“Come on! What are you Chicken?” Ben called to his friend. Ben was tall.. strong with short black hair and well built. He was the kind of guy that always went to the gym and it showed. He stood six feet tall, dressed in casual clothes a shirt and jeans. “Nobody is around,” he called as his friend seemed to struggle with the fence to get towards the pile of junk.
Daniel on the other hand was nothing like Ben. A shorter boy standing about five feet six.. he was a bit of a nerd. Quiet for the most part, with frilly blonde hair and glasses. The young teen knew this was a bit dangerous… he clambered up the fence and landed- quite badly, falling to his side. “ouch!” He winced making sure he wasn’t badly grazed.
Ben quickly reached out to help him up. “Heh, come on dude. You need to bend your knees when you do that.” He said with a role of his eyes. “Not too far now.”
Ben and Daniel were friends. Sort of… well, mostly acquaintances born out of convenience. Daniel was a relatively shy, quiet teenager who mostly stayed out of the way of other students. He had short blonde hair and was a little on the thin side. He had recently got into some trouble with… well..
...lashing out.
Daniel had always been a good kid for the most part, though the recent divorce of his parents and living with his mother alone hit him very hard. His relationship to his mother didn’t recover from that either and they barely spoke to each other… so yes, Daniel’s grades stared to fall and he became a young man filled such anger-
Though was quickly slapped down by stronger students. Even his anger wasn’t enough to help him rise above his peers. That was when Ben came to help him.
Ben being a bit bigger and older and physically stronger had tried to help Daniel through the issue, explaining that his own parents split up too and he never saw his little sister- which Ben replied he was ‘glad’ about to anyone who asked. Though in truth that loss had hurt him too. However as he often remarked ‘crap happens’. “People like us don’t get freebies… if we want something we have to take it.” Ben explained.
So that was why they were here… to ‘get stuff’.
Ben pointed across the eerie building. “There’s this pile of weird junk. I heard someone found an emerald once there. We dive in, get some cash and split it yeah?”
“Yeah,” Daniel nodded. It made sense for them to both do this. After a quick walk down the back end of this weird abandoned estate, they found the pile of junk. There were boxes where people seemed to be tyring to sort it out.. but probably gave up. The young man stared at it all… “Weird… what is all this stuff?”
“Who cares. Look for anything shiny. Money, that sort of thing.” Ben insisted as he opened what looked like a fridge. Inside seemed to be a bunch of biohazard samples. “Nope.” He closed it. “Not touchin’ that.” He wasn’t that stupid.
Daniel began to walk towards the large containers, seeing strange ripped apart pods, some specs and diagram paperwork, some kind of journal… curious he picked it up, but he couldn’t even read it. “What language is this.. huh..” He continued his search.
“Box labelled samoflange parts… what the heck is a samoflange?” Ben wasn’t interested in that and kicked it aside. Time continued as they searched. “Remember if we get caught, this isn’t illegal.” Ben quickly told his friend.
It took about an hour… they had not found anything all that valuable yet- just some small change here and there… until Daniel finally… found something. “Hey- BEN!” He shouted. “Look… it’s some kind of mirror! Silver!”
Ben looked to his excited friend and looked at the object. “Yeah… that is silver alright. Well done!” he patted Dan in the back looking the thing over. “Must be worth a bit… we can probably melt it down…hm…” He glanced at the weird antennas at the top and buttons. “Someone must have done something to it though. What is all this stuff…” Lots of weird cables and wires and some kind of junction box at the back?
“I dunno- there’s a button.” Daniel slowly pushed it. The item suddenly started to hum. It felt weird.. the noise was low pitched and seemed to vibrate against their very bones and liquid inside their eyes.
…Of course, it was actually vibrating across fabric of their very reality… which will soon become the past one.
Daniel tilted his head in confusion at the sound but… more so at what he was seeing. “Huh.. something’s weird with my reflection.” He seemed to have longer hair in it. It was styled slightly better then the messed up short blonde hair he had. There were also less spots on his features.
“Hey let me see- Whoa!” Ben saw that his reflection sported a beard. He usually liked to keep himself clean shaven but was always curious to see what a beard would look like. He rubbed his chin and the mirror reflection did the same. “This is awesome! What is it a computer screen?”
“It must be,” Daniel thought with a grin. “I’ve seen this sort of thing before. People make augmented reality with it. Maybe the dials change it.” He started to twist the larger dial, oblivious to… what was about to happen. What the machine was really doing…
Daniels image changed. Now he looked like he had gone to the gym. No longer a weak nerdy teen, the reflection showed a strong supple body with broad shoulders. His hair style seemed to have become a mullet. He laughed at this. “Oh God that’s so sixties- dude check you out!”
Ben on the other hand looked skinner and weaker. In fact, his reflection somehow looked ‘shorter’. A young girl with a ponytail styled hair and baseball cap greeted him much to his chagrin. “Urgh that’s awful try it again. Jeez!”
Daniel started to move the dial again. “The big one seems to change it more.. hm...” The humming became more ‘intense’.. the strange feeling of vibrations as more ‘extreme’ realities was being selected.
Now Ben and Daniel saw something different. Both appeared to be girls! Though that wasn’t all…
Daniel could see the image of what looked like a cat-type creature his own age. She looked mostly human that he could tell, but the teenager looked a little ‘pudgy’. It was kind of weird and his mind couldn’t quite work out what was going on down there. The girl herself was cute with blonde hair, very long… and had a shy quiet look about herself. She seemed to be wearing a light hood which was covering up her body making it tricky to see more of her. Her soft blonde triangular ears kinda made him want to scratch them.
Then Daniel pointed the image towards Ben for him to see.
“What the heck is that!” Ben gasped. He tilted his head as the girl in the mirror did the same. However frown below he could see she had… feathers. Pure white feathers with soft highlights of blue. It kind of looked like swan… there was a certain elegance to what the girl looked like which was hard to deny but still- it was so detailed! A monstrous ‘bird creature’ with golden scales running down her legs ending in talons. She appeared to be mostly naked except for a vest top. Something which bothered Ben a bit. She also had lovely moon-lit hair and amazing green eyes. Except for the fact she had ‘bird stuff’ she looked quite pretty… must be a costume?
“Who in the world would invent this,” Ben wondered annoyed. “Well whatever, we can look at the hard drive. Let’s get out-“
ZAAAAP!
The two felt.. strange. Reality itself seemed to just ‘implode’ all around them. Time itself stopped, yet photons moved… coalescing into a singularity drawn in by the mirror. They felt their bodies warp and twist, turning akin to water as they spiralled into this weird quantum singularity…
… and thus their new lives began…
