Parallel: A Story Of Two Universes

7-INTERROGATION

I gazed right into the man’s eyes, I could see a very real concern within them. He was smothered head to toe in a uniform, not unlike the leaders of my cult, and he absolutely towered over me once he placed his hands on the table more forcefully and stood up. I felt the same deprivation of power that was always thrown at me, but this time more out of uncertainty than sheer pain. “Hello? Can you please say something?” I realised I had completely blocked out what he said and simply stared off into the distance. “Yes… Where am I?” He took his hands off of the table and slowly paced around. “You’re here in the police station, you’re safe. You fainted and we sent you to the hospital to treat your wounds, and though you seemingly woke up there once or twice, I suppose you weren’t fully conscious back then. Now we’re here in the station to ask you a few questions. We found a car and a body nearby and are very concerned.” He said, clearly genuine. It was strange almost, seeing something said in that tone, I hoped it wasn’t secretly filled with malice. “Alright, I will answer your questions.” He nodded. “Firstly, what is your name, date of birth, and where do you come from?” He asked, robotically. “I am Hælend, I was born on the date of shards 517, and I come from the ordinance of the overseer… It’s a cult that’s right around here, but I managed to escape.” He looked at me with a very puzzled expression once I stated my date of birth, though I continued on in the same machine-like way that he previously had spoken, disregarding it until I had finished. “Can we go back to your birth date for a moment? What did you say that was?" I prepared to repeat myself and spoke with much more hesitancy this time around. “The date of shards 5-1-7… is there something wrong with that?” He bit his lip and glared a bit more tightly. “I’m not sure what that means at all… Could you maybe give me a date? With a month, a year…?” It started to sound more familiar as he described it like that. I remembered that at a certain point the Keeper had taught me a similar concept. Apparently, in the outside world, people measure time quite differently from the ordinance, using months, days, and years I believe. I tried as best I could to remember, as the Keeper at one point told me what it was. I closed my eyes tightly and began to think. “What are you doing?” He asked, though it seemed quite obvious. “Trying to remember what the old man in my head who controls the balance of the universe told me was my date of birth…” I think I had gotten it. “June 17th, 19… 47? I’m not sure, but I believe that’s correct.” I was incredibly thankful for such a memory, as it really came in handy. “Alright then… now tell me a bit more about this ‘cult’, Hælend.” I opened my eyes and now had to bring back some memories of very different emotional impacts. “I’ve been there since birth as far as I know. My mother, and father, they were both part of it. Every experience I’ve had up until recently has been within the walls of their compound.” I said, already feeling a bit uneasy. “How do they operate, exactly?” He asked, clearly getting interested now. “They were extremely devoted to my mother. She has had visions since birth that tell her to destroy something… It’s like a pane of glass, and she wants to crack it, they all do.” He tilted his head. “A pane of glass? Why would they want to crack something like that?” I looked upward and thought of how to explain such an insane thing, knowing that he would probably still be confused no matter how I phrased my next sentence. “It’s not a pane of glass, it’s not just a pane of glass at least. It looks like one, but it’s massive, and it’s more important than you could ever know. I’ve had visions too, since birth, and I’ve been shown another side of this. You probably won’t believe me, but I’ve seen something truly beautiful that keeps us safe. It is the barrier between us and another universe, and my mother has a demented, destructive vendetta against it. She and her followers wish not to hear me out, though.” He winced and began to look a bit more irritated. “Listen, this isn’t the time for stories. Clearly, something’s wrong with you, but if this cult really does exist, and they’re behind this body, then we need to deal with it. Where is this supposed compound?” He didn’t believe me, as expected, but I still could get him to help me stop them by some other means. “In the forest, it’s deep within the woods. But you’re not going to want to go there alone. Bring every person you can over there because they are vicious. They killed that man in his car without so much as a moment of deliberation. There hasn’t once been a sort of filibuster when I am to be beaten. They killed my father for god’s sake!” I slammed my hand on the table as tears began to run down my face. The genuine emotion started to sway him from apathy to confusion as he readied a response. “So you’re saying they’ve beaten you? Is that what caused all of those wounds?” I slowed my heavy breathing and opened my mouth. “Yes, that and escaping. I have been through hell and back to escape their grasp, and my whole life I’ve been nothing but a poster child for their demonisation of anyone stepping outside of their path. You have to help me because I’m far from the only person at risk he-” He interrupted me abruptly. “Hey now, let me make my decision, son… I’m going to look through the forest for a bit with a few other officers, and we’re going to see if we can find this compound. If this is really so serious, we will take a look, alright?” I shook my head violently and began to speak more ferociously. “No, you need to wage war against them, that’s the only way. I swear on my life and the life of every single other soul on this earth, this UNIVERSE, that it’s vital! You’ve already lost an innocent life, there’s no telling how many others could perish once it’s too late. If you and a few others walk out into the forest, they will find you, capture you, and put you through the worst hell imaginable. You may have powerful weapons, but unless you bring enough manpower, you’ll never outweigh the power of an ambush.” He rubbed the side of his face with his hand and sighed. “I’m sorry, but no matter how much I want to believe you, there’s no way I can send a legion of officers to investigate something a 13-year-old kid is rambling about without any evidence! If there’s real proof, then we will take this as seriously as you are, but I can’t make such a rash decision on a rumour. I don’t know who you are, I’ve never seen you around here before, and for all I know, you could be some escapee from the looney bin!” Proof… that’s what he clearly needed. I had to think of something that could prove the cult’s existence, and I think I had an idea. “Do you have the body…?” I asked, the dead air filling the room immediately thereafter. “Yes. Why does that matter?” He asked. I smiled a little bit, realising what this meant. “Did you see any symbols on it? Did you see any symbols on my body when I was placed into the hospital?” He looked at me with intrigue. “I don’t know… I-” I pulled up my shirt a bit to reveal the symbol burned into my back. He stepped over with immense urgency to view it. “HERETIC-VISIONS OF THE UNDERWORLD” I had been given it about 2 years ago, as I started getting more defensive of the visions after my father had been killed. He stepped back in pure terror after seeing it, trying to speak but purely unable to. “Check the body. Check the back of the body.” He stood there with his jaw wide open, shocked. “Alright, I’ll ask and see if there’s any such thing on it.” He left the room and I had to wait there. Time seemed to crawl by at a snail’s pace. I stared at the strange mirror in the room and thought of the Parallel once again. I wish I could just live there at this point, with the Keeper. The outside world was much better than the compound, but I still missed my visions quite a bit. The Keeper taught me nearly everything I knew about the outside world, and I don’t know if I ever would have gotten as far as I have here without his help. I probably wouldn’t have even reconsidered my involvement in the cult, I would have simply followed along with my mother. I suppose the positive of that is not being beaten and ostracised by everyone around me for my life, but I would rather fight against the evil surrounding me and be hated for it than succumb to it and be evil myself. The door finally opened back up after what felt like an eternity, and the man stepped back in. “As it happens… that same symbol was found in a very similar position on the body. This means one of two things. It either means that a cult exists around here and is behind not only this murder but the string of other accusations that you’ve brought up, or that a 13-year-old kid has come up with a story about a cult, bruised and damaged himself to the point of near death, killed a man, and branded a custom image into his own skin and the skin of his victim. Now, which of those sounds more likely to you?” He smiled a bit, and I smiled back, knowing that he believed me at this point. “I’d say the first option.” He nodded and began to look more serious. “I just sent a team to scout out the area very cautiously and look for signs of their exact location, but once they find out where it is, we need you to do something very important. We will raid the compound and attempt to find the leaders, but we’re going to need a way to distract the followers before we even get there…” I didn’t know what was about to come, but it felt like he knew I wasn’t going to like it. “I want you to go back there. We plan to have you go there with a group of officers who will be disguised as some sort of other fringe group. If we don’t manage to keep the followers occupied, this could end in the worst way imaginable. Your mother… she’s a leader, right?” I nodded. “Well, unless we can capture the leaders before they issue orders to people and realise the police have found them, they could do something truly horrific that we’ve seen happen before. I don’t want a repeat of that, so you need to work with us, alright? I’ll tell you the plan once we have found out where they are.” I looked to the ground and tried to hide my smile. “Yes, I will cooperate.” They allowed me to stay there overnight, and for the first night of my life, I felt entirely secure. I didn’t want to go back there with so much uncertainty pervading the situation, but if it meant I would take them down, I was all for it. Finally, in the morning, the man came to me and told me that they had found the compound. “We spotted the area you’re talking about, and it’s like nothing we’ve seen before. It looks like some sort of ancient ruin, but we managed to get a view from a nearby hill and can confirm that people are living in it. We have created an escape route if anything goes wrong, but for now, the plan is to have you speak to them. We can’t do much by ourselves to distract them, even with disguises, but if you’re treated like a victim of ours and a martyr for the cult, and can give a convincing speech, they’ll not pay attention to where the leaders are. Typically in these sorts of cults, the leaders wouldn’t be in the same area as the common folk during an event like your speech, do you think it would be the same for this one?” I thought back to where my mother would always be. She always sat in that chair, no matter what was going on. It was almost as if she was some sort of machine, simply placed into an area for one express purpose, in this case, to produce the visions by which all others in the compound would live their lives. However, she wasn’t the only leader. Multiple members of the religious institutions held high power, but they too paid little to no mind to what happened outside. They were so disconnected from the lives of their followers and dedicated to their work against the Parallel that they were almost like farmers to livestock. The leaders only interacted with the typical cultist if they needed something or wanted to give punishment, so I believed it would work out if I gave my speech. “Yes, I think that will work…” He smiled and I began getting ready for the most important next step yet, the speech that would set the stage for warfare.