Beyond the Space

I was sitting in front of the mirror, staring into my own eyes. They were violet. I was still not used to my looks. Truth be told, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to this look. Golly, it’s been exactly a year already since it all happened. When I looked in a mirror a year ago I saw a reflection of an ordinary girl. I had messy light brown shoulder length hair bleached by the sun, freckles on my cheeks and crystal blue eyes. Well the only thing that looked out of the ordinary was that I had quite pale skin for a surfer, other than that I looked normal. However, when I look in the mirror now, I see a completely different person. Of course I still have the same facial features, light skin and my freckles. Though, my hair is wavy black brown and long. And my eyes, they turned violet. After that I told everyone that I had a late case of Alexandria’s Genesis and only my best mate Joelle knows the truth. The truth that is even more absurd than having a rare almost mythical genetic mutation.

I still remember that day vividly and doubt the memory will ever fade. It all happened on January 16^th, it was precisely the middle of summer here in Australia. It was a hot and sunny day so Joelle and I had decided to go to the beach. The ocean was very calm that day and the waves were too small to go surfing.  Though, that didn’t stop us from having good time. The beach was going off. We went swimming, collected shells and played beach volleyball with some of our mates. Later in the arvo, however, Joelle suggested we get away from all the fuss. When I agreed we decided to go exploring.

The sun was still up and bright in the sky and we were walking by the shoreline. Suddenly an image of snowy mountains flashed before my eyes. I blinked and everything went back to normal. I was back at the beach with Joelle. ‘It must have been my imagination’ I though. We went on. A few minutes passed and a jerk image of the mountains appeared again. As I immediately stopped walking my mate followed me.

“What’s the matter, Em?” Joelle asked.

“Joe, do you see it?” I mused. I was blinking, but this time the image didn’t go away. It kept appearing every few seconds.

“See what?” she mouthed confused. I didn’t answer. “Fair dinkum, Em, what are you talking about?” I heard Joelle puzzle as her words slowly faded away.

At the blink of the eye I was nowhere near the beach in Straya where I’ve been just a moment ago. It was white everywhere. I have to admit the scenery was defo breathtaking. I stood in a narrow path surrounded by tall snowy pine and spruce trees. Small snowflakes were slowly falling down on me. There was snow everywhere and it was cold. I could see a range of high mountains in the distance. There was this strange girl walking at a fast pace in front of me. She had a head of straight long bright orange hair covered with earmuffs that had furry black cat ears on top of them. The girl was talking, but I couldn’t quite catch what she was saying. ‘Bonzer,’ I thought, ‘I must have gotten a bloody heat stroke.’ Then a girl repeated herself louder, “Ember, we need to hurry up if we don’t want to get stuck in the middle of the snowstorm!” I froze, but not out of cold. I froze because she said my name. She was speaking to me. When I didn’t reply, she called again, “Hey, Ember, do you –“. Suddenly she turned around to look at me, “Why on earth are you wearing a bikini?!” I finally saw her face. There was no doubt that I didn’t know who the girl was, though, she somehow looked familiar and I’m not saying that she had one of those common faces. She was the definition of unique, actually. The stranger’s face was covered in freckles. She had tan skin and wide golden eyes. Yet, even if it was the first time I saw her it somehow felt like I already knew her. The girl was examining me with a sharp stare and when I didn’t answer she spoke once more. “Ooh, so it happened,” she assured to herself.

“Crikey, where the bloody hell am I and what is happening?” I was bloody confused and panic overcame me. On the spur of moment an image started flashing before my eyes again. Only this time instead of mountains I saw the beach I knew. An image of the beach flickered a few times and a few moments later I was back in Straya. I felt a bit dizzy and disorientated. This made me unaware of what was happening around me, but a familiar voice brought me back to reality.

“Em, why is it snowing?” Joelle trembled. I was still in a state of shock so I assumed she somehow saw the mountains too. Then it came to me. My best mate didn’t see the snowy mountains nor the girl that spoke to me. It was snowing here, at the beach in the middle of the summer. And it was not the single snowflakes, but a bloody blizzard. The worst part was that I was sure the snow was somehow connected with me. I was completely lost and it was too much for me to take in. A sudden anxiety attack hit me and everything became a blur. The image of mountains returned and I was back in the snow with the orange haired girl as my legs betrayed me. I fell to my knees and buried my face in my palms. I was a dog’s breakfast.

“Hey, Ember, listen to me,” the girl looked worried. She took off her furry winter coat and put it on my shoulders. “I know nothing makes sense to you right now, but please try not to panic or it will trigger your powers again. Please, calm down and I will explain everything to you,” the stranger spoke in a sincere concern. This time I took her advice and began breathing deeply to calm myself. It took me a few minutes to completely calm down.

“Tell me, who are ya and how do you know me,” I finally mouthed. The girl held out a hand and when I took it, she helped me up.

“For now let’s just say that I know you because we’re best friends. Well, technically the other you and I are best friends, but I’ll explain it to you later. First we have to get to that cabin at the foot of the mountain over there as the blizzard has already started and the wind is rising,” the girl replied and holding my hand began leading me to our destination. “Oh, and I’m Nylah, by the way,” she added cheerfully.

           About half an hour of walking later we were finally out of the cold in a warm cabin. Nylah immediately lit the fireplace. She then handed me a pair of daks and a fluffy sweater to cover my bathers.

“So?” I hinted eagerly just as I put on the clothes.

“I assume there’s no such thing as magic back where you’re from, right?” Nylah observed, while she was making a cuppa. I sat on the chair in front of the fireplace. Before I could answer her, the girl spoke again, “Well it’s going to be a bit hard for you to understand at first, but I’ll try explaining it as simple as possible.” She handed me my cup and sat beside me. “So, there are special people in the world, like you, Ember, and there are also many parallel universes. From your point you are now in one of them. This is the kingdom of Marskelang. You are the universe traveler, so that means you can go through a temporary cosmos change and these universe swaps can be triggered by negative emotions overwhelm or stronger magnetic fields that appear in your world. These cosmos changes are usually abrupt, but you can also set off your abilities by will when you learn how to control them.”

“Wait, so ya want to tell that I have some sort of magical power that lets me teleport to a different world?” I questioned confused. It seemed iffy but also made some sense because it would certainly explain what happened to me.

“Well, more or less yeah, you can say it like that,” Nylah affirmed. She was so calm about all of this.

“You seem so calm and know a lot about all of this, does it mean you’re also a universe traveler?” I implied, but this time more out of the curiosity rather than confusion.

“You see, in this universe magic is normal. Many people have powers here so it’s not that unusual for me to know about your kind, but to answer your question no. I’m not one of you as universe travelers are quite rare. Though, I’m a seer and I knew Ember her whole life, so I was kind of expecting for you to come one day. I even had a hunch that it might be today and that’s why we were in a hurry to get to this cabin,” she explained unhurriedly.

“And what about Ember from your cosmos,” I puzzled, “is she the universe traveler? Did we switch places and she’s in my universe at the time being?”

“Not exactly, she’s the catcher. That means you both are connected by a metaphysical bond as the catcher attracts its traveler through a parallel. This also explains why the traveler can also usually only change to one cosmos that is in parallel with theirs,” Nylah disclosed. “What’s more,” she continued, “is that when the traveler is in the catcher’s body, the catcher can see everything that is happening but it doesn’t look like reality for them. And when the traveler leaves it’s like catcher wakes up from a dream.”

“So what does that mean for my body?” I inquired. “Do I just cease to exist for that period of time I’m in a parallel universe or what?”

“Well to put it simply, I already told you that you’re in kingdom of Marskelang now, which means that it’s your alternative cosmos. The kingdom of Marskelang exists not in the future nor in the past of your universe’s chronological order. It has its own timeline alongside yours. The only difference between ours chronology is that the time here goes a lot faster, so what seems like hours here it only takes a few seconds in your cosmos. Due to this, when you change universes your real body seems like it’s frozen and it lasts from a few seconds to minutes depending on how long you take in your parallel universe,” Nylah thoroughly expound everything to me and for that I was thankful. Everything was a lot clearer now.

“Yea, I reckon am finally starting to comprehend everything,” I stated. “Though, is there anything else I should be aware of?”

“Oh, I almost forgot,” the girl acknowledged. “After their first universe change every traveler transforms their appearance as it takes its true form. Each one of universe travelers starts looking exactly like their catcher and all the catchers have their distinctive look. They always have the exact features of their traveler along with dark hair and eyes in some shade of purple. So what I’m trying to say is you will start looking like Ember from this universe, thus don’t be alarmed in your own cosmos when your appearance changes.” Nylah then gave me a comforting smile.

After that we talked for a few more hours. Nylah answered all the other questions that came to me along the way. She also tried teaching me how my abilities work and even if it wasn’t much and I needed heaps more practice I could eventually understand what I had to do to get back to my cosmos. I concentrated as much as I could and moments after I was finally back on the beach in Straya.

“Hey, Em, can ya hear me?!” Joelle was shouting worriedly as I revived from my universe change.

“Aye, Joe, I’m fine,” I vaguely assured her. I was still getting used to the idea of having these strange abilities.

“You reckon?” she queried suspiciously, “because ya bloody scared me, Em. It started snowing out of nowhere and then you zoned out for like a minute.”

I understood Joelle’s confusion, but tried convincing her “Fair dinkum, I’m fi-“

“Golly, Ember, what’s the John Dory with you hair and eyes,” Joelle yelped in disbelief. “They…” she stuttered. “They’re changing?”

“Hey, Joelle, no wucka’s, but please calm down,” I began gently. “It’s a long story, though it will all make sense after I explain it to ya.” And so I told her everything.

           Hence, this is the story of how I found out that I’m a universe traveler. I’ve been one since birth, but never suspected I was not an ordinary girl till exactly this day last year. That day I experienced my first cosmos change and met Nylah. The girl who afterwards became my mate and helped my through my journey a lot. I now see Nylah every time I travel to my parallel universe and I will see her later today. Nylah understands me like no one else plus I always learn something new from her. And even though I’m still far from perfect when it comes to my abilities I’m now able to change cosmos by will. All thanks to her.