I’d been going down, falling through a bottomless hole of broken… realities. I caught glimpses of life – my own too, but it was not only my own life. In it, I was a famous painter with gallery shows around the globe. In the next, I was almost on the verge of discovering time travel as a scientist. In another one, I was cradling a little baby close to my bosom and that, of course, signified I was their mom.
But no matter how they tried to change, some things stayed the same-they were eternally bothered. And suddenly, I understood. Not just visions, but Lucy’s lives, the roads she could have traveled in infinite alternate scenarios.
“Lucy?” And my voice called out, blasting a strange echo through the void. “Lucy, are you there?”
Warmth bloomed in my chest, like fire consuming both heart and blood. Then, out of the ether, as if a radio tuned to the right station, I could hear her.
“Brianne, I’m here,” Lucy echoed in my mind. “I’ve always been here.”
Suddenly, the feeling of falling in darkness ceased, and I stood upon a solid floor of an all-too-familiar high-school hallway where Lucy had been terrorized for several years. This time, however, things were different. There was no familiar household sound of normal teen life, only an empty silence.
“Where are we?” I asked to know, though I already had an idea of the answer.
And there was Lucy, not the shattered girl of half-remembered memories, but a young woman glowing with quiet confidence. ‘Where it all started,’ she murmured. Where I learned to hide, make myself small. It is also where I learned to survive.
I twisted my body to face her completely, struck with the similarities and contrasts in our beings. Absurdity Had we not been born nearly five years apart, and possibly gotten switched at birth or something, it might slightly resemble the older version of myself I used to see when standing behind Lucy, where I seemed ready to turn tail at any time out of uncertainty; whereas hers held a determination that edge about fierce.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “How are you here? How am I here? What’s happening to us?”
There was a certain melancholy in Lucy’s smile. “We are currently at an important fork in the road, Brianne. The Architect and The Raven think they are able to dictate reality based on their desires, treating us as a means to that goal. They fail to understand what we really are-what we might achieve together.
During her talk, the corridor we were in began to vary. Lockers disappeared, walls broke down, and we found ourselves amidst a huge night sky filled with stars. A collection of radiant lines linked the stars, producing a detailed mesh that throbbed with energy and potential.
Lucy explained, pointing to the cosmic weave around us, “This is the multiverse.” “Each star and thread stands for a distinctive reality. “We,” she took my hand, “are the linchpin that holds it all in place.”
The greatness of it almost caused me to lose control. “But why us? Why me?”
“You’re different by nature, Brianne.” In all circumstances and for every person, we’ve been those who don’t quite find their niche. Still, that’s not a deficiency-it’s our greatest asset.
As Lucy’s voice filled the room, a rush of memories overwhelmed my thoughts along with hers. I recognized Lucy, who looked small and frightened, tolerating teasing and shoves in the school hallway. I experienced her pain along with her loneliness, and also her silent strength. Every harsh remark and every rejecting look forced her inner strength, forming a center of steel that no one could tell.
Lucy said with assurance and clarity, “They believed they could demolish me.” ‘The bullies, the folks who averted their eyes, even my own parents who continually could not understand.’ But they were wrong. Every test, every disappointment, only enhanced my determination.
While I watched, Lucy was engaging with her studies, drawing peace from books and knowledge. All through this, the located core of strength has blossomed, refined by challenges but never destroyed.
I started, “But The Architect,” wrestling with how to bring together this view of Lucy and my understanding. “He claimed that you were weak, not able to manage the unification of our souls.”
The laugh Lucy had was shining and fierce. “Of course he did. Both The Architect and The Raven are capable of seeing only what they predict. They see us and interpret us as victims, intended to serve as pawns for manipulation. They simply chose not to look any further.
While speaking, the cosmic web surrounding us intensified in brightness. I was aware of the energy flowing through it and through us. “So what do we do now?” I phrased my question, my delivery more calm than I imagined.
My hand felt Lucy’s grip get tighter. “Now, we get to take control. The Architect and The Raven wish to harness our abilities to merge realities and to build a world they can lord over. But they fail to recognize the authentic character of what they’ve developed within us.
A waving of her free hand made the star-field around us zoom in, zeroing in on a single gleaming thread. “Look closely,” she urged.
I stared at the thread, and gasped. Within that brightness, I perceived insights of a world-our world. I observed Chase, whose face expressed both anguish and regret. With the act of reaching out desperately, Zoe was directed towards my previous spot. As their expressions moved from luck to bewilderment, The Architect and The Raven stood.
Lucy said, “They think that the process has already started.” “Yes, it has, but not as they had thought. We don’t play the role of just a conduit, Brianne
We represent the fulcrum under which the entire multiverse operates.
Understanding began to dawn. “Hence we can opt,” I said to myself. “We can pick how the realities combine.”
A fierce pride gleamed in Lucy’s eyes as she nodded. “Exactly. The Architect and The Raven intended to build a weapon, a vehicle of control. Instead, they have granted us the influence to change everything.
The immensity should have terrified me, but I found calming purpose coming over me instead. “So what’s our plan?”
Continuing in a serious tone, Lucy stated, “We have to completely merge first. No separation, no confusion going forward. We need to join as one entity, with the fortitude gained from our experiences.
I stopped for a quick second, as fear seemed to flash through me. “Will I still be me? Will you still be you?”
Lucy’s smile was gentle, but she looked determined. “We’ll fulfill the roles of both and still achieve more. Each hardship we’ve dealt with, along with every moment of uncertainty and discomfort, but also every victory and moment of bliss-It will all fuse together to make us more resilient than we could be independently.
I took a long breath, finally, nodding my head. “Okay. How do we do this?”
As a response, Lucy took a step forward and set her free hand on my heart. I duplicated the gesture and, with our palms touching, I experienced a surge of energy completely new to me.
Feelings, memories, and sensations all rushed into me. I felt like Lucy, small and timid, confronting insolent bullies in the hallway. I became Brianne, confused and adrift, working to understand a life that suddenly didn’t belong to me. I was, in turn, every possibility and none, an entity rich with the potential to expand to meet the immense universe surrounding us.
I reopened eyes that I had not noticed were closed when the surge subsided. The landscapes in the star-field surrounding us have evolved, looking sharper and more fluid at the same time. The flow of hopes and fears from countless beings was palpable to me, along with the pulse of every reality.
“We accomplished it,” I pointed out, with my voice gaining a new sense of power. “We’re one.”
When the words came out, a light pulling feeling washed over me. The cosmos surrounding us started to disappear, as reality once again came into focus. We were retreating-pulled back to the conflict we had moved away from.
The laboratory appeared around us as The Architect and The Raven stood in the same spot they had been before, their faces immobilized in looks of shocked disbelief. Zoe and Detective Morris were gesturing toward us, the motions becoming quite sluggish. Tears fell down Chase’s cheeks as he knelt, silently articulating words that wouldn’t come aloud.
We towered up, no longer fearful, nor lacking certainty. We embodied Brianne and Lucy and so much more. We felt the influence of the multiverse, on the verge of manifesting through our intent.
In a rare moment of fluster, The Architect sighed, “Impossible.” “This shouldn’t have happened this way.”
The Raven’s sight turned narrower, her tone a soft hiss. “What have you done, girl?”
With our smiles, the environmental reality rippled around us. “We’ve done exactly what you wanted,” we said, and our voice resonated with the force of countless lives. “We’ve acted as the bond between various realities. But you bypassed one very crucial thing.
“And what’s that?” The Raven spat out a snarl, while dark energy sizzled near her palms.
Our smile became broader, powerful and bright. “It’s important to remember that bridges can be used going both ways.”
With those words, we touch, not with fingers but with our spirit, grabbing what it is we live selecting strands of reality around us. Before the two could react, The Architect and The Raven understood, far too gruesomely, what they had helped create.
“No!” The Architect screamed, and I could almost see him charging towards us. But he was too slow, too impaired by the very world he had tried to dominate.
We tugged at strings and the web on which the world was built slowly came apart. Realities mingled and changed, not in the slow, direct merge that the Architect and The Raven had in mind, but in steps that were as perfect as our will had been.
And as these shifts diffused outward, we went back to those closest to us-to Alessandro, to Zoe, to Detective Morris, even, in some way, to the anguished Chase. We could only tell ourselves as we continued with our dialogue ‘It is time to put things right.’ Our tone was charged with positivism and that determination. “Are you with us?”
They all waited with anticipation for their response. And as our friends reddened and knitted their brows pulling their carts to us, we understood that this was just the beginning of our trials.
The multiverse was something that was created for humanity and what we would make of it would be a place of justice, healing, and hope. No more hiding, no more fear. We had become the author’s of our faith.