Chapter 132.

I was either insane and completely nuts, or there really was something more at play here.

In the nightmare I had on the plane, that woman asked me how long I’d keep her waiting… what did she really mean by that? Was it death? Or was there something more to her words?

The reason everything always turned out differently from my memories, could it be something as outlandish as what I’m thinking? Was everything I experienced truly fake? From the very beginning was it all real?

Everything I once thought was false... what if it’s not? If I ran with the supposition that what I theorized was possible, all the pieces could potentially fall into place. It was too absurd for me to accept though. This was the real world, such things only happened in fictional tales. I couldn’t consciously accept such an outrageous theory.

I’m slipping into... parallel... world lines?

What I’m seeing and experiencing, both awake and asleep, could it possibly be something ridiculous like that? The rational side of me refused to believe that my situation was one of some science-fiction fueled drivel. If I made such claims, anybody would think that I’d surely gone insane. It was too far fetched and ludicrous to believe it.

However, would that woman be able to confirm whether my speculations were correct? Even if she did confirm it, was it possible to trust anything she said? She could just be the embodiment of my own insanity. One might consider her words the metaphorical whispers of the devil spreading seeds of doubt and madness inside my head. I’m hearing voices inside my head, haha, isn’t that a perfect indicator of a madman who’s lost his mind?

Really though, what good would confirming my speculations do for me? If everything that happened turned out to be true; then killing Val... being eaten alive by her, Val’s... death to Adele... that child who was killed before my eyes... me, when I pushed Adele off the balcony… wouldn’t everything have still happened in some twisted parallel timeline?

The more I thought about it, the more my head hurt. I felt both woozy and internally mortified from the thought of how everything I once wrote off as nothing could all potentially be part of some twisted, convoluted reality. It was best to drop the idea and forget about all these terrifying thoughts.

There was one way to test my theory, but I wasn’t confident it would work. If I killed myself right now, would I wake up in another world line as if it was just part of another dream? I was too scared to find out. If it was true, then it meant I wouldn’t ever be able to find peace even in death. I’d be forced to live through countless world lines. If I reached old age in one world line and died of natural causes, then I’d wake up in another world line as if everything was but a fleeting dream.

If that was the reality of my situation, then I truly had no means of escaping this chaotic cycle. I’d surely be driven into a corner with enough time.

Why is all of this happening to me now though? What was the trigger of all this? That stupid VHS cassette tape? To begin with, I didn’t even watch the damn thing. Where did it all really start? How far back would I have to go to find an answer? My parents? Would they know anything?

My… parents? Who were my parents?

Ugh. Just trying to remember their names resulted in a striking pain in my head. I had parents, I’m sure I did. I can definitely remember our time together growing up…

That time in twelfth grade my father died. In tenth grade, my mother died. No wait, wasn’t it the other way around? No, that’s not right either, my father died in 9th- no, 7th? Or was it 4th? As for my mother, it was 8th, 5th, 2nd? What is this? What’s going on? Wait, wasn’t I an orphan from birth? No, my parents died shortly after I was born?

The more memories I recalled; how and when they died, and the contradictory circumstances I’d grown up under, the more confused I grew. I suddenly found myself in an existential crisis over my own identity.

That’s right! My birth certificate! It would surely have my parent’s names recorded on it!

I didn’t carry it around with me, but I had a picture of my birth certificate stored on the cloud. I pulled out my phone and located the file. When I opened the image I found the name recorded for my mother was Ellen A. Genovese while my father’s name was Moupsekn I. Genovese.

Did all these contradictory memories actually provide support to my earlier theory? Or had I just lost my marbles and forgotten everything about my own parents?

“Mr. Genovese, what were you thinking about just now? You sounded like you’d lost it.” Val suddenly chimed in and interrupted my disorderly train of thoughts when we were a good enough distance away from the airport staff.

“Yeah, my bad. It was my mistake earlier, I just misremembered.”

“Cut the crap. You already know I can tell when you’re not telling the whole truth.”

“You’d think I’m crazy if I told you what I really thought right now.”

“Try me.”

“If I said my memories weren’t me misremembering things, would you believe me?”

“That depends on your reasoning and evidence to support your claims.”

“I don’t really have anything I can use as evidence to convince you.”

“Just tell me anyway.”

“The reason for the discrepancies in my memories is because they aren’t memories from this world. More specifically… this timeline.”

“Oh? Isn’t that a rather interesting theory? Rather than you hallucinating, seeing illusions or nightmares, you’re saying everything you’ve seen is reality; just not the reality of the timeline we’re presently in?”

“I’m not entirely certain on that. I’m probably completely off the mark, but it could explain everything that has happened to me recently if it was true.”

“So you’re claiming you have some sort of absurd supernatural power?”

“Definitely not. A supernatural power would be something you’d be aware you had, right? Or something you would have some sort of control over or understanding about. To my knowledge, I have neither awareness nor control over such an absurd ability. Besides that, I’m sure there must be some sort of scientific explanation behind all this bizarre phenomenon.”

“Again with science? You always like to think too rationally about everything, can’t you just accept anything irrational like the supernatural even once?”

“I’m a man of science, I believe there must be a logical explanation for everything.”

“And parallel world timelines are scientific to you?”

“I wouldn’t really consider it a scientific explanation as it stands without knowing the mechanism and forces at play; rather, it’s something that falls into the realm of science fiction. It’s only one possible theory that would fit my present circumstances. There could be a much better explanation that I have yet to think of. My only lead in all this would be the wavy white-haired woman I saw in the nightmare I had on the plane earlier.”