Welcome to Silkray

It was a day like any other in the faint town of Silkray, Connecticut. Everyday the residents woke up to a world where their home remained forgotten on the map, and their lives seemed to be trapped in a consistent loop that everyone felt, but never acted upon. So believe the words that say, the following isn’t an imaginary story. It happened. 

It all unfolds beginning with an explosion on Elm Street. A ticking. Then a boom. The thunderous reverberation was enough to startle awake the red-head that laid fast asleep under the cozy protection of his blanket. Without realizing, it seemed he had screamed himself to reality, at which his girlfriend, Elizabeth, came rushing. 

“Sully! You okay? Was it another nightmare?” she asked thoughtfully. Sully stared blankly at her for a few moments before answering.

“Yeah, sorry I woke you,” he apologized.

“Was it a bad one?”

“It was-surreal. We were just-talking, up here, in my room and we heard this ticking noise,” he explained, “it was a bomb under the bed.”

“Oh, my gosh. That’s awful.”Elizabeth reacted. 

“Yeah, the weirdest part, we were living in a town called Silkbay.”

Elizabeth smiled teasingly, “Silkbay, with a “B”?” 

Sully nodded grimly, still analyzing what he had witnessed in his sleep. 

“Okay, well, no more sci-fi movie marathons before bed, okay?”

They then went on with their lives after that occurrence. Even though Elizabeth succeeded in reviving Sully from the unusual dream, she had a hard time believing it was just that, a dream.

Meanwhile, a few blocks away, Brandon Dickinson encountered an explosion too (perhaps the same one). Only, he stumbled awake in Sully and Elizabeth’s garage. Surprisingly, his feet were badly bruised and scratched. In a confused state, he slowly found his way back to his own house down the street. 

“Morning. How’d you sleep?” asked a welcoming voice that rushed around the kitchen. At first, Brandon was slightly alarmed, but soon remembered that he had recently moved into a new apartment with his girlfriend. 

“Uh, not sure,” he replied.

“Oh, were you up late writing?”she inquired. 

“No, it’s just-it’s so weird Christi, I woke up in Sully’s garage all the way down the street. Maybe I was sleepwalking?”Christi considered this. 

“Well, I bet it’s just nerves,”she suggested. 

“Yeah. Wait, what am I supposed to be nervous about?”

“Today’s your first day back teaching after spring break and that whole fiasco with that kid’s parents who complained about the book you were reading in class,” Christi reminded him. 

“Oh, right. Yeah, it’s probably just that.”

Later that morning, Brandon entered the doors of Silkray High, reciting his lessons in his head. Seemingly, everything was going great until he made his way into the bathroom. 

“Hey Brandon, what’s up?” a familiar voice echoed in the otherwise empty washroom. At first, Brandon ignored it but what his eyes told him was something he couldn’t ignore. 

“D-Dylan. You’re Dylan Bernett!” he exclaimed at the mirror, eyes wide in disbelief. 

“Of course I am. Who else would I be?” 

“B-but, you died. All those years ago, when you jumped out of the window, committing suicide to be with your sister.”

“No, I’m very much alive. You must be thinking about all those crazy suicide cases that were popular back in the day.”Brandon didn’t know what to think.

“Like Holly’s brother…No, no, you did it first. You were the first case!” he insisted. But Dylan looked at him like he was joking, making Brandon feel like the stupid one. 

“Maybe you hallucinated?” Dylan suggested. 

“Maybe…Maybe I’m just hallucinating all of this.”

“Well, FYI, daytime hallucinations are a symptom of paranoid schizophrenia. But listen, have an awesome day,”and with that Dylan strided out of the bathroom as if the day couldn’t have been more normal. 

That night, Brandon, Christi, Sully, and Elizabeth, and their other friends gathered at a diner nearby for some dinner. While the others munched on greasy burgers and fries, Brandon, who was someone that never turned down any food, let alone a double cheeseburger, seemed to be lost in a trance. 

“You good, bro? You look like you’re about to pass out.” Sully directed at his friend. 

When Brandon snapped back to reality he replied, “Yeah, yeah. Just–light headed. What’s goin’ on?”

“Not much, just updating everyone on the wedding plans,”Elizabeth interjected. 

“Wedding? Who’s getting married?”Brandon knew that was a stupid question to ask, seeing everyone’s concerned and sarcastic faces. 

“Awkward…”Holly mumbled in the back, giggling. 

“Brandon, Elizabeth and I are getting married this weekend, and you’re my best man. Remember?”Sully reminded him. 

The conversation was then interrupted by a loud shriek from the back of the diner. 

“It’s…it’s you! From the newspaper,” an old lady frantically yelled, pointing to Brandon. 

“This…this photo is you,” she wobbled over to their booth while waving the thick newspaper in Brandon’s face. 

“That’s…that’s impossible,”Elizabeth told the lady.

“According to that article, Brandon’s body is at the morgue which is obviously impossible because he was with us all along.”

Soon after Brandon rushed out of the diner, telling Christi he’d meet her at home, and headed to the town’s morgue. 

“Mr. Dickinson? It can’t be,”the doctor pronounced in surprise. 

“Yet it is,” Brandon remarked, still suspicious about the whole situation.

“That’s impossible, I received your corpse hours ago.”

“Well, may I?”he asked, signaling to the covered body lying on the slab.

After approval, he hesitantly unzipped the body bag to reveal a face he knew all-too-well. Looking back at him, was indeed his own lifeless eyes. His lips were pale and his neck showed signs of trauma like it was brutally choked. 

“It’s a paradox, it must be,”the doctor suddenly said. Brandon gulped back his dinner that began to swarm back up. 

“How did I…How did he die?”

“Asphyxiation. His windpipe was crushed. He was strangled.”

“And where was he found?”

“The Archer Highway. At the town limits. By the sign, face down.”

Brandon took one last look at the dead body and instructed, “Keep this body on ice and under wraps, okay?”

He grabbed the paper bag containing all the dead body’s personal effects and left. He immediately hastened to the Archer Highway, hoping to find some sort of trace that could explain anything. But without any luck, he returned to his house and decided to empty the bag he had carried with him from the morgue. Brandon carefully analyzed each possession to check if there is anything that could tell him about his dead doppelganger. However, all of the items were his. But what was most strange was the comic book he found in the pocket of the jacket. 

After staring at the illustrious cover, he recognized it. But no, it couldn’t be. It was impossible, yet happening. Somehow, he had in his possession a set of comic books that seemed to be about him and his friends. But where did I get them? He silently wondered. He couldn’t recall. And why was his doppelganger clutching one when he died? For that matter, why did he even have a doppelganger? Hoping to find sane answers for these impossible questions, he sat down and started to read…from the beginning.

As he flipped through the pages, each story contained a nostalgic feeling. It was almost as if he was experiencing deja vu. Towards the end, he realized that what he was reading was a depiction of what he was currently doing. The last page showed a frantic Brandon, flipping through pages and pages. But the page after that was blank, as if someone was writing his story. 

“Hey, it’s late! Where have you been?” Christi’s voice called from the bedroom door. 

“Christi,”Brandon started, “I feel like I’m living in a movie about parallel universes and I need your help to figure this out.”

“Okay…”Christi reluctantly agreed as she sat next to him. 

“I’ve been having these strange hallucinations since this morning. And these comics, they’re about us. Our lives. The first 95 are called Silkbay, and they are set in a town called Silkbay. And then there’s this explosion, and suddenly it’s Silkray,”he explained, fascinated by his own theory. Christi on the other hand had a hard time following. 

“Wait, so you think Silkbay is a parallel universe to Silkray?”she asked, skeptically. 

“No, no. I think Silkray is a parallel universe to Silkbay. It’s like the comics. Silkbay comes first, and then there’s Silkray, which is a lot like Silkbay except it’s darker, nastier. It’s, um, it’s like a warped reflection of Silkbay, and it just keeps getting more twisted!”

“So, we live in the parallel universe?”

“Yeah. I know it’s counterintuitive, but,”he could tell by the look on her face that she didn’t believe a word he was saying. 

Finally, he suggested, “Read them, then we’ll talk.”

Christi did, and her experience reading them was very similar to his own. They remembered the recent events clearly but going back further in their memories was…hazier. Reading about the events in the Silkbay comic books helped to recall them, but as Christi said…

“That’s so strange. I mean, I remember these things happening, but not in Silkbay. All of this happened here, in Silkray, didn’t it?”

Brandon went to Elizabeth and Sully next. He wanted to ask them about one page in particular. 

“Do you remember that explosion, Sully?”

But Sully shook his head, “No…not at all.”

“That event is the one that ended the Silkbay comics. The next issue is when Silkray started. Now, I have a theory that that explosion is what created this parallel universe we currently find ourselves in.” 

“Wait,”Elizabeth jumped in, “I kind of remember something about this. Sully, didn’t you have a dream about an explosion like this one, or am I making that up?”

Sully considered this and responded, “Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that was just a dream, Brandon.” 

He went to Vanessa and Roger next. Then, to Holly who exasperatedly asserted, “So, according to this horrid pamphlet, the body of my dead brother near Silkwater River?”

“Yes,”Brandon answered, “How’s that sync up with your memory of Justin’s death?”

“It doesn’t, you lunatic. To begin with, my beloved twin is very much alive.”

This confused Brandon, “What are you talking about? That’s impossible. I mean, your life was basically defined by his death.”

Holly sighed and repeated, “I don’t know what to tell you, but I can assure you that Justin is not dead!”

“No, he’s dead,”Brandon persisted, “You had a funeral for him.”

Just then, the door creaked open and a tall, handsome redhead strolled into the room carrying two tennis rackets. Brandon couldn’t believe his eyes. 

“Oh, hey Brandon. I didn’t know you were here,”he addressed the guest, “You ready to hit the court Holly?”

Holly smiled and replied, “Yeah, I just need a minute. Wait for me in the car?”She turned to Brandon with an “I-told-you-so” face. 

“Uh…We…We had an in-memoriam page for him…in our yearbook,”he recollected from the comics. 

“No! We didn’t! Now, if you’ll excuse me, my beloved, and very much alive twin brother and I are off to play doubles. Ta ta! And feel free to see yourself out,”she told the puzzled Brandon as she exited. 

That’s when he had one of his hunches. The next day at school, he adamantly went through the yearbook from his senior year at highschool. He was indeed correct. Though Silkbay and Silkray diverged in ways minor and major, they were essentially analogous. But he needed to understand the rules of these worlds. He needed to sharpen his knowledge of parallel universes. And so he ventured to the school library in search of a source. 

“I’m sorry, Mr. Dickinson, but the Philosophy of Parallel Universes was checked out years ago and never returned,” the librarian spoke in a soft voice. 

“What?”Brandon sighed exhaustedly,“Who checked it out?”

“Milton Matthews.”

“Great. Can’t even ask him because he’s dead.”

The librarian seemed extremely confused. 

“Why, Mr. Matthews is alive. In fact, he teaches physics just down the hall,”the librarian informed him. 

Hearing this, Brandon dashed down the hallway, breaking about seven school rules and skidded to a stop in front of Room 132. 

“Milton,”he called. 

“Oh, hey Brandon,”a calm voice responded,“I heard you were coming back to teach. We’ve missed you.”

Before Brandon had a chance to respond, another voice added, “Yes, we have.”

“Nellie, what are you doing here?”he asked in astonishment. 

“Nellie is my teaching assistant,”Milton answered. 

“Oh, yeah?”

And then he shared his wild theories with Milton who was quick to believe him, miraculously.

“I believe you, Brandon. And I know a thing or two about parallel universes.”

“Okay. I think the explosion at the end of issue 95 of Silkbay is what created Silkray, like the Big Bang,”Brandon went on, excited that someone really understood him. 

“It’s as valid as any theory.”

“Yes! But tell me, why do you think the events that happened in Silkbay are playing out differently here?” 

After a few moments Milton began, “In my research, parallel universes are exact copies or mirror images of one another. What you’re describing is…something in between.”

“Like a warping, right? And…I don’t know, I have this…impending sense of doom like something bad is going to happen. What do we do about it?”To Brandon’s surprise, Milton laughed.

“Do? We do nothing! At any given moment, there are an infinite number of parallel universes in peaceful coexistence with one another. Just forget it, Brandon. Live your life,”he advised. 

“Dude, I’m not just gonna drop it. I became aware for a reason, conscious of the two universes. Why? What about the other Brandon? Isn’t that a paradox?” he pressed. 

“Well, it sounds more like an anomaly than a paradox.”

“Milton, he was murdered by someone.”

“Then, have a sheriff investigate, if you want. My advice, stop trying to figure out the secrets to the universe. You have a good life here, Brandon. Go with the flow.”

Brandon then grabbed his comics and left, unsatisfied with the conversation. But he chose to forget his theories for the sake of his friends’ happiness as he and Christi arrived at Elizabeth and Sully’s rehearsal dinner for the day of the wedding. Just as they were practicing the toast, the door behind them jingled its way open.

“She’s…she’s d-dead. Holly…”Tara sobbed. Panic inflicted upon all the guests. Whispers filled the room followed by tears. 

“Take me there. Now,”Brandon insisted. 

He went to Holly’s house straight from the rehearsal dinner, which was adjourned early. The scene there was a gruesome one. Somehow, the rules of this universe were making less sense everyday. It was as if Silkbay’s reality was trying to reassert itself on Silkray, and innocent people like Holly were dying. So how could he take Milton’s advice and not do anything?

Then it hit him. Milton. All this time he had been wondering who was responsible for the origin of this universe. Could it be Milton Matthews hiding in plain sight? He rushed back to the school and to Milton’s classroom, in which Milton was running around looking for something. 

“Well, considering you’re here in the middle of the night, I think it’s time we talk.”

“A little busy right now, Brandon,”Milton refused.

“NO. Milton, you asked me to sit down and do nothing. But it’s happening again. The same events that took place in Silkbay are happening here! People are dying.”

Then Milton snapped, “Yes! Isn’t it glorious?”

“Oh, you know what’s going on, don’t you?”

“He does,”Nellie remarked meekly from the back of the room. 

“I’m sorry Brandon. But I had to see what would happen if the universes remained conjoined. And now, we know. They’ve become dangerously unstable and eventually, they’re both going to implode.”

“Why are they going to implode?”

“Silkbay and Silkray, the two universes are expanding as universes do. But they’re still linked at the point of creation,”Nellie explained. 

“So, what? They’re bleeding into each other? They’re just going to expand into each other?”

“Indeed. And I, Milton Matthews, will have a front row seat to their destruction. I’ll be the first scientist to document a prime and pocket universe collapsing in real time.”

Brandon had enough. He grabbed Milton’s sleeves and pushed him against the desk, rattling him. 

“How do we stop it you scumbag?”he aggressively interrogated. Milton smiled maniacally. 

“Hahah. We don’t. We can’t. It’s too late.”

Thud. The next second he collapsed to the floor. Behind him, Nellie stood holding a large wooden lamp. 

“Nellie.”

“I had to do it. He was willing to let everyone in the two universes die, just so he could study what happens when the twin-versus implode,” she justified herself.

“Nellie, do you know how to save these universes?”Brandon pleaded. 

“Of course I do, Brandon. Well, one of them, the prime one. We can save Silkbay. Look here,”she directed his attention to the chalkboard, “If we could recreate the circumstances of its birth, then theoretically the same energy that conjoined them could also separate them. We just need to figure out what that moment was and where?”

“I think I know. Sully’s bedroom, when that bomb exploded.”

“That might definitely do it,”Nellie agreed. 

“Okay, so by your logic, we just have to accurately recreate the events in Sully’s bedroom as closely as we can.”

“And the universes should separate, yes. The prime universe will stabilize and our universe will…Cease to exist.”

“Wait…everyone in Silkray will die?”Brandon asked reluctantly. 

“Brandon, Silkray wasn’t ever meant to exist. You, me, all of us, our town, we’re just…aberrations. One big, messy anomaly that will simply stop being,”she told him. 

“And if we do nothing? Both universes collapse? Billions will die?”

Nellie nodded nervously. Little did they know that it was too late…

Boom!