10 Minute Tales, Part 2

Oct 21 - Hall of Maybes

He staggered forward, stumbling to keep his balance. The tiles clicked under his feet as he recovered, leaning on the wall to regain his breath. He looked around, somewhat confused. Where was this? It was a corridor, lined with shelf upon shelf upon shelf. He couldn't see the end of the corridor, nor the walls. The ceiling seemed to be absent, revealing a beautiful night sky that shimmered with a subtle deep blue. He looked around, murmuring in quiet admiration as he walked down this hall. It took him a moment to realise that the shelves weren't empty. Looking at the nearest, he found large glass vials, each filled with a mysterious liquid. White stickers applied to each one gave him a hint of what was within, but seemed deliberately vague - "Maybe Alan Schendler bought the red car." "Maybe Selene Aragas trained hard enough."

"What the hell are these?" he asked nobody in particular, picking the latter up. He had never heard of the name before. The fluid within sloshed as he shook the vial, a purple fluid that seemed to glimmer in the scant light. He put it back carefully and moved on, looking around. All the shelves had these vials, each with Maybe, a name and an action. "What is going on here..." he mumbled, taking a second vial off the shelf. He recognised this name. "Maybe Robert Langley tried to become a musician." He grinned at the idea; the Robert he knew had a little talent, but he wasn't interested in pursuing it. He looked at the top and found it was sealed with a simple cork - though the cork seemed loose. He tugged at it...

Pop!

-----

He blinked as he came to, lying on a cold floor. What had happened? He sat up with a groan, holding his sore head. His hand caught an empty vial; on inspection, it was the vial he had just opened. The insides were dusty, like they had never held anything. What was going on?

"Satisfied?" a voice asked, startling him. He scrambled to his feet and looked at the speaker. It was a woman wearing a funky dress that shimmered in the same pattern as the air above him, a night sky that shimmered and swayed as she moved. She was staring at him with a displeased expression, arms folded. A tapping sound revealed the motion was the impatient tapping of her foot.

"Wh-who the hell are you?"

"That doesn't matter as much as you getting out of her." she huffed, brushing a stray lock of blonde hair over her shoulder. "It's not safe for mortals to be here. Frankly, I'm surprised you made it in."

"What the hell is going on, lady?"

"This is the Hall of Maybes, as this dimension calls it. It's a nexus for all other near-identical parallel universes, which all follow one rule - the same events have occurred to the very last detail, with one exception, which is listed on the bottle. Opening it brought you here."

"Wait, I'm... in another dimension?"

"No, you're in a parallel universe." she strode over, looking carefully through the bottles. "And I'll have to send you back before you do something else stupid."