Shatters in Space: Stories about Scientific Horrors and Cosmic Threats

6. Alternates

There are over five million, two hundred and seventy one thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine accessible alternate dimensions. Yes, you heard me right, five million, two hundred and seventy one thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine. If you don't believe me, there's no way for someone like you to be able of checking it yourself. You don't have the advanced technology needed to breach the walls of microparticles that comprise our reality at a molecular or pin point level. And no, you just can't steal it from those who do own it. The facilities that contain the technology are under constant security so tight that it makes Area 51 seem like an open book. So, you have to trust me on this.

Out of those five million parallel dimensions, almost all are home to humans. In those dimensions, history has taken a different turn than in our dimension. Or evolution consisted or led to dissociative effects. Due to the vast number of possibilities, it's unknown how many of those dimensions are hostile to other dimensions. It could be possible that in one dimension, the United States lost World War Two, and the world has been overtaken by Nazi rule. It could also be possible in another dimension that humanity is still in the dark ages. It's a horrible thought but it is possible that in many of those alternative realities, the human race is still violent, still ignorant to the workings of nature and science is believed to be dark magic. It's possible.

If you stop to think about it, in any of those realities, there are multiple versions of yourself going on in life. If in one dimension, you can't have children, in another, you might have three. If you can't get girls in one dimension, you are a player in another. If you are alive in one dimension, then you are dead in another one. That is the single most disturbing aspect to the multiple reality we live in. The possibility that you might be dead, killed either by an illness, injury, or by murder. The possibility that you might be buried in another dimension is one that should unnerve you greatly. The realities might be post-apocalyptic, or they could be Utopias. You may never know the answer to the question. However, there's one question that you should ask yourself.

If there are other versions of yourself, then what happens when one dies?

The answer to the question is simple. You see, once a person in one dimension dies, then he'll or she'll be teleported into another reality. Believe it to be a second chance, once you die, you are sent to another dimension to relive your life. The life in the new dimension isn't similar to the one you've previously lived. For example, if you find yourself transported to another dimension, one where the world has been destroyed by a nuclear war, then you'll be forced to be exposed to radiation. It all depends on what has occurred in the dimension. Think about it, now. Because after all, there are five million of them and there's no way of telling where you'll end up.