Eldritch

 

I freeze in my tracks.
There's someone sitting in my room who looks exactly like me!

 

"Hi! Nice to meet me! Huh, that came out wrong. I don't mean, it's nice for you to meet me. Wait! No, that could be misunderstood as something negative. Ehm, I mean it's nice that the entities I perceive as 'me' can finally meet up. Yes, I think that's close enough. Does this work for me?" (I?)

"I-is that you? M-my dark me?" (I)

 

It would be terrible timing, but somehow I doubt it.
My dark side has a completely different attitude in comparison to her.
On the other side, I don't have that many other twins I'm aware of.
Does that mean another fraction of my personality got a life of its own?

Just so I can stop this musing.
Nope, I am here.

Great to know, dark side in my head.

I'm just saying this now, but stay fucking careful and by all dimensions, don't agitate her!

Wh-what do you mean?

Something isn't right here.

I don't say?!

No!
She... She's... just wrong!
Terribly frightening.
As if everything might end with a mere thought of hers.

That's exactly what people are saying about me.

Not what I mean!
Compared to us she is... Like when you quadruple infinity!
We're infinity in this metaphor.

You can't quadruple infinity!
That's mathematically impossible!

And that's what makes her so frickin terrific!

At this, the horror in question clears her throat and looks at me, intent on saying something once I courteously spare her a moment of my attention.

 

"As I should've just gotten the answer... Ah, well, screw that! Let's just say 'you' and 'me', okay? Even if the former is technically more correct, it's totally mindboggling to always fidget around finding the correct preposition, don't you agree? Talking should be more relaxed than this, I think. Anyway, as you should just have heard, I'm no split personality of yours. At least not in the usual sense." (I?)

 

Okay...

 

"Then would you mind telling me who you are?" (I)

"Well, that's easy! I'm Iori! Sweet child of darkness, cute horror of the void, lovely entropy at the end of times, cheeky terror of the eternal nightmare spawn. At least that's what some call me. Do you need more of them?" (I∞)

 

I'm growing more concerned by the second.
I just wanted to confront Dad with the newest... developments and now I'm sitting here, talking with something even I cannot figure out, and have to worry if this being is going to rip the fabric of the universe apart any moment, simply because it feels like doing so.

 

"Just saying, I wouldn't do such a thing. As if I couldn't show this kind of self-control. Tsk." (I∞)

 

She's certainly much more childish and nonchalant about this than I am.
Which points really hard against her being a part of mine.
Apart from her looks, I wouldn't even know any way we could be associated.

Also: DID SHE JUST FRICKIN READ MY MIND!!!

 

"That's actually not all that hard." (I∞)

"Alright, what is going on? You clearly are here for a reason and certainly know what is going on. So would you mind telling me?" (I)

"Sure. I'm coming from the future, booohoohoo!" (I∞)

 

Was the playful ominous voice along with the gesture really necessary?

 

"Ah, yes, right. What else would it be?" (I)

"Just like I remember it! Completely unfazed." (I∞)

"You know, after all the things that happened, time-traveling is just one more thing to add to the list." (I)

 

Just a bit more of the usual craziness.

But if it's true this has quite the abundance of worrisome implications.
On the other side, is she really?
Never mind the necessary ability and risks of traveling through time, alone the thought that I would throw my principles away like this and do something so utterly irresponsible as turning a whole reality upside down is hard to believe.
What could be so grand that I would go that far?

 

"So you traveled time? Then why are you here?" (I)

"I just wanted to warn you not to tell Dad anything." (I∞)

 

Why would she do that?
Is this some chaos theory stuff, like this event might lead to the eventual annihilation of all of existence?

 

"I-is something bad about to happen?" (I)

"Oh, you can bet on it! He won't take it well in any timeline. It got quite ugly afterward. The struggles, the divorce, the emotional backlash, the resulting chaos. So I had to fix it. It goes much better like this, you can believe me." (I∞)

 

Divorce?
She's seriously telling me that she goes this far, coming from a faraway future and changing her own past, because Mum and Dad would get a divorce?!
Sure, it would suck, but I can't believe that I would go to such extremes.

 

"I can't believe you're really me! Because it's impossible that I would do something like this only for my personal convenience! Seriously, time-traveling? How could I ever be so utterly, obliviously, irresponsible?!" (I)

 

Everything I know makes me believe it won't end well.
From butterfly effects, over deliberately ending all the existences that made up that reality, to erasing oneself out of the continuity with a full-blown paradox, it never ends well!
There's simply nothing that could ever convince me to go that far.

 

"Well, I still did so. Nothing you can do about this." (I∞)

 

She even smirks at me with the irony of saying this!
I simply cannot believe that she is me.

 

"Seriously, didn't anyone tell you not to mess with time? Even just from thinking about it you're already neck-deep in a paradox!" (I)

"You don't need to worry so much. I chose a safe method." (I∞)

"Safe?! Nothing I, and subsequently you, know about time traveling is safe! There are so many risks involved that one would need to have some screws loose to assume that there's even the slightest chance for this to end well!" (I)

"Nope, nothing of this. I've got some experience on the matter and know ways to circumvent the big troubles of time-traveling. In this case, by traveling to a not-yet-connected parallel reality, just at an earlier time, I can avoid all the nasty time paradoxes. Because, to put it simply, nothing I'm doing here is going to affect my own timeline the way you'd think it does." (I∞)

 

Is she for real?
That means she truly just came here on a whim to throw everything into disarray only because she could?!

 

"Wait! So you just chose to mess with the reality of some random Iori simply because you could, and because of some crazy dice throw it landed on me?!" (I)

"It's a bit more complicated than this, but to a degree right." (I∞)

"And all this because you don't want me to tell Dad?" (I)

"That would be nice. If you could. Would make for a nicer past of mine." (I∞)

"I thought it doesn't work that way!?" (I)

"And I said you didn't get it quite right. Anyway, I'd simply like to keep this family as idyllic as it was. So I need to make sure that he'll never find out." (I∞)

 

Never?

 

"Why is this so important to you? You don't seem like it would affect you as much anymore." (I)

"Oh, it did, back then. Not on apocalyptical levels, but it wasn't great either. Is it so bad that I wish for one of my personas to spend a happy childhood?" (I∞)

 

Can I even believe I would go that far for such a reason?
Solely to prevent me from telling Dad?
Would this even be such a big thing?
It doesn't even seem like she had to face all too dire consequences.
But much more importantly, I basically already made up my mind to tell Dad.

 

"But isn't there a chance it could work out? If I try to put it more positively or so?" (I)

"Iori, I'm you. Do you really think you're the only one who thinks to go about it in this way? I already told you, there's no timeline where it worked. Not a single one. It's simply set up to fail." (I∞)

 

It hurts to hear this.
Basically, she's saying that there's no reality in which Dad could accept me as I am now.
Not a chance for us to be truly together as a family.
But even if I don't tell him, if I decide to lie, would we really be a family? Would we really be truly together like this?

 

"I'm sorry to tell you this, but there's no way to sugarcoat anything. It was just as it was. I'm not even angry at him. Though, I need to admit that I adjusted my view on things like this. Be that as it may, the thing is, Dad was relying on a certain amount of stability in his life. He took pride in the idea that he was working for our sake. That his efforts were paying off for those he held dear. The fact that we could control his reality without any real limits wasn't really good for that worldview. In those versions where he didn't freak completely out from the start, he simply couldn't cope. He felt useless and lost any reason to believe that there's a point in his existence if the fabric of reality is nothing but a mere illusion. It... broke him." (I∞)

 

So bad?
To think that Dad would suffer like this.
I mean, it still doesn't justify time traveling in my view.
Especially not as the whole thing looks rather ominous to me.

 

"How are you even thinking that's going to work? Even if I would agree to lie to Dad, like forever, if what you're saying is true, you should know well enough how non-existent the chances are that I'm going to be able to not slip up in the future." (I)

 

Suddenly, the temperature in the room drops hard, the mouth of my twin forming a grin that can only be seen as devilish.

 

"Oh, don't worry about this. I wouldn't be here if I didn't have a way to bring my will into reality. So without further ado..." (I∞)

 

"Snap"

 

Suddenly, she snaps with her fingers, stands up, and walks out of the room, straight to the living room where the rest of my family is still located.

I'm completely startled, not having anticipated that she would directly take action.
Why would she even have talked to me if she's choosing to just ignore me now?
What is she even planning?!
I don't even know if she is truly my future me or just lied.
But I can't just let her do something to Dad.
Why would she block me out if she had good intentions?

I rush after her but promptly slam into some kind of forcefield.

Shit!!!

I can't let that happen!
With all my power I crash against the barrier, growing massive structures, all dedicated to somehow bring me through there.
When suddenly the barrier just ceases to exist.
This clearly wasn't me, but rather it was simply dismissed.

However, I have no time to contemplate this.
I need to catch up to her!
Yet once I reach my door I realize I'm in demon form.
Oh damn, she's already at him!

 

"Hello, Dad!" (I∞)

"Oh, my little dreamer!" (Chr)

 

If I show up like this, what would Dad think?
Would he even believe me over this impostor?

 

"Hey, can I show you a trick?" (I∞)

"Oh, sure. If you want to." (Chr)

"Okay, look carefully here on my finger here aaand..." (I∞)

 

She draws some lines into the air with her finger and suddenly...

 

"Whooooosshhhh"

 

From one moment to the other purple energy floods the room.
Tendrils explode and unnatural light that seems to have its own mass lays over everything.
Then this cacophony of elements floods to a single point, rapidly concentrating there.
No...

WHAT DID SHE JUST DO TO DAD!?!

 

Fuck hesitating!
I need to do something!
So I run towards the two, ready to tackle my evil twin into nirvana.
Yet I stop in my tracks once I notice something weird.
Dad doesn't take notice of me bursting into the room with all the tentacles I could summon at short notice.
Which still are infinitely many.

 

"Iori!?" (S)

 

Yes, of course Mum is at a loss when confronted with this.

 

"Oh, my. So you learned magic tricks! That's my girl. Did you know, I also was into those when I was young?" (Chr)

"For real?!" (I∞)

 

Wh-what is going on?
Why isn't he even looking?

I step up to them, my twin looking directly at me.
But not Dad.

 

"D-Dad?" (I)

 

I'm worried, not understanding what just happened.
Yet the moment I approach, my twin steps back, still grinning at me and Dad focuses on my form.

Ohmygod!

 

"Is something wrong, Iori? You sound suddenly so concerned." (Chr)

 

WHAT THE FUCK!?!