Dimensioneers
Compendium 2020 – Story 36
By Andrew Hawnt
Logan and Charlie had been falling for twenty minutes, but in those minutes of swift descent, the two of them had travelled through hundreds of realities in hundreds of time periods. Their plight had taken their focus away from the loss of Jacob, Alice and Freya, the other three Dimensioneers, at the hands of the Triumvirate in the far-future colony of Ariasin. Anger and mourning would come soon enough, but at that moment, they just needed to get to solid ground. Wherever and whenever that may be.
As they fell, the temporal gems housed in their belt buckles had fizzed and sparked and smoked, ruined by the Triumvirate's sabotage. Logan and Charlie had escaped with their lives, only to be plunged into an even more uncertain future by dimension diving without functioning gems.
“Can you get any closer?” Logan cried out as they plummeted through slivers of times and places. Anyone living in the places they fell through would have only seen a disturbance in the corner of their eye that would be gone if they had looked.
“I don't think so,” Charlie yelled back, flailing through realities. “But we've got to stop this, and quick!”
They needed to get hold of each other or they could be stranded in different eras and universes with no way of finding their brother again. After losing the others, they couldn't afford to be alone. Not with what they knew and what they were.
“Veer this way,” Charlie shouted as they fell through the veils between worlds, through a church, a field, a battleground, a sea, a mind, a field of blue wheat, a road filled with strange vehicles and back into the maelstrom. Universes folded around them like orderly squares that swam in kaleidoscopic halos around one another.
Logan managed to direct his descent and the two of them grabbed one another by the wrists. Immediately, their damaged gems crackled in their belt buckle housings, casting a field of sparking energy around them.
“The belts!” Charlie burst out as the unmistakable feel of an incoming dimensional landing spread around them. “There must be enough left between them to get us somewhere, one last time!”
“Hold on, brother,” Logan bellowed over the deafening noise of countless realities crashing around them. “Don't let go.”
The field grew and came to a blinding crescendo. The noise was unbearable.
Neither lasted.
With a burning, shuddering jolt of pain and nausea, the two brothers landed on a cold, black floor. The field dissipated around them and darkness swallowed all they could see.
Charlie helped Logan up, the two of them then looking around the dark, trying to will their eyes to adjust to the lack of light and their lungs to accept the different air. They stood back to back. After going through years of adventures, the last two surviving Dimensioneers each knew that the other had their back.
Which both were grateful for when the enormity of their situation dawned on them.
They had come to a stop upon a huge stone platform surrounded by staircases, window frames and angled walls that were all going in the wrong directions. Different skies swelled with strange colours behind each section of the place. It would ruin any normal human mind that looked at it, but after years of observing different realms, Logan and Charlie felt only mild nausea.
Yet their nausea grew when the others poured in from doorways that opened this way and that, each of them wrought from a different wood, metal, plastic, glass or crystal. They marched in by the dozen, and within a minute the whole nightmarish structure was filled with hundreds of men and boys, all of them similar. Very similar.
“They're... us, aren't they?” Charlie asked with a mixture of awe and horror.
Logan nodded. “They are, and I don't see anyone but us. The others aren't here. Just me and you. All different ages. Different outfits. Even some different skins. They're our other selves, and that means...”
An ancient Logan dressed in deep blue tunic and trousers, his hair and wispy beard white as snow, stepped closer on thin legs. “That your ridiculous quest against the creatures calling themselves the Triumvirate has resulted in all of your myriad selves from across every dimension being brought here, to a time and place outside of any known universe!”
“We escaped the Triumvirate,” exclaimed Charlie. “How did we cause this?”
Logan shook his head. “Our belts. They were ruined, so there was nowhere to lock onto. Instead of taking us somewhere, they brought all of us together. Oh my God...”
The old man wagged a furious finger at them. “Yes, exactly. Those belts locked onto you both, but not just you – they locked on to all of you across the entire multiverse and dragged us all here. Do you know what that means?”
Charlie's eyes widened first. “That we are outside of existence entirely. Logan, we don't exist in any dimension any more! Every version of us is here, in our own bubble universe! We can't go back without at least one version of us existing somewhere to latch us onto reality!”
“Exactly, you stupid boys,” barked the old man. Others grimaced and jeered. “This place is made from fragments that came through the multiversal warp with us. And now you two are here as well, those fragments will destabilise. In your endless taste for adventure, you forgot to ensure that everything else around you was as safe as you were.”
A rumble grew from beneath them. The structure shuddered, great chunks of it crumbling away into flickering light. The crowd became a riot, people running this way and that to dodge debris falling from different universes in different directions.
Charle and Logan stuck together, watching in horror as many of their other selves were crushed beneath chunks of masonry, clouds of dust tinged red as they burst outwards at the point of impact.
“I never wanted any of this,” Logan cried out as their surroundings began to tear themselves apart. “I just wanted to see the universe and share some adventures with my friends. That's why I agreed to become a Dimensioneer!”
Charlie dodged a block of stone, which exploded into jagged chunks behind him, felling another self. “This isn't our fault,” Charlie yelled back. “You can bet the Triumvirate are behind this somehow!”
Very astute, came a trio of voices that were louder than the chaos around them. Falling debris and clouds of dust froze still in the air, allowing the remaining selves to get themselves to safety by gathering around Logan and Charlie.
The kaleidoscopic madness of the space around the structure gave way to three gigantic shapes forming from its swirling depths. The terrifying sight of the Triumvirate came into view, looming over them as armoured giants.
We are, said the Triumvirate as one. And yet, we would not exist without you.
They removed their gargantuan helmets.
Logan and Charlie screamed in shock as the giants revealed their faces. Jacob. Alice. Freya. They were massive and clad in armour forged in the heart of a star, yet their faces were unmistakable. You wanted adventure. We never wanted our time to end. Bargains were made, followed by decisions. Your thirst for thrills helped us to explore the universe and allow it to transform us. We became as we are, and we moved back into crucial points in time to ensure that one day we would die because of your mistakes. You would be scarred and heartbroken, while we would gain new lives as gods.
Each of them unstheathed a sword that could have cleaved cities in half.
Thank you for creating us, said the Triumvirate. And thank you for your sacrifices. They struck the ground again and again, the whole structure disintegrating around the many remaining Logans and Charlies.
The Triumvirate bled into the darkness around them, their laughter like the storms that often pummelled the horizon.
The Dimensioneers fell for eternity.
© Andrew Hawnt, 2020
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About Compendium 2020:
Compendium 2020 is a project from author Andrew Hawnt that consists of 52 original short stories, flash fiction stories and vignettes given away for FREE in 2020. Featuring science fiction, fantasy, horror and more, this began as a personal quest and due to the weirdness of 2020 has become an ambition to provide free distractions for anyone who needs them.
About Andrew Hawnt:
Andrew is based in Nottingham, England. Known for his music journalism career, comics writing and film critique work, Andrew is a prolific writer and is the author of a growing stack of books, including the cult hit VHS Ate My Brain. He made the movies The Demon And I and The Demon And I: Birthrite completely in lockdown with cast members filming their scenes remotely, and new films are coming.
Andrew is also the creator and presenter of the YouTube shows Planet Hex and Turn One Shock as well as the video versions of the Compendium stories.
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© Andrew Hawnt 2020
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