101 Ways to Skin a Hoodie

Chapter 6

We've been walking for a few hours now, but it only feels like half an hour or so. Based on this and my previous experience it seems to me that that's just how time seems to flow in this place. I think that it probably has to do with the uniformity of the entire landscape, but I wouldn't be surprised if something more supernatural was going on as well. The only thing that's really changed is how there is now a gray tree over every fifth dune or so, as opposed to the previous average which was every seventh.

"So Ben, tell me more about this world that you hail from. It seems like you practice all sorts of magic but what sort of divine wisdom have you gained from doing so?" I ask, partly because I'm curious, partly to break the silence that has encompassed most of our walk.

"Oh, I don't know if I'd say that we've come across any particularly wise revelations. Here's an interesting fact though, did you know that the earth goes around the sun, not vice versa?"

"Yeah, a guy from the forties figured it out."

"Oh."

...

"A-anyway what was that thing that you mentioned in the air, about refracted worlds or whatever? For us alternate worlds are often thought of as parallel, and even then they're still just things out of fiction." I try to put a somewhat dejected Ben back into his comfort zone. As expected, he perks up again.

"Well you see, a hundred odd years ago a man named Nicolai Copernia developed a theory that when the universe was created a massive amount of energy released, and that energy was so great that it couldn't be confined to one reality. Basically what happened was as the universe was expanding parts of it "bumped" into this energy and diverged at different angles on the time axis. That's why it's considered refracted. Some angles are more extreme than others, and that reflects their variation from the main reality."

"Well, does that make your reality the main reality then?"

"Not from our calculations. Honestly the more technical stuff is way above my head and I only have a paltry understanding of the theory. Our world is estimated to be around a 40% angle of refraction, though."

"Huh, could you figure out what angle my world would be at?" I'll admit it, I'm invested.

"Let's see, you can't be that close to ours, as you don't have any sort of divine arts in your world, but our histories seem to be rather similar despite that, in terms of rate of discoveries about the world. I don't know, if I had to guess I'd say a similar percentage, just flipped, like -40 or so."

"Now come on, it's not like you can have negative percentages, especially if I'm meant to think of this as a circle around a graph." This is starting to sound like jargon some amateur sci-fi author came up with.

"Well no, but that's just how we describe a case like this where we have different technology but similar histories. From what we've figured out it seems like the positive percentage timelines are the ones with magic, while the negative ones are the ones with science. The universe didn't actually split on a graph after all."

"Alright, I'll buy it, but how do you know how similar you are to the main timeline?"

"Oh we don't, it's still simply theory after all. It's hard for our seers to find other worlds that are fairly distant from our own, as it's nearly impossible for the human mind to perceive something it has no concept of."

...

The silence breaks out again, and we continue walking along. We reach another tree and I motion for Ben to go ahead. I've let him have all of the flowers up to this point, and no, it's not just because they seem gross and I don't really want to try them, it's because I just had half a granola bar and Ben still hasn't really had any food for a while- barring my brief bout of generosity. He's toughing it out, but I hear his stomach rumble occasionally.

Once Ben's done choking down the flower we start struggling up a rather steep dune. Ben reaches the crest, but as I put my foot up I slip, and start sliding back down again on my stomach.

I get to my feet with a groan as Ben slides down next to me. I let out a groan but cut myself off when I see a finger to his lips. His eyes are wild and he's looking over my shoulder to the tree that we were just at. I turn around slowly, heart racing, and my gut drops fathoms as I see what's behind us.

Two creatures are standing where we were at the cactus. They're bipedal, however they're hunched over like no modern humans would be, and even if they were upright it would be impossible to mistake them for humans. Thin red skin, more reminiscent of muscle fiber than anything, was pulled over very little substance. Ribs were poking out against this 'skin', and their faces were elongated in a faux canine manner. Massive talons protruded out of their hands, and their feet were long and flipper like.

It wasn't really their appearance that made goosebumps spring to life on my arms, though. The creatures are clearly trying to mirror us. They make the same motions we make, but with eerie discrepancies due to their malformed bodies. It isn't just behavior though, the one miming eating a flower from the tree has patchy blond hair not dissimilar to Ben's, and the one on the right of the cactus has long brunette strands.

I inch backwards towards Ben, and that's when I notice that the creatures aren't mirroring us, they're mimicking us. Self consciously. It was very brief, but when I scooted back their watery eyeballs snapped to the side to look at us, before returning to their neutral position after we stopped moving. I don't know what to do. If they keep mimicking us then soon enough they'll be right on top of us to climb the hill, and the thought of fleshy, penguin-like flippers stepping over me makes me gag.

There's only one course of action then. I nod to Ben and his eyes harden. We slowly move our arms to draw our swords, but as soon as our hands touch the hilts the creatures drop the act. Before I can draw my sword they've leapt towards us, Ben's mimic going for me and my mimic going for Ben.

Ben has no problem swiftly drawing his sword, and he lets out a roar as he jumps to knock his mimic away from me. This, of course, makes my mimic miss him and land in the sand next to me. but I have my sword out by now and I hold it readily in front of me. My mimic scrambles to its feet and leaps again towards me, talons outstretched. I swerve to the side and bring my blade down towards the creature's flank, but its hand darts out to block my blade and I only manage to sever its fingers from its body.

It hits the ground, but this time I don't give it a chance to regain it's footing. I charge at it, letting out a battle cry of my own, with my sword pointed forward towards the creature. Its head snaps up, eyes wide, and it is between these that my sword sinks into flesh. My momentum carries me and the creature forward until the mimic is skewered against the tree. It twitches once, eyes holding mine, before they glaze over and it stops moving.

I pull my sword out and glance over to Ben, ready to help- but it seems he just finished his battle as well. A clean decapitation.

"Fuck." He says, as he staggers over to the slope I slid down on in the first place. I move over to him and sit down next to him.

"They don't bleed," I remark, and it's true. Neither of the creatures have anything that could be called blood exiting their wounds. Just a black void where their wounds were.

"Let's get the hell out of here," says Ben. In agreement, I stand up and go to return my sword back to it's position against my hip, but I can't manage to get it in the sash. If only my hands would stop shaking. I let out a small cry of annoyance and Ben grabs my wrist, guiding my hand downward. I feel some warmth return to me.

I take a moment to regain my composure as best I can, and we head back up the slope. Hand in hand to prevent any unfortunate falls this time. We crest it, and I chance a glance back at the creatures. They aren't there anymore, instead replaced by two bright blue flowers.