Twin Earth

Chapter 38

Adom turned to look at the bulging black lump of tar that was now growing in front of us but said nothing. Instead, he stared at it with an odd expression on his face as it edged slowly towards us. I could feel it sucking us in, but there was nothing to hold onto. Even though it was silent before, a slow grinding noise started to emanate from inside it, increasing in volume as it grew in size.

"Err... shouldn't we do something?" I shouted at Adom who seemed transfixed. Eventually nodding, he broke from his trance and returned to playing with the walls.

"It's not supposed to look like this," he whispered to himself, deep in thought as he frantically tried to fix whatever was wrong with the ellipse.

"Tom, I don't want you going in there," Rachel stated, holding on to my arm nervously.

"Neither do I," I replied, "but I'm sure Adom knows what's he doing," I lied, I had zero confidence in his abilities to fix whatever was wrong with it.

"There!" Adom screamed, making us both jump. Immediately the black void shrank back to its original shape, flinging us back against the wall as it released its grip on us. Then it changed. Slowly, a hazy image of space appeared inside it, filled with galaxies and stars, which slowly became brighter, and its shape morphed into a perfect bubble of interstellar space, right there in the room with us.

"Wow," I breathed.

"But there is still something wrong," Adom continued, returning to the wall once again. "It doesn't seem to lead to any particular place in space or time. It doesn't make any sense."

"Well, where is it supposed to lead to? Do you even know if you have never been?"

"To the creator's homeland," Adom replied, finally turning to look at us and letting his hands fall to his sides in defeat.

"But do you know where that is?" I asked.

"I just assumed it was a star system in the Andromeda galaxy. If you look at these maps here, it shows you," Adom replied, beckoning us over to another section of the wall.

"These are star charts," Rachel marvelled.

"Indeed. This is your Earth..."

"You're on it?" Rachel exclaimed in surprise.

"Of course. These were left by the creators."

"But why?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" Adom asked.

"I mean, why did these aliens, creators or whatever, do all this? Why did they save our planets by putting you in a ball of dark matter? Why does all this exist?" I asked, waving my hand around the room.

"This mark, next to the Andromeda galaxy, is that where you believe this ellipse goes?" Rachel asked, ignoring me and clearly enthralled by the huge map before us.

"We believe so. There is a line that joins our two galaxies. None of the other ellipses had lines like this on their maps."

"There are other maps?" Rachel asked in surprise.

"Yes, each ellipse has its own map, but only this one has a line joining two galaxies."

"But why is Andromeda encircled by two dotty rings?" I asked, looking more closely.

"That represents its formation. Earth is older than Andromeda."

"Of course," Rachel replied. "These scattering of dots around it must represent its erratic formation and orbits. Our stars in the Milky Way don't do that."

"So where exactly in the Andromeda galaxy does it go?" I asked. "And you still haven't answered me. Why did these creators save Mochuvia and what makes you think they'll save us now? Do they even know we're here?"