Over the Rainbow

Chapter 7: 13 Points of Light, the game

"So tell me everything!" Marianne was having much too much fun with this.

"There's not that much to tell..." Sarah began, but Marianne cut her off.

"Not much? You spent the night at his place!" Mari put on her best indignant voice. "Spill it girl, now."

"I'm telling you, Mari, we just talked. We got to know each other." Sarah barely looked up from her coffee.

"Ok, but you hooked up, right?" Marianne could barely keep a straight face as she picked on her friend. "I mean, you spent the night!"

"No Mari, we didn't hook up. We talked, we got to know each other again. He told me about the game he's working on and I..." Again, Mari interrupted.

"You told him about your..." she paused, trying to find the right word. "Troubles?"

Sarah, sipped thoughtfully at her coffee before answering. "Yeah, I did. And you know what? He didn't think I was crazy! He seemed genuinely interested, almost excited."

"Excited?" Marianne scrunched up her face in confusion. "Really? Excited?"

"Yeah Mari," Sarah put her cup down and looked Marianne in the eye. "I think that's a good sign. I think maybe he could, somehow, remember us from before. I don't know, it just felt like a good thing."

"Ok," Marianne didn't seem quite so sure. "We'll go with that for now."

Sarah seemed to brighten up a bit. "Yes. I think we will."

***

"Listen up Johnny," Jared was quite enthused by the whole idea. "There's all these different dimensions, universes. Right?"

"Right." Johnny was struggling to wrap his head around this. "Multi-verse."

"Yes." Jared continued, "Multi-verse. You start out in your 'HOME' universe."

"Makes sense to me." Johnny's face made Jared think it didn't exactly make sense to him.

"Ok. So you're in your home universe, in the dark. Right? Well, not completely dark. I mean you have to be able to see stuff around you, you know?

"You have to find this box of crazy matches. Once you find them, you have to light candles or lamps or something but when you do, it's like your character dies."

"And the game's over?" Johnny was stumped. "That's not gonna sell, dude."

"No, shit-for-brains, it's LIKE you die, but you don't. You come back in a different universe. Things are different, but not a lot different. So the whole point is that while you're stumbling around in your home universe, you have to learn enough about it to recognize what's changed in the new universe.

"It's like a puzzle. Right? Once you think you've found all the changes, you strike another match and change to another, different universe. Your score is based on how many differences you got right."

"Ok, dude." Johnny asked, "But what's the end game? What are you shooting for?"

"That's the key, man! You've got 13 matches in the box. Every match takes you to a different universe."

"Got that, dude. But where does it end?"

"I'm getting there!" Jared was beginning to get impatient with his friend. "The more differences you identify in a universe, the closer to 'home' your next match takes you. If you miss too many, you get sent further away. The object is to find enough changes to get you back to your home universe before you run out of matches."

"What if you don't like your home uni?" Johnny asked sarcastically.

"Then the monitor explodes, blinding you with shards of glass and you die in a bloody mess on your bedroom floor! What the hell's the matter with you?"