Multiverse Theory
You should know the story by now, right?
No? Yes?
I’m not sure why I’m wasting paper writing this sentence down. Or these questions. It’s a normal journal. There’s no answer coming. To be honest, I’m just wasting paper at this point. But it’s my journal anyway.
I’m wasting time. And ink.
Okay, let’s start from the top, shall we?
My name is Tanya.
In my previous life, I was known as Tanya von Degurechaff.
In a previous life, I was Tanaka Aoi. Or Aoi Tanaka, if we go by the uncultured expectations of traditional Western naming conventions.
I’m writing this down to… remember, I suppose. I’ve always had a good memory, but after some time there are certain things you just forget. It makes more sense for me to record the events of my lives, just in case. I'm not one for nostalgia, but it's nice to remember some things.
I'm not perfect; I'll admit that. That's fine.
No one but me is going to read this. No one would believe my story anyway. Not that anyone else matters.
I am Tanya. I kept my latest name for... reasons. Call it personal preference.
I was Tanaka Aoi. I was a salaryman, nearing promotion. I had it all. A comfortable career, an easy modern society to live in, a healthy lifestyle… and no friends, no lover. But I had the respect of my coworkers. A very comfortable salary. A physically fit, if mildly uncomfortable body.
And then, one those I'd fired pushed me in front of a train. And then, I met someone claiming to be “God”.
What a joke. I wish I could laugh.
He has been nothing but a thorn in my side since that moment. Reincarnating me into a magic-ridden, war-ready, technologically-inferior world as a penniless orphan. Inciting conflict at every turn, trying His best to force me to His side.
I’ll record more details in a dedicated chapter. But for now, that’s the gist. This is supposed to be the summary section.
Let’s move on.
It’s been a little over two years since I arrived in this world.
-=-
Rain and footsteps pound on the busy pavement. Countless bodies rush the sidewalks, the street. In a city that never sleeps, there’s plenty of people up and about this early in the morning.
Even one as cold and dreary as today.
A sea of colorful and clear umbrellas. A sea of people holding them.
A single figure in a dark green hoodie, pushing through them.
Past an intersection, neon lights and pastel advertisement boards light up the frozen drizzle in the air. Around a corner, over a crosswalk.
There’s a pinch in the traffic. People slow down as they walk, turning, looking.
Police tape. Two busted up cars. A storefront on the verge of collapse. Police officers stand at intervals, or inside the tape, talking and observing. They look worried. Tired.
Tanya shuffles along with the crowd. She glances from under her hood, once. Then, she looks away, and keeps walking.
How many times is that in the past month?
The world would be a lot better if people could mind their own business like her. She’d much prefer it if they would just mind their own business, because then they would all walk faster and get to their respective destinations faster.
The world is a much bigger place than individual people with individual problems. But sometimes, those little individuals decide to make their little individual problems the problems of everyone.
Usually, then, it’s the job of someone else to step in. Medical staff, federal investigators, the local police force. Civilized society is governed by rules. Rules make the machine whir and tick and operate at a steady pace without any mishaps. Thus, when someone breaks the rules, they must be properly reminded of their place via rule enforcers.
Of course, the rules are only guidelines anyway. Even while bound, sneer at them and figure out how to get your own way. All that matters is looking out for yourself, at the end of the day.
When there’s nobody else around, there’s no one else to look after.
Who cares, then?
-=-
“Last night, Middle Central Bank went up in flames as-”
The bell above the door rings, faint wet splatters on glass and the bustle of the city filling the store, before the door closes and muffles it all once more.
Tanya brushes her boots roughly on the welcome mat inside.
“Ah, Deg! I told ya, yous could take the day off, didn’t I?” A slightly portly man greets her in an accent that most people would classify as stereotypical for Brooklyn. Easily past middle aged, yet still with that spark in his eyes, his gruff yet oddly warm voice welcomes her in after a long, cold, and wet walk. “You better have a really good reason, ya heard?”
“You said I could if I wanted to, sir.” Tanya slides around, then behind the counter, slipping past her boss – one of them, at least – and the beaten down, missing-a-wheel chair he’s currently parked in. After a beat, and just before she enters the break room in the back, she adds, “And my gym partner had to cancel on me. Family emergency.”
“Ah, now that’s a bitch.” Her boss settles back in his chair, arms crossing and fingers tapping impatiently over his store-issued jacket. “Still, you couldn’t of- ah, forget about it. You’re already goddamn here anyhows.”
“That is true.” Tanya steps out of the break room, dark green and logo-on-the-left-side jacket matching her bosses, though fitting more comfortably. She leaves it unzipped as she slips past his chair once more, brushing down her dark polo shirt and adjusting her nametag. “Clocked. Time?”
“Half shift, and no more. Capiche?”
“Crystal. Stock?”
He shakes his head negatively. “Freezer, labels, maybe some facing. Shipment got delayed till afternoon. A shame you won’t be here then, eh?”
“Unless you want me too, sir.”
“I don’t! I was being sarcastic! I thought the youth loved that sort of thing?” He waves a hand before she can answer. “Bah! Deg, you’re killing me. You’re supposed to be goofing off and enjoying yourself, not taking up extra shifts at the corner store. I never seen a 20-year-old who works hard as you, on top of an internship at-”
This is when Tanya starts to tune him out. He’s a very passionate man, Stanley. And a fair employer, too, which is the reason she’d sought out a part time position here. It’s soothing, this sort of simple, menial labor.
There are other aspects of her current life to focus on, but right now, it’s just an ordinary, frozen day.
-=-
It’s the faint twinge along the edge of her senses that makes Tanya look up. Muffled, wet footsteps, the shuffling of a parka, keys jangling on a chain. And, the bell above the door ringing.
Tanya looks up, and immediately knows. It’s not just a bad feeling, or instinct or her senses. It’s experience. The boy, because it is a boy, below her physical age, and far less composed. Panting, panicked, looking around quickly. Shifty body language. A hand in his coat, under his arm.
For fuck’s sake.
Tanya sighs internally rather than externally, not wanting to spook him.
“Can I help you, sir?”
The answer is, of course, no. Because he’s not here to buy, or exchange dollars for coins, or rest from a rain that had only picked up since her arrival a couple hours ago. But it is her job, and part of her nature, to pretend to be polite.
His head jerks in her direction. Apparently, he’d been lost in thought. Or just delirious, or cold, or any number of mental hangups that could be had from this situation. Maybe he was debating whether or not to go through with this.
“I- yes- yeah. Yeah.” He hesitates step, then hurries over, stopping unsteadily at a normal distance from the counter. Then, he leans forward, as if to talk through the hole in the plastic divider atop the counter, before straightening up and pretending he hadn’t leaned forward at all. “Y- you can help me, right?”
Hey buddy, you just blow in from stupid town? You aren’t fooling anyone, you know?
Is what she’d like to say, but Tanya holds back on her snark.
What she actually says, is, “What can I help you with, sir?”
Feigning ignorance, as if they both aren’t hyper aware of the current situation.
One wrong movement could send this whole thing down a very dangerous path.
Well… he’s not exactly a danger to her, anyway.
“You can- you can, uh-” He fumbles under his coat, then tries to yank something free. Whatever it is, it gets caught once. Then, it gets caught again. “Um- hold on- I just-”
“Take your time, sir.”
“No, it’s just- I’m not- this is a- oh!” He finally gets it free. It, to absolutely no one’s surprise, is a handgun. “You can help me! By giving me the cash register!”
A Browning Hi-Power, Tanya notes with a raised eyebrow, though she can’t tell the exact model without a more hands-on look. And it actually has a magazine, which means there’s a good chance it’s loaded.
“I mean, everything in the cash register!” He’s actually pointing the pistol at her now, despite the plastic divider. Not that it’ll matter much. It’s plastic, not plexiglass.
But… he’s pointing a gun at her. There is a live barrel looking her in the eyes.
Her shoulders tense up. In spite of years of war once upon a time, it’s hard to be relaxed with a gun pointing directly at you.
This boy. The boy holding the gun. He doesn’t understand the situation at all. He thinks he understands what this is. He thinks it’s simple- well, maybe not simple, but easy. Fast. A necessary danger. His finger trembles on the trigger guard, then slips over to the trigger itself.
There’s no discipline. Or maybe circumstance has beaten discipline into desperation.
In a fair world, this wouldn’t happen.
In a fair world, this boy wouldn’t have chosen this store. Wouldn’t come here, to Tanya’s part-time job on a day she wasn’t even supposed to be here.
He wouldn’t have found himself standing across from her, pointing a gun at her.
Of all people in the world, in the state, in Brooklyn.
How unfortunate a situation for them.
Tanya’s hands twitch under the counter, staring down the barrel of a live gun and past it, to the scared eyes of a kid with no idea what he’s getting in to. Her senses, instincts, nerves, white-hot livewires sparking and scraping the inside of her skin until she’s raw, watching, waiting.
“We will flatten the curve! This wave of crime is nothing more than an ineffectual attempt to discredit the fine efforts of our boys out in the field.”
A well-sized man, buff but in that “dad who lifts” sort of way, booms through his mic, though the store’s television doesn't carry this tone too well, given its age and static-y speakers.
“I swear to you, as your newly promoted Captain, we will continue to work hard in the night, so you all may sleep without worry-”
“G- give me the money! Now!”
It would be so easy.
Tanya moves.
“Of course, sir.”
Her hands open the register and begin taking out the cash. The faint scar along the back of her left glints under the dull overhead lighting.
The boy freezes up for a moment, then relaxes. He lowers his gun a little, still shaking. Still scared.
Of her? She’s just a part-time clerk.
But it seems like everyone in this city is some form of scared, right now.
She can’t even blame him.
-=-
A lot has happened out of my control. You’d think a modern city in the developed world would be more relaxing than a world war, but… it’s closer than you’d think.
All I can do is live with it. New faces, places, scars. Crime beyond anything I’ve seen, more common than should be possible in a civilized society. But the people, the regular people, they’re familiar. It’s just the outliers that have stripped common sense away.
At times, it seems like someone is supposed to step up. Be the hero.
Deal with it.
-=-
“I’m not scared... Of the dark.”
One earphone in, the cord wrapping over her ear and trailing into her jacket, Tanya leaves the beaten down gym, knuckles scraped, arms and shoulders sore. There’s a tender spot on her brow and her right shin, which’ll turn into bruises by tomorrow morning and be gone by lunch.
It’s dark out, the rain just a faint drizzle now. A respite from before, though paltry given the chill has only amped up. Tanya walks the streetlights, neon lights colored streets without even feeling it, her workout sneakers stepping nimbly around deeper puddles and slippery spots. Her hood up, and her umbrella at her side, she revels the night air. The cool exterior pressing down on her senses.
“I’m not running, running, running.”
Stanley had been upset to hear they’d been robbed during his nap in the break room, but not because of the money. Most people pay digitally these days, anyway. No, he’d been worried about her, asked if she was shaken up, needed to talk to someone.
“It’s fine, sir.” She’d said, unbothered. “It’s nothing new, is it?”
“No, I’m not afraid of the fall.”
“That don’t make it okay, Deg.”
Tanya frowns, sand in the bottom of one of her shoes digging into her heel. Her knuckles twinge again in her pockets, like a faint stretchy, sharp warmth. Healing already. Off in the distance, around a corner or five and down several blocks, there are sirens. Police sirens.
Her shoulders tense up, for a moment, before she forces herself to relax.
It’s far enough away, but Tanya mentally adjusts her route home.
“I’m not scared, not at all.”
It’ll be annoying going the long way around… whatever it is – a car chase turned stand off with the cops, she knows – but Tanya is nothing if not adaptable. At this point in her lives, it’s a necessity rather than a quality. Not worth getting stopped or running into a crowd. Not worth hearing the people, these people, lamenting. Worrying. Wondering.
Best to avoid the nonsense. Avoid getting swept up into anything when all she wants right now is a “legal” drink and a couple of How It’s Made videos. Because you know, that’s just fine.
It’s an alright life. There’s nothing wrong with that. Not at all.
“Why would a star, a star ever be afraid of the dark?”
-=-
Not my problem.
For the past two years, I’ve been the one and only…
Me.