink while you did not, and the alleged more extreme changes even include you literally walking over to your mirror and going through it, seemingly exiting your old self. I was asked by this group if I were to go through with it, despite not being a man of much spirituality, and me still having much doubt.

Well, who's to judge a person for wanting out of this hell?