Twin Earth

Chapter 32

I jolted upright in bed as an image of Rachel being dragged away by Apo dissipated from whatever my nightmare had just been about. I was sweating and couldn't wash an uneasy feeling that had developed in my body. The lighting was still subdued in my room and I had no idea how much time had passed. The lack of clocks, daytime and night-time was really starting to bother me. There was no concept of the passage of time and I wondered how the Mochuvians had coped with it for so long.

I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and rubbed my face with my hands, wiping a few tiny beads of sweat that had appeared on my brow.

'Damn, it's hot in here,' I thought confused. 'Have they changed the environmental settings? Or do they just hate me?' I wondered tiredly.

Looking up, I was surprised to see a plate of fruit had been placed next to my pillow and even more surprised to see that the fruit was similar to those found on earth. A mango, an orange and what looked like a yellow form of passion fruit had been sliced up for me alongside an elongated knife.

'What the hell?' I thought, curious as to who had been in my room, but too hungry to care I quickly munched down and salivated as the juicy flavours filled my mouth. "Oh my god, that's so good," I mumbled out loud, catching a few drips with my sleeve as they escaped my lips, but as did so I began to wonder where Apo was, and why it was taking so long for him to call us to the creator's ellipse he had semi-promised to show us. 'Is he avoiding us?' I thought, as I finished off the slightly bitter yellow passion fruit. I also hadn't heard from Rachel since our argument so pulling my senses together and pulling up my trouser legs once again, I swiped my way out of the room and into the hallway outside to find her.

It was deserted outside in both directions and surprisingly quiet, even though the complex wasn't exactly noisy to begin with. There was just an eerie feeling of being left behind or left out of something. I hurried to Rachel's door and pressed the panel next to her room number and waited. Nothing. Pressing it again and swiping it just in case I was doing something wrong, I waited again, but there was no answer. Sighing in annoyance I looked in both directions and wondered if she too had gone off somewhere without me, but then I had an idea.

'I think I will take a little walk,' I mused to myself, keen to go back to the weird virtual reality room we had been in earlier. 'Maybe I can view Earth, in real-time,' I debated, but perhaps a little nervous at my own suggestion. Trying Rachel's door for one last time and giving up at the lack of response, I jogged slowly back down the winding corridor and to the outside of the VR room we had been in previously. This time however the door had been left wide open, albeit with a strange sizzling effect glowing around its edges. 'Maybe it was the earthquake,' I thought, peering closely at the mechanism that was clearly failing in its duty. I glanced around nervously and seeing no-one was in the room I made my way over to the bed I had laid down on before.

Some of the computers and machinery in the room had fallen from wherever they had been installed and for a while I wondered if the room was still functional. Even the unusual rainbow lights that had flittered around my face earlier no longer glowed.

'This is probably a bad idea,' I thought nervously, picking up a few random items and placing them on the tables besides the beds. The place now looked like a damaged hospital laboratory with wires dangling in places they hadn't been before.

I walked over to the other side of the room and peered around at the other beds the Mochuvians had been using. One of the beds was surprisingly intact and even more unusually looked like it had been tidied up. Even a headset had been left on the small flat pillow where a tiny green light was now bleeping quietly.

'Is this thing still on?' I wondered curiously, picking it and up and looking it over.

Brushing down some dust that had collected on the end of the bed, I climbed up and without thinking pulled the VR headset over my eyes and ears.