Flip the Coin [BL]-Chapter 283. Timeline of the Past
"When you entered the Barren Land World, there were no shadows or ghosts?" I asked the commander.
"Shadows, huh? No, there were none, only in the village." This village should be the Little City World.
I had flipped the coin to see the past of the shadow that Henry took on instead of Baggy Jeans, and that was when I had seen the giant lying in this barren landscape, and that was the first time he truly spotted me.
But the scene where the giant noticed me stemmed from a memory of the shadow that had lain in the past.
How did he notice me, although I just revisited a memory that had already happened? The giant, like my other counterparts and me, should have an ability that was related to time.
When I flipped the coin on someone, I wasn’t reading their memory; I was revisiting the scene where this memory had occurred—my other abilities as well proved that I had some power over time and space, and if I and my counterparts had said power, the giant must as well.
Maybe he was even the origin of my and my counterparts abilities, given that everything had started with that fucker.
"Was the world with the earthworms the same as the world where the giant was? Or was the landscape different?" I asked the commander.
"Similar, but different. The earthworms moved through sand, while the giant’s corpse lay on dried-up land, not sand."
So it should have been two different worlds melted seamlessly together.
If so, then it probably went like this:
The giant was in a deep slumber or something similar inside the Barren World, with the shadows roaming around him.→
→A shadow walked past the giant while I was watching through my ability from some point in the future, and the giant spotted me. But, because me looking into the scene would only happen in the future—time paradox and stuff—the giant continued to sleep.→
→The shadows entered the Little City World for whatever reasons (because the two worlds had melted together and they could enter now?) and attacked its occupants.→
→Henrietta, caged inside the Little City World with her parents2, hiding from the shadows, contacted Little Vampire Henrietta3 from the commander’s world, asking her to kill Kenny3, which ended with him surviving and Henrietta3 opening a portal to some other unknown world and gaining power from probably killing a few of her counterparts.→
→Since Little Vampire Henrietta3’s disappearance from her world, twenty or so years had passed in the Commander’s world, and the Commander and his team now entered the Earthworm World and got trapped in it.→
→The commander and his team walked from the Earthworm World into the Barren Land World and found a giant lying around and pronounced it dead or never having been alive in the first place.→
→The twenty or more years that had passed inside the Commander World = apparently five or more years that had passed inside the Little City World. Henrietta, in her mid-twenties now, gained the power to flee from the Little City World to the Trashworld after Little Vampire Henrietta3, who had first attacked us with an axe, was now ultimately killed by me on the rooftop.→
→The commander’s team traveled from the Barren Land World to the Little City World, where the shadows had nearly eradicated all occupants; part of the shadows had even followed Henrietta to the Trash World. After they entered it, the commander’s team was wiped out by these ghost-monsters=shadows→
→The time when I looked into the memory of the shadow and was spotted by the giant in the past had now occurred in the present on my side, waking the giant up, and he started to not only intercept my ability but also to hunt me.→
→We entered the commander’s world through the portal Henrietta had opened, while the commander, without his team and unable to open portals, followed the lined-up, melted-together worlds until he met the office guys from my world.
Two years had gone by in our world since Henry and I entered the hole that had been the South District—and if two portals or so per year opened, then the commander had to pass through two worlds before meeting people who disappeared one year ago.
Together, since another year had passed to the present point in time, they walked through two additional worlds until they reached the Crystal World that was currently the closest world to our dimension.
And because the last two worlds weren’t as difficult and small, more office workers had survived.
I need a pen and paper to write down all this shit, or I’ll lose track.
So... didn’t we just have to wait until the Crystal World crashed into our world? Then we could all go back, with the exception of the commander.
"We have someone in our world who can open portals; she should be able to send you back home after we return to our world." I told the commander, seeing relief washing over his face, though he soon turned back to his stern expression.
"Really?" He asked me.
"Really?" The two office workers repeated his question, looking at me with hope.
"So we can go back again?" Chubby Guy asked, grabbing my hand in joy.
I swung his hand a bit.
"Yeah, I for one don’t want to stay here."
"We neither!" Chubby Guy continued to shake my hand until the commander cleared his throat.
"Let’s go; maybe you can also help Mr. Aslan." He pushed himself off the wall and was ready to go when I stopped him.
"Wait a moment; I need a shower first."
Halting, he looked at me strangely again, and I saw some pity for the dumb in his eyes.
"There is nothing to eat and drink in this world, but the sunlight is nurturing." Chubby Guy told me.
"It is?" I asked them, and both nodded. Oh, had I been constantly carried in and out of the cave to feed on sunlight?
"Want a burger?" I conjured up two cheeseburgers and handed them over.
Chubby Guy flinched away from the burger, and Birthmark Guy yelped in fear.
I let them be, conjured up water, and took a few sips before getting myself a wet towel to ’shower’.
"How?!" Chubby Guy stammered, finally reaching for the burger, and seeing that it was fresh and hot, he eagerly bit into it, with Birthmark imitating him, devouring the food in just a few bites.
"Secret." I conjured up two Cokes for them before I continued to wipe myself down.
The commander stared at the people eating, at me, and maybe at my impolite behavior of not giving him anything. But he just had to ask, and I would give him a share as well.
But I wouldn’t accommodate him voluntarily.
Though... he had taken care of me during my fever, and maybe, possibly, I wasn’t that easy of a patient.
I conjured up an apple and threw it at his face.
Regrettably, he caught it, examining it before taking a bite.
Then I stood up and turned around; the cave was about three meters wide, six meters long, and two meters high—so the commander could still stand upright in it, but there was not much space left. There was light inside, shining through the semi-transparent cave, but compared to outside, it was dark in here.
I turned around and got rid of my pants, though I kept my underwear on. It was good to have at least one piece of clothing on me that was not conjured up. I don’t think I have ever tested if my powers would still work after I lost consciousness, so if that indeed wasn’t the case and I blacked out anytime soon, I would at least have my white boxer shorts on after my clothes disappeared back to the past.
There were no wounds on me; my shoulder, where I was shot, was alright as well. I went with a black tracksuit and turned around to see the two suit guys looking at me while slurping on their Cokes, the commander staring at me as well.
I furrowed my eyebrows. The commander had children and a wife, so he shouldn’t be... and what about the Suit Guys?
"What are you looking at?" I asked the three men.
"The tattoo on your back... it’s eerie." The commander commented before he turned around to leave the cave. The two suit guys sprang up and motioned me to follow them.
I walked after them.
Now that I had met the two guys and the commander, I naturally wanted to help them go home.
My current plan was to find my crystalline counterpart and kill him if necessary to sooner gain power for my ability or the giant’s and use whatever it took to go back home.
If I used the power of the giant, I could even teleport with other (living) people and bring every survivor I had found and would find with me.
Merging was another possibility, but seeing how dumb and stubborn my other counterparts were, that probably fell flat.
Though every fucking fiber of my being resisted the thought, because I had seen firsthand what killing counterparts could do to someone... with an unknown time difference between this crystalline world and my world, I needed to hurry up and go back to Henry so the dumb dog wouldn’t whine and scratch on random doors in hope for his owner to come back.
