Which World is Real?
Which World is Real?
Author: Edward van Vuuren
Chapter 1 - I am alone on Earth

Now I've never really bothered to think much about the apocalypse or end of the world, there are always things happening that makes everyone go on the apocalypse train. But as for me, I've never really paid much attention to any of it, so many things have happened throughout history and the world has always kept on spinning, people returned to their normal every day routines and quickly forget about what happened.

To be honest, I have no interest in the outside world or the news, what is news today is history tomorrow, or in most cases it's just forgotten, so I honestly don't see the point in waisting money on news papers or even watching the news, but I guess that was my mistake, maybe if I paid a little bit more attention I wouldn't find myself in this predicament.

Now I live on Earth, or well I'm trapped in some sort of parallel dimension, but it seems like I can still get messages out to other unaffected versions of earth.

It all started when I woke up one morning and I realised that it was very nice and quiet outside, well it is generally very quiet where we live, but on this specific day it was really quiet, almost too quiet. But I didn't think much of it.

My girlfriend went on another business trip for the week, so I was home alone with all of our pets, I got out of bed, got dressed. I went through my normal routine to put out food for our cats and dogs, filled their bowl up with clean water and made myself a cup of coffee.

The cats and dogs didn't run out to join me or too eat, but I figured they are probably just tired and sleeping in, so I went to sit on the veranda to have my coffee and a smoke when I remembered I need to feed the birds, so I got up and grabbed a cup of food and filled up the bird feeder, then got back to the couch to enjoy my coffee and my smoke, it's usually very inspiring to watch all of the different birds that comes to eat, but none came. So after finishing my coffee I got up to take a shower, after my shower I noticed that the cats and dogs still haven't come for their breakfast yet. "I mean, really guys, come on, breakfast time" I went to the bedroom to find them, but they were not there, "oh shit" I started to panic and I looked everywhere for them, I know they couldn't have gotten out of the house during the night, and if they came out after I got up then they would have eaten by now.

So I looked everywhere for them, but to no avail, after a few hours of looking I gave up. And then I realized that not even a single bird was active, I tried reaching my girlfriend on her phone, but nothing. My messages weren't going through.

That is when it hit me, there were no sounds anywhere, not even insects, no cars on the roads, usually when it's quiet you can hear cars on the roads passing our small town, but nothing. So I decided to take a walk through town to see if I can get answers from other locals, but it was dead quiet, I could see cars in their driveways, doors open, bags standing in their driveways as if they were in a rush to leave, but no people, no animals, no birds.

Then I went back home and I checked my emails and messages, no emails came through since I went to bed the previous night, which is weird, I usually spend about 20 minutes in the morning deleting spam that arrived during the night.

I checked my messages and found a notification on our local security group that read.

"Attention everyone, the authorities has alerted us of some strange events happening, they don't know what is causing it, but has described it as some translucent humanoids that seems to turn everything into ash that they touch, please stay in your homes and do not attempts to leave until sunrise, please heed this warning as it is not a joke. "

What is this? Why haven't I seen this earlier. I went back outside and tried to find any signs of life, I could see strange almost translucent humanoids a bit further down the road, I remembered the message and I decided to hide and watch them, then I saw them approaching what seemed to be a young man, he had a gun in his hand and he shot at one, the bulled went right through it, but it did drop to the ground, he shot a few more of them, but they just kept coming, as I'm unarmed all I could do was sit and watch, he finally ran out of bullets when they got to him and the moment they touched him he screamed and vanished into thin air, just a few particles of dust remained which got blown away by the wind.

What the hell is this? I made my way home and I got back into the property and made sure to lock everything up again.

Just as I sat back on the couch I heard a rattling on the front gate, like someone was trying to get my attention, I creeped through the house and went to the window in the one bedroom where I could get a peek through, whatever it was, it was strong, but the gate was holding up, I could see something standing there, but as it was translucent and I couldn't get much.

Okay, seems like as long as I stay on the property I'm safe, I checked my supplies and noticed I got only enough for a few weeks, and who knows how long we are still going to have power for. I'm going to have to go out sometime to get more supplies and hopefully find survivors.

So a few days have passed and we've had some crazy weather here, but I've learned a very important lesson, the rain and mist seems to affect their ability to camouflage a bit and you can see them a bit clearer, the next storm is building up, so I'm preparing to go out and see if I can find more supplies, and hopefully a power generator and some fuel, oh and luckily I did find our pets.... eventually, they were all hiding under the beds and couches. So I don't feel so alone anymore, it seems that animals can somehow sense when these things are closeby and then they hide, that's a good sign, if I pay attention to the signs I will survive, I have also noticed that when the mist comes in there seem to be a little bit more activity, a few birds seem to then come and look for food and the wild horses gets active and run through town, I've even seen a wild horse kick one of the creatures killing it instantly, so that helps, if guns can kill them, a kick from a wild horse can kill them, then that means I might have a chance to survive till I can find a way out of this nightmare.

I did manage to find a few generators and collected quite a bit of fuel and other supplies, I am still trying to find weapons to defend myself, but for now I move around in the rain and when it's thick mist, when possible I stick closely to the horses when they are around as it seems these creatures are evading the horses now.

I just ran into another one that was killed, but this wasn't by a gun or wild horse, seems like a snake as I found a dead snake next to its body, so one more weakness, it must have died very quickly when the snake bit it, or it's body wouldn't be right by the snakes body, and that is good news for me, as I know how to catch and handle snakes.

Atleast now I know these beings are not ghosts or spirits, but physical beings, I'm still trying to figure out where they come from, and what they want.

They don't seem to remove their dead compatriots bodies, so they are obviously not human or of this earth, I've learned that they mostly stick to moving around in the roads, they don't go into the rocks or the forests as that is where most of the animals seem to have settled.

Well I've just learned a very important lesson, I can see them when it is raining and the mist is out, but the important thing is that they don't seem to be able to see me at all, so that gives me another advantage.

It has now been a few weeks of learning about them and ducking and diving to find supplies, but luckily I've still got our pets at home to keep me sane, I still haven't found any other survivors.

Strangely enough we still got power, you would have thought that by now the power stations would have failed, which gives me hope, it means more survivors out there, but getting anywhere is impossible, I've finally learned that they are from off world as I managed to make out one of their ships moving over, it was also cloaked, but I first heard a strange vibration sound and when I looked up I could make out it's shape, it moved slowly, but as it moved through the mist I could make out parts of what it looks like. I'm not sure how many of these ships there are on earth, but if there are even just a hundred, then that will explain why we lost, how do you fight something you can't see?

It does seem like the ship collected the roamers in the area as more birds and animals have returned, and I've tried to make it to the nearest city, but ran into one and it shot at me with some kind of weapon, luckily it missed, but it took out a few trees behind me. So I'm seriously considering finding some sort of way to fight them.

I've spend a few days looking for weapons and decided of bows and arrows as they are silent, a gun will draw too much attention, I've still had no communication from anyone, social media is dead quiet and I've found a radio, but all I can find is static. So I'm starting to feel really alone here.

I woke up to the sound of a roaring engine, it sounded like a helicopter, so I ran out and onto the roof to get their attention, which I did, they dropped a flash drive down and said to follow the instructions on it.

So I ran to my laptop and opened the flash drive, on it was a video and a document, so I decided to watch the video first, it was made in which seems to be in a military interrogation room, they seem to have managed to catch one of the invaders and unmasked it, it looked like us, it was a human wearing some sort of armour, it's gloves were build up with some sort of system which they demonstrated on the video puts out a high voltage charge, that's why it turns anything they touch into dust, he or she seems to be able to speak English and answered all their questions freely, they are from a parallel earth and their mission is to clean up different versions of earth and recolonise it as they have advanced to fast and over populated their version of earth, I could now make out that is was a woman from her voice, but it seems like she had some sort of implants, she explained that they also only target versions of earth where they can see humanity are destroying themselves and the planet, she had some sort of device with her which she explained can open gateways to other version of earth and that they can pass through freely, they first send in their ground troops and once they wiped out most of the humans their crafts comes through and then they start the colonisation process, they set up permanent gateways which allows their people to move between their world and the colonies freely.

The guy behind the camera then asked her, why if they are so advanced do they not just terraform other planets and explore space, why attack other versions of earth and why kill other versions of themselves?

She then explained that they have tried that, but ran into more powerful extra terrestrial races and lost all of the battles, they lost hundreds of ships in the first battle and a couple of thousand more in the follow up battle, she said they had to rethink their strategy and make another plan, so they developed technology to move between different versions of earth.

Just then I heard her voice behind the camera, a woman asked her how does the technology work, she smirked and said to the woman as they are the same person and both only soldiers she doesn't know, but she gives her word that when her people comes to rescue her that she will make sure they don't kill her, but instead take her to one of their ships where they can demonstrate their abilities to her. She continued to tell the man behind the camera that him and his whole team are welcome to also join their ranks, that they are always looking for good soldiers, he stayed quiet for a bit, I guess he was thinking of his options, then he asked her, but what about the rest of the survivors left on earth, she smiled and said that the fact that they survived for so long makes them worthy of recruitment into their ranks, she then finished off by dropping the final shock on them, that they didn't capture her, she was send to give them this final ultimatum, he then said if she gives her word as a soldier that he will accept. She then passed him a flash drive and said that it contains instructions for the survivors on how to surrender peacefully for recruitment and reconditioning into their ranks.

He turned the camera off.

I then opened the file and read through it.

I'm not going to go into details, that would take forever. But I will give you guys a short explanation of what it said.

So basically it states that we have agreed to surrender to be ruled by the interdimensionists.

And then it goes onto explain that the survivors will have 3 choices, all 3 choices means we will basically belong to them, the choices are as follows:

1. Those with skills to keep the system going will be allowed to remain in their positions and in their homes on the conditions that they will report to sector overseers as well as follow curfews.

2. Those who have fought back will be integrated into the military ranks and implanted with mind altering chips as well as body modifications and they will be prepared for future invasions.

3. Those who are still in hiding are ordered to come out and surrender to local overseers, they will be send to the interdimensionists prime dimension where they will be trained, conditioned and prepared for future missions to infiltrate potential dimensions.

Uhm yeah, no thank you, none of those sounds like an option that would work for me. I needed to think, and I needed to think fast, just then my cell phone rang which shouldn't be possible as the network was down, I answered the call which only said ID withheld, but I didn't say anything, I decided to listen, it was a woman's voice on the other side, the same woman from the video, she spoke and said "listen to me and don't interrupt me, our scouts knows about you, but the interdimensionists doesn't, we have a plan to escape and to survive, they have the technology to move between dimensions, and we managed to get our hands on one of their ships, we are busy trying to gather as many survivors as possible to rescue. We have found a dimension where they won't follow us for atleast a few years."

That's when I spoke up, why do you think that? They took our world within a few hours.

"Because we didn't have the weapons to fight back or the means to detect them, but the version of earth we are going to does, they are not as advanced as us in terms and of medical technology and their unity, but they have weapons and army's that can stop the interdimensionists, and another thing, we know you lost your partner, we have it on good knowledge that she's still alive on the earth where we are going to, and your counterpart is busy dying. So what do you say, won't you want another chance with her"

I kept quiet for a bit and then I asked my burning question, "how do I know that this is not a trap? "

She then burst my bubble, "we have been watching you for a while now, you have stood your ground, you survived their weapons, you've taken quite a few of them out in very creative ways, I have to admit, using bows and arrows seemed primitive, but effective, and using venomous snakes against them, how did you even know that would kill them so quickly? "

I didn't know what to say...

Then she spoke again, "our scouts are at your gate ready to collect you, I'm sure you understand that time is of the essence, bring only what you care about the most. Everything else you need will be waiting for you at your new home, or well the same home just a different dimension. "

"See you soon," then she hung up.

Well she said I must bring what I care for the most, so I grabbed all the cats and dogs and made my way out, I don't know what I was expecting, but I wasn't expecting what I saw.

It wasn't a military vehicle, instead it was some ufo looking vehicle, the soldiers told me to get into the back, the one smiled, "well this is a first, everyone else brought jewelry and so on, you brought your pets and pet food. Oh well, time to take you to your new home. "

They all got in and then the one pilot turned around and it was the woman from the video, well not exactly, her counterpart.

"Are you ready for a new life?" She asked.

"Uhm, I guess so. "

"Well then let's go, just one more thing, you can never discuss anything that happened where you are going, fit in and live a normal life, leave the war to the soldiers"

She then turned around and took the controls, the vehicle went up into the air and the next moment everything became a blur.

I woke up from one of the soldiers shaking me by the shoulders, "hey man, you are home, go and have a new life, your counterpart has died a few hours ago, so you will take his place, don't worry, nobody will notice. "

It has now been a few years since I moved to this dimension, everything is almost exactly the same, it feels great to be with the woman I love, but it still feels weird that we both died, yet here we are.

But the reason I'm writing this is because I need to get a warning out, what happened on my world is coming, I can see the signs, reports of unknown flying Ariel vehicles, people disappearing more regularly, strange lights in the sky, reports of strange humming sounds, that is them. They are preparing their invasion, and unless people are ready, this

world will end the same way my world ended.

Prepare yourselves, the interdimensionists are coming, they are already here.

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