The first task Aril set me sounded simple, but ended up being significantly more challenging than I think either of us thought. Due to my supposed "weak connection" to this world — a connection which I felt could have only been weakened by the disastrous and inexplicable encounter with Laura — Aril theorised that I should be able to make use of the "gates," as he called them, without having to wait for the times when they were at their "widest."

Each gate was seemingly different in the times it expanded and contracted — that would explain how I had passed through ones in the middle of the day at school and yet the one that was seemingly in Alice's doorway only opened at 2:30 in the morning. As it was nowhere near that time, we decided to use that very gate as a means to test the theory.

Aril gave me an overly-technical explanation of how he passed between worlds, but it went right over my head, and it involved some sort of technology from his people, anyway. I figured that if I was one of his group of "Crusaders" I might have had a clue what he was on about, but I wasn't, and I didn't.

He sighed at the bewildered look on my face.

"Look," he said, "it's basically down to willpower. You have to let go of the world you're leaving and reach out for the one you're heading for. Your body will follow your will."

I still didn't really understand, but I was at least willing to give it a try.

I opened the door to Alice's room and peered inside. It was just as it always was — empty and devoid of life. I looked around the frame of the door and didn't see anything unusual — of course I didn't, why would I? — and grit my teeth ready to make an attempt.

"Focus," said Aril in a low voice. "You can do this."

I clenched my fists, though I wasn't sure why, and closed my eyes. I pictured walking through the doorway into Alice's room as I had done in the past, and seeing her sitting up in the bed.

I opened my eyes. I was standing in Alice's bedroom. There was no-one here. I turned around. Aril was leaning against the wall casually, shaking his head.

"No," he said. "Try again."

I walked back out of the room and tried again.

Let go, I thought. I don't belong here. I want to be with Alice.

I stepped through the doorway, and again nothing happened.

"Clear your mind," said Aril. "You're trying to reach out for another world, not for your sister. Your sister exists in this world still, too, as a concept at least, so wanting to be with her isn't going to help this."

I nodded, stepped out of the room, closed my eyes and blanked my mind as well as I could possibly manage. Then I walked through the doorway again.

This time I felt a strange sensation. It was like the uneasy feeling I'd experienced the very first time this had happened to me, but this time there was a strange tingling all over my body, too. It felt oddly pleasurable in a perverse sort of way.

Then I felt a "bump" as I collided with something, and a voice that I recognised. I fell forward and onto something soft and sweet-smelling.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" said Alice. "Where the fuck did you come from? And also, get off me!"

I opened my eyes and pulled back from whatever I had fallen onto. I saw bare skin and a bellybutton. I immediately blushed and stood up hastily, turning back towards the door with a sickening feeling in my stomach.

I heard the sound of Alice frantically putting clothes on behind me as I gazed out of the doorway. Aril was nowhere to be seen.

"You know," she said, her voice sounding a little calmer now, "I do appreciate these little visits, you know that, but at least when you were coming at predictable times you were less likely to walk in on me getting dressed after a shower. You may be from a different world or whatever, but you're still my brother, so it's still weird."

"Yes," I said, mortified. "Sorry."

"It's all right," she said with a slight laugh. I felt her hand on my shoulder. "You weren't to know. But I'm surprised; what are you doing here now? It's normally the middle of the night when you show up."

I sat down on her bed and gestured for her to join me. I explained about the conversations I'd had with Aril, and about our attempts to make use of my… strange properties to help sort out the whole situation. She seemed to take the whole explanation in her stride. I guess Aril was right; her inner strength and ability to deal with unusual, strange and terrifying situations was something else.

Something was bothering me, though.

"Um," I began, not quite sure how to raise it. "I'm… sorry about earlier."

"Earlier?" she said. "What about earlier?"

"In the bathroom," I said. "When you… you know, saw me."

"Saw you?" she said with a laugh. "I think seeing you in the bathroom probably would traumatise me, but no, that didn't happen. Did it? I don't think so. I think I would have remembered that."

It was strange. I definitely had a memory of her creeped-out face looking disgusted at me kneeling naked on the floor, but apparently she did not. But then Laura had no memory of what had supposedly happened between us, either, so perhaps it wasn't so unusual. Was this the power of chaos?

"Forget it," I said. "Too many strange things have been happening to me lately. It's getting difficult to keep track of them."

There was something else, though; something else that had been bothering me for a while now and I hadn't had the chance to ask.

"Alice," I said. "There's something else I wanted to ask you."

"Shoot," she said.

"When I first… appeared to you, it sounded like you were calling out to someone, as if you weren't surprised to see a person in your room. But if what you and Aril have told me about what happened here is true…"

"Oh, that," she said casually. "Yeah, I thought you were Aril. He'd been paying me regular visits since all this stuff started happening. I thought I was going mad from loneliness at first, hallucinating an imaginary friend or something, but it started happening too often for me to dismiss as just something my brain was cooking up. Unless all of this is a hallucination or nightmare that either or both of us is having. That'd be funny, wouldn't it?"

She laughed half-heartedly. I did the same. It didn't seem very funny. I sort of wished that was actually what was going on, because that meant it would all go away and life would go back to normal once the root cause was dealt with. I started to think that was sort of true anyway — but no, even if Aril and I were able to deal with the chaos thing, that was never going to bring Alice and my parents back. And it wouldn't bring this world's me back to Alice, either.

But Aril already knew Alice and had been visiting her? Somehow this news didn't surprise me, but I sort of resented the fact that neither of them had told me prior to this point. It seemed like something that might be a big deal. But apparently it wasn't. I bit my tongue before I made a sarcastic comment at Alice.

"So," she said. "What now? You're here, and I think this is the longest you've managed to stay without getting pulled back against your will. What's the plan?"

The first part of the plan was to get me into a situation where I was able to pass through these "gates" more easily without having to rely on them opening and closing. Beyond that, Aril had had a few ideas about how to proceed, but I wasn't sure I quite understood them just yet.

"I need to talk to Aril," I said. "Now that I can apparently do this, I imagine he's got something terrifying lined up for me to do in order to attract this chaos thing."

"Probably," said Alice. "If I can help, let me know, though I'm not sure what good I can do from here."

"Hmm," I said. "You've come through into my world before, though, right?"

"Yes," she said. "But I've no idea how that happened or if I could do it again."

"Can I try something?" I asked.

"Nothing weird," she said.

"Does passing between planes of existence count as 'weird'?" I said with a slight smile.

"These days? No, sadly," she said.

I stood up and offered her my hand. She seemed to know what I was thinking, and took it. I closed my eyes, grit my teeth and willed myself back to my own world as I pulled her through the doorway. I felt the oddly pleasurable tingling sensation once again, and a slight giggle behind me confirmed that Alice had felt it too. When I opened my eyes, Aril was still leaning against the wall, looking rather bored.

"Ah, welcome back," he said. "Not so difficult, is it? I'd say you're a natural. And hello to you, Alice. Hope you're well."

"As well as can be expected," she said, bowing her head slightly. "Sorry I didn't tell you about us sooner," she added, giving me a sheepish look.

"It's fine," I said. I gave Aril a sour look, but he said nothing. "So what now?"

"Well, actually, you might have done us a bit of a favour by bringing Alice here," said Aril. "You've sort of upset the natural order of things. She's not supposed to be here in this world; she shouldn't exist. I'd say that probably qualifies as something that might attract the attention of a chaotic entity, wouldn't you say?"

"Oh," I said limply. "Right. So, uh, what do we do? We fight it?"

"It's not quite that simple, I'm afraid," said Aril. Of course it isn't. "In its current state, there's no guarantee it'll want to show itself directly. It's already messed with you once, so it might lay low for a little while. There's no way to know for the moment."

"So that doesn't really help us that much," I said.

"Perhaps not," said Aril. "But in the long-term, it's more likely to be attracted to this thing that shouldn't be here–"

"I have a name," interrupted Alice.

"–and try to use that as a focal point for any future chaos it intends to sow in this world."

"I still don't understand why it's doing what it's doing," I said. "It just doesn't make any sense."

"That's because you're thinking too rationally," said Aril, "too like a sentient, living being. What we're dealing with here is not like a human; it's a primal force that exists only for a single-minded purpose. While it may come across as malicious, it's simply doing what comes naturally to it. Unfortunately, 'what comes naturally' coupled with its own innate power is a spectacularly dangerous combination."

"Yes, I get that," I said. "I just wish we could get this over and done with."

"There's no quick fix," said Aril. "I wish there was. But I believe that if we all work together, we'll be able to deal with it."

"I hope you're right," I said. I put a hand on Alice's shoulder, and she placed one of her own hands on it. I was grateful for the support. I knew this wasn't "my" sister, but for now, it sure felt like she was.

I eventually calmed down, picked myself up and sat on my bed in my room. I didn't move for several hours, trying to figure out what had happened. It certainly felt like all those things I remembered had actually happened, but then Laura seemed to think that none of them had happened. And yet she was still here… afterwards… so some of it must have happened.

I was so confused, and I was ashamed of myself for dwelling too much on whether or not I had actually had my first kiss and my first sexual experience or not. But it felt like it mattered. I knew it was an old-fashioned thought to have, but I wanted both of those things to carry some sort of meaning. Thinking back on it happening — or not happening as the case may be — I repeatedly remembered that strange feeling of detachment, like I was watching from the outside and not really… participating.

My mind wandered to the words that the strange shadowy figure had said to me previously. It had told me about a being of chaos, a being that it was pursuing and trying to stop. A being that had something to do with these strange… gateways, portals, whatever they were. It had sowed chaos through the previous worlds it had visited, and now it was trying to do so here.

The experience I had just been through certainly struck me as fairly "chaotic." It didn't make any sense. It confused me, it confused Laura, it confused Alice, and it threatened to tear us apart. It looked like it had already torn me and Laura apart, and I didn't know what to do about that. We hadn't really had a fight before; it was a new experience for me, and I'm not sure about her. If she was as alone as she'd told me, it's entirely possible that she was in a similar state to me right now, not knowing what to do, wondering what I was thinking and how to resolve it.

I picked up my phone and scrolled through the "recent calls" list. Laura was the only entry. I stared at her name for a few minutes. What would I say? How could I possibly come back from that? How could I possibly make this right?

I was doing my old trick — mentally having a conversation in my head and assuming the worst possible outcome before it had actually taken place. It was the main reason I had so few friends, and I knew it. But it didn't stop me from doing it. It was a habit, and no-one ever corrected me — largely because there was no-one who knew I did it. A vicious circle.

I closed my eyes and just tapped the screen. I would never get around to it if I didn't try.

I raised the phone to my ear. After a moment, I heard it connect, and the ringing started.

Ring, ring.

No answer yet.

Ring, ring.

Still no answer.

Ring, ring.

She wasn't going to answer me.

Ring, ring.

I didn't blame her.

Ring, ring.

"Hi!" came her bright and cheerful voice down the phone.

"Hello," I said hesitantly. "Look, about earlier, I'm sor–"

"Got you!" she giggled. "I'm not here really. Leave me a message and I'll call you back."

A joke message. I smiled to myself, then felt a little sad when I thought that I might be one of the few people to have heard it.

I hung up before the message finished, waited a moment and then dialled again.

Ring, ring.

Please answer.

Ring, ring.

Come on.

Ring, ring.

Please.

Ring, ring.

"Hi!" came her voice again, and I recognised it as the message again. I hung up before the joke.

Of course she wasn't answering. Why would she want to talk to me after that? After I'd said we'd had sex when she firmly believed that we hadn't? Oh, Christ, I thought, that must have been fucking creepy. Ugh.

I lay back on the bed and closed my eyes. How was I going to get out of this one?

"Hello," said the infuriatingly calm voice, and I knew that the shadowy figure was there. I didn't get up.

"Hello," I said wearily. "I am not having a good day, so I hope this is important."

"I know," it said. "I came as quickly as I could, but I needed to be sure that it was… safe."

I sat up at that word.

"Safe?" I asked. "What do you mean?"

"I think you already know," said the figure. "What you experienced was just a small taste of the chaos you can expect once our adversary returns to full strength."

"Full strength?" I swallowed. I had just about come to terms with the fact that the peculiar happenings of the day could be attributed to the strange "chaos" creature, whatever it was. But knowing that this thing wasn't at full strength, and could become more powerful?

"Yes," it said. "Are you ready to help me out yet?"

I scratched my head and thought for a moment, then I looked right at my companion and spoke a single word in a tone more decisive and final than I'd ever heard myself use.

"Yes," I said.

"All right," said the figure, a little less impressed than I was hoping it would be. "Then we need to start formulating some sort of plan. But before that, I think we need to formalise our working arrangement with one another."

It sat down on the bed next to me and raised its hand to my face. It felt curiously similar to when Laura–

No. It wouldn't do to dwell on that now.

The figure touched my face with its long fingers, and I felt a strange sensation in my head. It wasn't entirely unpleasant, but it also felt strangely unnerving. Suddenly, without any words being exchanged between us, I knew that its… his name was Aril, that he was technically sexless but preferred to be referred to as a male when it was necessary, that he was a member of an organisation that referred to themselves as the Crusaders, that he had spent his life travelling between worlds tracking down interdimensional beasts such as the one that was apparently tormenting me now… and that he was afraid. I could feel that he was slightly ashamed of the last part, but he didn't make any attempt to hide it from me.

"I assume you now know everything about me, too," I said, feeling slightly dizzy as Aril released his hand from my face. "If you didn't already."

"Of course," he said. "I've been… keeping an eye on you for a while now."

"Great," I said sarcastically. But there was no point in getting indignant now. Aril's existence was so hugely different from my own that it was almost impossible to contemplate what he must have been through, and for how long. If someone had just told me the stories I now knew, I would have laughed in their face at how far-fetched they were, dismissed them as science fiction. But after… whatever Aril had just done, I knew that they were true.

Aril paced back and forth a little, looking a little more at ease and less… "formal", somehow.

"So tell me about this chaos… thing," I said. "I don't really understand. You said something about it not being at full power?"

"Yes," said Aril, spinning around on one foot and turning to face me in an overly-flamboyant gesture. "Yes, indeed. It's a worry. But it also means that we have some time, particularly if it keeps pulling little stunts like it did today."

"You're going to have to explain more than that," I said honestly.

"Basically," said Aril, "passing between worlds as we — I hasten to throw myself in the same category as that… thing — do is a rather demanding process. It expends an enormous amount of energy to do it right. And by 'do it right' I mean 'not leaving holes in existence' like you've been encountering."

I nodded. It probably said something that I was no longer bothered by discussion of "holes in existence", but I shook off the thought before I dwelled on it too much. Aril continued speaking.

"Basically, what this… thing has been doing is moving from world to world, sowing as much chaos as it possibly can, hopping to the next world to try and 'hide' while it recharges itself, then repeating the process," he explained. "The last world it went to I believe you're already familiar with."

I nodded, and an image of Alice's creeped-out face entered my mind for a moment. Then it was gone.

"So," I said, "what exactly do you mean by 'sowing chaos'?"

"Well it varies," replied Aril. "Sometimes it sows the seeds of conflict between important people in the world, and then simply sits back to see what happens. Sometimes it messes with people's minds around the world, making them believe things that aren't true or making them forget things they ought to know."

Aril paused for a moment and turned away from me.

"What it did in the last world was the worst thing it's done yet," he said. His voice sounded sad rather than smug for once. He didn't elaborate.

"What happened?" I asked. I had a feeling I already knew, but I wanted to be sure, however unpleasant it sounded.

Aril didn't say anything for a moment. I was about to ask the question again, but he turned round and looked me right in the eyes.

"It took an interest in your sister and the way she responded to chaos," he said. "It started by killing the people dearest to her — not directly, mind — and gradually tried to drive her insane by, piece by piece, wiping out everyone else in that world."

"Everyone else?" I asked, my mouth hanging open. Could something… do that?

"Yes," said Aril, the sad tone creeping into his voice again. "It started by arranging increasingly-chaotic, inexplicable accidents. But as it saw the terror and horror in people as more and more awful things happened to more and more people, it started playing a more… active role."

"But what has my sister got to do with this?" I said, an unpleasant crawling sensation creeping up my back. "Why is she still–"

"Well, remember that it initially took an interest in your sister and how she was responding to chaos," explained Aril. "It turns out she was handling it well. A little too well. Her inner strength was infuriating it, frustrating it. It resorted to increasingly-outlandish measures to try and make her respond, but she wouldn't — not in any way that satisfied it. Eventually, it made one last-ditch attempt to drive her mad — to make her the last person alive."

"It can really do that? Just… get rid of everyone?" The thought was not a pleasant one. I already felt out of my depth, and this wasn't helping.

"Yes," said Aril. "It's horrid to think about, I know. But despite how awful what it did was, it's actually given us a bit of breathing room. After it made its last 'jump' to this world to hide out and recharge, it was utterly exhausted. Wiping out an entire world of people is not, as you might expect, a particularly easy thing to do, so it's significantly weakened at the moment. In this state, we could deal with it. Of course, we have to actually find it first."

I sighed. "Let me guess. That's where I come in?"

"Precisely," said Aril. "For one reason or another, it has taken an interest to you and your family. Not just in this world. Not just in the other one you're familiar with. But it always seems to start somewhere around your family. I guess you have to start somewhere, even with chaos."

"All right," I said. "So how do we go about finding this thing and dealing with it?"

"I have an idea," said Aril. "But I don't think you're going to like it."

I knew that, without a doubt, he would be right. And I also knew that not going along with it would probably be a very bad idea. I took a deep breath, grit my teeth for a moment, and then looked Aril straight in the eyes.

"I'll do whatever it takes," I said. "For Alice. For Laura. Let's do this."

"That was a fun movie," said Laura as we walked out into the daylight. "Not normally the sort of thing I'd go in for, but I ended up quite enjoying it. What did you think?"

"Yeah, it was good," I said absentmindedly. I hadn't really been paying attention. It was some sort of science fiction thing, presumably chosen for my benefit, but I just couldn't get into it. My tiredness was getting the better of me, and it was all I could do to not fall asleep in the dark, even with the loud surround-sound explosions and rumbles reverberating all around me.

"Come on," said Laura, tugging on my sleeve. "How about some food? I'm going to make you smile by the end of today, so don't think you'll get off that easily."

"Uh-huh," I said, not really listening. Her enthusiasm today was bugging me a little bit, but I humoured her. She was trying her best, after all, so I couldn't be too bitter or annoyed at her. She couldn't understand what I was going through, however much I explained the situation. I still felt self-conscious talking about it, even though we'd already discussed it in depth and she had seen proof with her own eyes.

She dragged me to some awful greasy fried-chicken place near the cinema, sat me down and, after a moment or two, returned from the counter with a bucket full of chicken thighs and drumsticks. Dripping with grease, they didn't look particularly appealing, but they tasted pretty good, so I gratefully ate them. I could have probably done with something a little more nutritious given the crap I'd been eating recently — and some days barely eating at all — but for now, this tasted good.

"Wow, you're putting that away," said Laura with an expression that I couldn't quite read — it was either her being impressed or disgusted with me devouring the chicken at a rate roughly twice hers.

I put down the bone I'd been gnawing on and looked at her with tired eyes.

"Feel any better?" she said.

"A little," I said. "Thanks."

"Don't mention it," she said. "Still no smile though, huh? I meant what I said, you know."

"I don't doubt it," I said, with a slight smile.

"Hey, there's one!" she said gleefully. "That doesn't count, though. That was more of a sneer."

"Thanks," I said, feeling a little put out. I always found smiling to be rather unnatural when I was conscious of it, and comments like that didn't help.

"Sorry," she said, giggling. She was in a good mood. "Anything else you want to do while we're out, or shall we just go and chill at your place for a bit?"

I could tell that I wasn't going to get rid of her easily. I just wanted to go back home and sleep for about a week, but that wasn't going to happen. I compromised and agreed that she should take me home and we should just "chill" for a bit.

We didn't say much to each other on the way home, but I felt her occasionally glance over at me during the drive. She followed me in to my house, and then took the lead, taking my hand and leading me upstairs. I wasn't sure what she was doing, but there was an odd feeling in the air.

She led me into my bedroom, and sat down next to me on the bed.

"Laura, what–"

I was interrupted by her grabbing my face, pulling it towards her and kissing me.

My first kiss. I'd always suspected it would be with Laura, but I'd never considered the circumstances, or that it was a serious possibility, to be honest. But now it was happening, and all I could feel was a curious detachment from the situation, like I was watching it from outside.

Her lips were soft, and there was a pleasant scent about her. Her hands were clasping my face firmly but not roughly so, and the sensations weren't unpleasant. I felt something stirring and immediately wished I hadn't noticed it. Ugh, what if she saw?

She pulled away from me for a moment and looked at me with an expression I'd never seen on her face before. But before I could say anything or consider what it meant, she'd pushed me down on the bed and was straddling me. There was no way that I could hide my body's excitement now. She was brushing against it. It felt good. But still I felt that odd detachment, that feeling like I wasn't quite "present" while all this was going on. It just seemed to be happening, unfolding without any input from me. I wasn't sure I liked it.

Correction. My mind wasn't sure it liked what was going on, but my body sure did.

*

She climbed off me, her face reddened and beads of sweat visible on her cheeks. I collapsed back onto my pillow, panting like I'd just run for several miles.

So that was what it felt like.

I felt curiously unfulfilled. The feeling of detachment had only continued as she did more and more pleasurable things to me; the more erotic the situation had gotten, the further away I felt. She didn't seem to care, though — she just carried on as if she had planned all this and was following a script.

Perhaps it was the tiredness. I had gone from having my first kiss to losing my virginity in the space of an afternoon. That should be a big deal. It was with my best friend, too. That should be a big deal, too. And perhaps it was. I just couldn't process it right now.

She got up and went to the bathroom. I was left alone to contemplate things further, but just found myself wanting to close my eyes and fall asleep.

Sleep didn't come — it would have probably been quite disrespectful for her to walk back in on me and find me snoring away after what had just happened — but I realised that it had been several minutes since she'd left, and she hadn't come back. I didn't hear any sounds coming from the bathroom, either.

I opened my eyes again, sat up and walked to the bathroom. The door was closed, but not locked. I still couldn't hear anything.

"Laura?" I called. "You there?"

There was no response. I was starting to get a bad feeling. The feeling of detachment was slowly being replaced by a gnawing, uneasy sensation.

"Laura?"

Still nothing. I couldn't hear her moving inside. Was she all right?

"Laura, I'm… coming in, okay?"

I opened the door slowly. It creaked as I did so — all the doors in this house creaked to one degree or another, but the bathroom was particularly noisy. Despite the noise the door was making, I still pushed it open slowly, just in case Laura wasn't ready for me.

Instead I wasn't ready for what I saw.

Laura was lying face-down on the floor, still naked. She wasn't moving. I couldn't tell if she was breathing or not, but it didn't look good.

"Shit," I said, racing into the room to be by her side. I tried frantically to remember the few things about first aid I'd learned in the past. I knelt beside her to try and work out if she was actually breathing or not, but I couldn't tell with her lying face down. I reached out to touch her and turn her over, but as I did so, I was assailed by a feeling of absolute terror. It was only for a second, but it was enough to make me want to close my eyes and blot out the world.

I knew before I opened them again that the situation had changed. Sure enough, there was no sign of Laura's naked body on the floor before me, and the light that had been on previously was now off. I stood up slowly and just stared at the floor.

The door creaked behind me and I suddenly turned around.

"Oh my God," came Alice's voice before I saw her. "What the fuck are you doing? Put some fucking clothes on!"

I frantically looked around for something to cover myself with and could only find a towel that wasn't really big enough to cover me completely.

"Sorry," I said, looking up at where Alice had been standing a moment before. She was gone. The light was back on. "What?"

I span back around to look for Laura's prone body, but it was no longer on the floor.

What was happening?

"You all right?" came Laura's voice from around the corner. I heard her footsteps, and then she was there in the doorway, fully clothed. I was still holding the towel around my waist. "Whoa, what are you…"

"I don't know!" I yelled, a little more harshly than I intended. "I just… it all happened so fast! After we… you know… you went to the bathroom and you were gone a long time, so I came to make sure you were all right, and you were lying on the floor and–"

"Whoa," she said. "Back up. After we what?"

I blinked. This was not happening. Or, more accurately, what I thought had happened had not really happened. Or had it? I certainly remembered it, and the current state I was in seemed to suggest that my mind was not playing tricks on me, but–

"No, come on," she said, sounding a little more agitated now. "After we what?"

"You want me to say it?" I asked, my voice becoming meek. I didn't like where this conversation was going.

"Yes," she said. "You're freaking me out a bit right now, if I'm honest, so I'd appreciate an explanation."

"But we… you know…" Did she really not know?

"No, I don't know!"

"We… did it," I said, feeling my cheeks flush as I said it. What a ridiculous, childish way to put it. "We had sex."

"What?" Her face contorted; she looked like she was laughing and incredulous at the same time. "We most certainly did not. I think I would have remembered something like that. What is wrong with you?"

Something was very wrong here.

"What?" I said. "You really don't…"

"No!" she cried. "You honestly think that I would want to do that with you? Particularly with the state your life is in right now? I don't think that would be the most productive use of our time, now, would it?"

Her words stung me. She didn't need to be so cold about it.

"I think I should go," she said. "I'll see you around. Sometime. Not for a while. Don't contact me. I… need some space."

She stormed off. I heard her go down the stairs, and shortly afterwards the front door opened and then slammed.

I fell to my knees on the floor of the bathroom. The towel fell to the floor, forgotten. I could feel the stress, anxiety, fear and confusion rise up through my body. I gulped a little as the tears sprang to my eyes, then simply exploded with all that pent-up emotion. I wailed and sobbed, and the tears wouldn't stop flowing. I was a pathetic figure right then, but I didn't care.

"You have a weak connection to your world," the mysterious figure had said to me. It felt like that last connection had just been cut.

It was dark. The low murmur of the guy talking about some play on the radio was putting me to sleep — particularly when coupled with the hum of the engine and the pattering of the rain on the windscreen and the roof. It was fairly peaceful, but the back seat wasn't very comfortable and I was starting to feel my usual sensation of travel sickness. I wasn't sure when I started getting it, but it was always unpleasant. It just made me want to curl up in a corner and groan, and that's not really practical when you're sitting in the back of a car — not least because my mother usually told me to sit up. I found myself wishing she treated me according to my age. Legally, I was an adult, but she would never seem to quite get that into her head.

I closed my eyes. The car gave an occasional bump on uneven parts of the road, but the motion was mostly fairly relaxing.

"So, did you have a good time?" I heard my mother's voice saying. "You look exhausted. Hope you didn't spend all your time drinking and carousing."

"No," I grunted, in a vain attempt to try and close off the conversation before it began. I really wasn't in the mood.

"So what was the best bit?" she asked.

"I'm not sure," I said. "It was all pretty fun."

I was going to think back on what had occurred over the last few days, but the bubbling feeling in my stomach wasn't going away, so I just found myself thinking about that. Thinking about it didn't help, of course, since focusing on it just made the feelings worse. The more conscious I was of them, the more I thought I was going to throw up. I tried to think about something — anything — else.

"Oh, come on, Jan," said my father slightly irritably. "Can't you see he's knackered? Let him rest. We've got a long drive ahead of us, and I'm sure we can talk about it in the morning."

"Sorry! Sorry!" said my mother in a mock-flustered tone, as if she had somehow offended me with her questions. "I'll shut up."

My father didn't rise to her bait, and instead turned the radio up. Whatever it was the voice was talking about was terribly boring, but I was thankful for the distraction — both for my own gurgling stomach and from my mother's incessant questioning. She never did quite know when to stop.

A few minutes passed, and no-one except the droning bore on the radio said anything. Eventually his programme came to an end, and it was time for the news. The radio gave the distinctive "pips" that signalled it was on the hour, and the newsreader announced that it was two o' clock in the morning. I didn't really listen to the bulletin; the smooth, soothing voice of the female newsreader washed over me and made me relax.

Patterns swirled behind my eyes. I recognised this as a sure sign I was tired. I knew that if I opened my eyes again, those patterns would still be there; hypnotic, washing over my vision. I focused on them, trying to make sense of them, and felt my consciousness slowly, gradually drifting away. I was falling asleep at last. Hopefully by the time I woke up again, we'd be home and I could just get into bed.

I don't know how long I slept for, but I was awoken with a start by a sudden noise. It was my mother screaming. My eyes snapped open, but it took a moment for me to figure out what was going on. My mother was frantically grabbing for the steering wheel and there, in the driver's seat, where my father should have been… was no-one at all. At least, that's what it seemed like.

I blinked, and he was back again, wrestling with the wheel. But it was too late. The car was in a skid, and it was heading for the barrier at the side of the road. I didn't know what was beyond it as it was still dark, but I had a bad feeling.

The car, which was still moving at a fair speed, crashed straight through the barrier and into the blackness beyond. I felt the world spin sideways, and I knew that there was a drop beyond the barrier. I didn't know how big it was or how long we would fall, but I knew that we were probably not coming back from it.

My stomach felt like it was in my mouth as the car went into freefall, still spinning and rolling in the air. The world felt like it was in slow motion. I wanted to look around, to work out what was going on, but I couldn't — I was being thrown around too much.

I couldn't hear anything. I was sure my mother and father were both screaming in terror at the inevitable fate that seemed to await us, but somehow everything seemed to be muted; a silent, frightening world with no future.

The last sounds I heard were shattering glass, crumpling metal and the sickening crunch of bones. The pain that shot through my body left me in no doubt that at least some of those cracking bones were my own.

I blacked out. And didn't wake up.

*

I came to on the floor of my bedroom. I was lying face-down with my mouth open; my tongue was covered in bits of carpet. I was breathing quickly and my heart was racing. I felt something wet on my face and wondered if I'd hurt myself in the fall from my bed, but I was too afraid to move. I just lay there motionless on the floor for a moment, trying desperately to tell my mind and body that what I had experienced was just a dream, just a dream, just a dream.

I closed my eyes and tried to take some deep breaths, but just ended up inhaling some dust and fluff from the carpet. I coughed a little, and the spasms were enough to "unlock" my body and let me move. Slowly, gradually, I pushed myself up off the floor and knelt up. My room was dark, again illuminated only by the glow of the clock radio. I looked up towards the source of the light, more out of habit now than anything. For once, it didn't read 2:30.

That meant I couldn't go and see Alice. I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to right now, anyhow, but I was feeling scared and very alone.

I hauled myself up onto the bed and pulled myself back under the covers. I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling.

That was a bad dream, I thought. The worst I've ever had. It felt so real. Like I was actually there. Like it was a memory. But it couldn't be a memory, because…

Because that was what happened to Alice, and not me.

Except…

In Alice's world, I was the one who had been in that situation. I was the one who had failed to come home that night. I was the one who had…

This didn't make sense. Was that dream a work of my own imagination, or something else? Could it be a memory from that other world?

No, of course it couldn't. I wasn't from that other world, so how could I possibly have any memories from it? I certainly couldn't have the memory of the moment that Iost my life.

It must be my imagination, I thought. It must be.

I closed my eyes and tried to sleep until morning. All I managed to do was stare at the inside of my eyelids for several hours.

*

Once the sun was up, I groggily got out of bed and trudged downstairs to get myself some breakfast, which would consist mostly of a very large, very strong cup of coffee.

My phone rang while I was nursing the cup of hot liquid. It was Laura.

"You all right?" she asked immediately.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I growled.

"You don't sound fine," she said. "Are you sure?"

"Yeah," I said. "Just didn't sleep well, that's all."

"Oh," she said. "All right. Hey, listen, you want to do something today?"

"Huh?"

"Do you want to go out and do something? I figured you could probably do with a change of scenery. Fancy going to the pictures or something?"

I hadn't been to the cinema for probably a good three or four years. The people there annoyed me. I wanted to watch a film, not grit my teeth at people fiddling with phones, eating sweets noisily and laughing at bits of the film that weren't funny.

"Yeah, all right," I found myself saying. "Why not?"

"Okay," she said brightly. "I'll come pick you up in an hour or so. Be ready!"

"All right," I said. "See ya."

She hung up. I drained my coffee cup and put some bread in the toaster. I still felt exhausted from events of the previous day. It had been emotionally and physically tiring, and that awful dream hadn't helped either. I still didn't know what it meant, and was in two minds as to whether or not I should bring it up with Laura. After a bit of internal arguing, I decided that she'd probably get it out of me eventually anyway, so for a quiet life, I should probably just tell her. I would pick my moment carefully, though. No sense telling her before the film; she'd only spend the rest of it worrying, then.

"Urgh," I said out loud to no-one in particular, leaning my head down on the table. "I'm so tired."

I was no nearer to any answers on what the meaning of this whole "alternate existences" thing, and the strange figure hadn't showed up again to offer any further explanations. I resolved that it would probably be sensible to try and forget about it all just for today, and to try and relax and have a good time with Laura.

I smiled to myself in spite of the exhaustion I was feeling. Yes, that was probably the right thing to do. I'd enjoy myself today, then we could worry about things afterwards. I'd earned that much. I deserved a break.

Unfortunately, I already knew for a fact that the moment you start thinking you "deserve" a break is the moment all possibility of actually getting a break departs forever.

"Hello," came an infuriatingly calm voice, breaking the silence.

I looked up and was unsurprised to see the strange figure from before leaning nonchalantly against the doors of the supermarket. Escape was so frustratingly close, but so long as there was no power I couldn't get out. I was stuck with… whatever this thing was.

I said nothing.

"Fine," it said. "I'll talk. You listen."

It pushed itself off the door and stood up straight, then took a couple of steps towards me.

"Do you know where you are?" it asked in a tone that sounded slightly mocking. "Other than the supermarket, I mean."

I nodded. I didn't really feel up to saying much right now.

"So you've probably figured out that you've 'crossed over', right?" it continued.

I nodded again.

"While we wait here, I should probably explain a couple of things," it said. "I mean, it's not as if you look like you have anything better to do right now."

It was true. While I was trapped in here, there was literally nothing else I could do. Well, I guess I could try and break the doors open, but I didn't feel like my body had enough strength to heft anything that might break that thick glass.

"Fine," I said, with a deep sigh. I took a deep breath and tried to calm my nerves. "Explain."

The figure turned around and presented its back to me — proof enough that it clearly didn't consider me a threat.

"We… have a problem," it said after a moment's pause. "And, from what I've been observing, you might be instrumental in fixing it."

It paused and turned around again to look at me. I felt a chill as I felt those eyes on me.

"How to explain this," it pondered, nibbling absentmindedly on a slender fingertip. "There's a 'boundary' that stops all these alternate existences from crashing into one another and interfering with each other, you see. And in certain places, it's weakening."

I nodded dumbly.

"Most of the time, these weakened boundaries don't affect anyone, as most people are firmly stuck on their own timeline," it continued. "Their destiny is set, as it were. They're secure in where they're going, and where they're going to end up — even if they don't know it just yet."

I blinked. What?

"You're a little different, though," it continued, looking through narrowed eyes at me as if it was trying to analyse me. "You have… a curiously weak attachment to your own world. The weakened parts of the boundary ebb and flow like the tides of the sea; when they're at their widest, you have something of a habit of being pulled through, you see."

I blinked again. This sounded completely unbelievable.

"Pulled through?" I asked. "Because of my weak attachment to my world." The fear that had been gripping me was fast diminishing and being replaced with slight annoyance. I couldn't tell if this mysterious, shadowy figure was just toying with me and trying to make me believe any old thing, or if it was really telling the truth.

"Yes," it said. "I appreciate it all sounds very strange, but that's really the simplest way I can put it. There is a lot more to it, obviously, but yes. The fact is that your connection to your world is weak, and this means that you often find yourself… paying others a visit. Specifically, this one. This dark, depressing, deserted…"

"Hold on," I interrupted. "Why just this one? If these 'boundaries' are weak, why do I keep coming to this same world?"

"Several reasons," the figure answered, scratching its cheek with a long finger. "One, you have some sort of attachment to this world as well as your own."

"Alice," I muttered to myself.

"And two — this is the complicated bit — all these alternate existences exist on a sort of 'continuum', and this world is, hmm, 'closest' to your own world."

I said nothing for a moment. The silence hung heavily over us.

"So," I said eventually. "Uh, so what? What exactly does all this have to do with me?"

"Well," said the figure. "I'm still trying to work out exactly what your role in all this will be. But suffice to say your ability to 'cross over' between these existences is almost completely unique in the universe. In fact, I only know of two others who have similar capabilities, myself and my people excepted — we're a… special case. One of them is that sister of yours you've been paying a visit to, though her ability doesn't seem anywhere near as strong as yours."

I blinked, but I wasn't surprised to hear this. I'd seen her, after all.

"So who is the other?" I asked.

"That's the thing," it said. "I don't know. And that's where these problems are coming from. We have a… rogue element, shall we say. They could be hiding anywhere, and they're very powerful."

"Powerful?" I asked. "How do you mean?"

"Difficult to say right now," it said. "But know that they've already crossed through several possible alternate existences at will, and are currently hiding out in your world somewhere."

"Why?" I asked. "Why are they doing… whatever it is they're doing?"

"Chaos," said the figure simply. "They simply desire to sow chaos. In their own existence, they revelled in the chaos they created; now, they seek to spread it through the other possible existences, one world at a time."

"That's it?" I asked. "Just to… sow chaos and mess things up?"

"The multiverse is a strange and mysterious place," said the figure with a grandiose gesture. "Some beings have… purer intentions than others. Your people are complex beasts, filled with many different motivations. Others, like this creature we're talking about here, are rather more single-minded."

"And what about you?" I said finally. "Where do you fit in?"

"I just try and keep everyone safe," it said.

The lights flicked on and suddenly people appeared around me. A security guard nearly tripped over me, cowering as I was in the corner.

"You all right there, sir?" he asked, offering me his hand, a curious expression on his face.

"Yes," I said. "I'm fine."

I felt dizzy and confused. This was all a bit much to take in. Parallel existences? Beasts of pure chaos? Me having a "weak connection" to my own world? And that figure being a member of a "special case" race who apparently could jump back and forth between all these existences at will?

I took the guard's hand and stood up unsteadily, and staggered out of the shop without any of the things I had come in to buy.

Outside, I took a deep breath and let the cool, crisp air fill my lungs. I leaned back against the wall of the supermarket and just breathed for a few minutes. Then I opened my eyes and started to walk home.

*

The walk had given me time to think and try to make sense of some of the things the strange figure had told me.

Okay, I said to myself. So here's what's happening. I have a weaker connection to my own world than most people, which means that I get pulled through weaknesses in the "boundary" between worlds when they ebb and flow in just the right way. The world that is "next" to mine is the one where Alice is all alone, and the main differences between that one and my own is that 1) Alice is alive and well and 2) everyone else has disappeared.

Alice also has the same strange property that she, too, can be pulled through these weak points in the boundary between worlds, though apparently less frequently than I do. And somewhere else out there is a being that enjoys sowing chaos who has already passed through several different existences, doing God knows what along the way, and is supposedly currently hiding out somewhere in my world.

Also, there is a whole race of what appears to be multiverse "caretakers" who chase miscreants like this chaos-sower between worlds and try, apparently, to keep everyone "safe".

That about covers it, I thought.

It didn't bring me any closer to an understanding of what on Earth it was I was supposed to do about all this though, and whether or not my sister had anything to do with it.

*

At 2:30, I paid Alice a visit as usual. She was unsurprised to see me, and it transpired she'd also had a visit from the strange figure. She didn't know its name and whether or not it had a gender either, but she didn't seem quite so uneasy about it as me. I guessed that she probably enjoyed having some company, whoever it might be.

The thought reminded me; she never finished her story of how everyone disappeared.

"I can't explain it for sure," she said. "It was just… after I got that phone call, I was really upset, you know?"

I nodded. I knew exactly how she felt.

"And then… the next day I went out to try and get some air and get my head together… and there was just no-one around," she explained. "I went to the shop and there was no-one there. I tried to call my friends, and no-one answered. Little by little, the power and phones started going down, leaving most places dark. For some reason, the power's always stayed on here, though. It's like this place is a sort of beacon in the night or something."

I frowned. I wondered if this "chaos" thing had deliberately set all this up. I raised the possibility to Alice, who seemed unperturbed by the existence of beings of pure chaos hopping between worlds and doing their chaotic thing.

"I couldn't say," she said. "If that's really the case, I don't really understand what it's trying to do. I guess drive me mental or something? I'm sure there are far easier ways it could do that. I mean, you know, this situation sucks, and I spent a good few weeks doing nothing much but crying my eyes out, but in a weird way it's not so bad. I've got food, I've still got water, I don't have to do anything, and I get to see you sometimes."

I admired how calmly she was taking all this. I thought to myself that if I was in her situation I probably wouldn't be dealing with it anywhere near as well as she was.

"Hey," I said. "I want to try something, and I think we should probably be quick about it. Come with me."

I took her hand, pulled her out of bed and pushed her out of the door before she could protest. I went to follow her and was surprised to see her disappear before my eyes. I walked out of the door and she reappeared in front of me.

"Whoa," she said. "Yeah, it felt weird the last time I did it, but it's even weirder seeing you coming through like tha–"

She disappeared again. I looked back through the door behind me. The room was dark; the bed was empty. It looked like one of those "weak points" the figure had been talking about was over that doorway, and that it went through one of those "ebb and flows" some time between 2:30 and a little after 2:45 every night. Whenever the weak point… "closed" or whatever it did, we got pulled back into our respective existences — the ones we were supposed to be "attached" to.

I let out a wordless shout to the silent house. I staggered back into my own room and fell face-down on the bed. I was asleep again within minutes, my brain completely exhausted from the bewildering things it had been told. Inwardly I hoped that I would wake up in the morning and this would all have been a figment of my own imagination.

I knew that wasn't going to happen, though. This was probably going to get worse before it got better.

Laura took a while to calm down, but she eventually pulled herself together and decided to go home for a little while after I repeatedly assured her that yes, I would be all right for now. She looked almost as exhausted as I felt, and I really didn't want to upset her any further. Apparently whatever had actually happened from her perspective last night had been pretty strange. Not that it wasn't weird from my own perspective, of course, but if what she said was true — if I really had "disappeared" from in front of her… then yes, I could sort of understand her reaction.

I lay back on my bed and stared at the ceiling. The silence seemed oddly oppressive, but I couldn't be bothered to get up and put on something that made noise. I was used to the silence by now. This house was always quiet. Most of the time I didn't notice it, but for now it seemed particularly noticeable.

I blinked a few times and continued to gaze at the featureless patch of ceiling above my bed. My mind started to wander as I considered everything that had happened so far.

Things were starting to come together in my mind, but they seemed highly improbable, if not impossible. How was this all happening?

I made a mental checklist in my mind.

Okay, I thought. Let's go through these things one at a time.

The main mystery was how on Earth I was suddenly able to see and speak with my sister. This was something that should be impossible, and yet it wasn't. She seemed just as bewildered as I did at the concept.

That led on to the second mystery: our apparently different memories of what had happened in the past. My memory clearly believed that she was… gone, along with my parents. That was surely a fact that couldn't be argued with. The house I was in was so silent right now because they were gone. If they were still here, I'd have been able to hear my parents talking and my sister probably listening to whatever God-awful pop group she'd seen on the television that week. But they weren't I was here, alone.

And yet she seemed to think that I was the one who was not around any more. Her reaction to me was very similar to my reaction to seeing her again. She seemed to think that my presence was the thing that should be impossible.

That was the part that didn't really make sense to me. How could we both be right? Because we both clearly believed that we were right.

There was only one real possibility, but I couldn't even bring myself to think it, it seemed so ludicrous. And yet it continually crept in to the corner of my mind, begging me to consider it further.

"Ah," came a familiar and unwelcome voice; an oddly-soothing voice. "So you're starting to get it."

I sat up suddenly and looked around. I couldn't see where the voice was coming from. It seemed to fill my mind rather than my ears; to come from all around me, everywhere and nowhere.

"What is this?" I asked in an unsteady voice. "Who are you?"

"Oh, you've found your voice at last," said the voice. It was taking a somewhat patronising tone that I didn't much care for, but the feeling of fear was overriding annoyance at the moment. "Good. That will make conversing with you much easier."

"You didn't answer my question," I said, trying to sound assertive but just ending up painfully aware of how much my voice was quavering.

"Calm down," said the voice. It was as smooth as butter, and I couldn't help feeling soothed by its tones, even though it also scared me. "My name is not important right now. I mean you no harm, though."

Somehow I wasn't entirely convinced, but I said nothing in response to it.

"Doubtless you are trying to make sense of what is, after all, a very strange situation, correct?" it continued. "And doubtless you are rapidly coming to the conclusion that something that appears to be fairly implausible must, in fact, be the explanation, yes?"

"Yes," I said meekly.

"Tell me what you think is happening," said the voice bluntly. "And then we'll go from there."

I paused. I felt ridiculous even contemplating saying these things out loud. And yet here I was talking to some sort of presence that may or may not be a figment of my own imagination. In for a penny, in for a pound, I thought.

"All right," I said. "Clearly I am… going somewhere sometimes. Otherwise Laura wouldn't have seen me disappear."

"Go on," said the voice, goading me.

"And when I… go somewhere, it's a place where my sister is."

"Yes."

"When I meet my sister, she has no memory of… that night. Instead, she seems to be convinced that I am the one who… passed on."

"Continue."

"Therefore, the only possible explanation for all this is that…"

"Yes?"

"Is that…"

"Just say it."

I swallowed, grit my teeth and remained silent for a moment.

"The only possible explanation," I said again after a moment, "is that the 'sister' I'm seeing is… a different version of her to the one I lost back then."

"Bravo!" said the voice. I heard what sounded like a slow clap, and a figure that absolutely wasn't there before was suddenly standing by my bed. It was indeed giving me a slow clap. I instinctively recoiled and pressed myself into the corner of my bed, as far away from the figure as I could possibly get.

I could tell it was the same figure I'd seen in the mirror the other day. I avoided looking at it. It freaked me out then, and it was freaking me out now, not least because it had appeared out of nowhere and was now standing in the middle of my room as if it was the most natural thing in the world. It didn't belong here, and I very much wanted it gone, but I had the feeling that wasn't going to happen until it had finished whatever its business was with me right now.

"Yes, indeed," it said, turning to face me. "And do stop cowering. I told you I didn't mean you any harm and I mean it. You're far too interesting for me to let you get hurt."

Interesting? Me? I thought it, but didn't say it.

"Yes, you," it said, apparently reading my thoughts. This didn't make me feel any better. "You're an intriguing one, which is why I'm here now."

"Are you… the one who is making these strange things happen?" I asked uneasily.

"Heavens, no," said the figure with a ghastly laugh that chilled me right up my spine. "I don't have that sort of power. I'm just… keeping an eye on things, shall we say. You see, the things that are happening to you are… a bit of a concern. They're not supposed to happen, in short. You shouldn't be able to do the things that you're doing. But you are."

"And… what am I doing?" I asked. I wasn't sure I actually wanted to know, but I felt like the figure was expecting that I should ask it.

"Hmm, how to put this in terms you can understand," said the voice in a condescending tone. "Basically every so often you're crossing a 'threshold' — a boundary between worlds, I guess you'd call it — and that, not to put too fine a point on it, is causing problems."

"What kind of problems?" I said.

"That's… not important right now," said the figure. "For the moment, I'm simply studying what is happening with you and then we'll work out what the best thing to do is. In the meantime, you get to see your sister again when you thought that became impossible the moment she died. Pretty great, right?"

Something snapped in my mind and the fear was gone, replaced with anger. I looked at the figure for the first time. It was oddly androgynous, dressed all in black. I couldn't tell from either its figure or voice whether it was male or female. Its skin was pale as snow, and its eyes, which were looking straight at me, were a sparkling ruby red. It was both beautiful and terrifying to look at.

"Pretty great, you say?" I growled. "Pretty great? Do you have any idea what I've been going through? How difficult this all is to deal with, how much of a complete and utter headfuck it is to be seeing Alice again?"

"Yes," said the figure simply and calmly. "I've been watching all of this since it started. I've tried to appear to you a few times before this but you… well, you showed that you weren't quite ready to process the information just yet."

"And you think I am now?" I said, the volume of my voice rising. "You think I'm 'ready' for whatever your weird little plan is? Well, I'm not. I'm out. I just want some peace. I want a normal life. I want to be able to grieve properly for the people I have lost and move on. I want to be able to concentrate on my future rather than being constantly reminded of the most painful thing in my past. I just want to live, for fuck's sake."

I wasn't sure, but I thought the figure looked slightly impressed at my outburst.

"Okay, okay," it said, brushing something off its arm with a dismissive expression. "Perhaps this was a bad idea to come here and talk to you today. You're still clearly… dealing with a lot of things. I will leave you in peace for now, but like I say, the strange things that have been happening to you are nothing to do with me. Or, rather, I should say, they're not caused by me. And they are going to keep happening to you until you're ready to deal with what's going on. I'll ask you one last time before I let you go back to staring at the ceiling with that vacant expression on your face: are you ready to deal with this?"

"No!" I yelled. "Please! Leave me alone!"

"That's all I needed to know," said the figure. Then it was gone.

I had no idea what had just happened to me. I wasn't sure if I had actually just experienced that utterly bizarre conversation, and Laura wasn't here to tell me whether or not anything strange had happened from her perspective.

Suddenly I felt very alone and isolated, and I didn't know what to do.

I simply climbed under the covers of my bed and hid in the warm darkness. I would be safe here. Nothing could get me here.

It was a childish thought, of course — I used to hide under the covers when I was a kid and afraid of monsters in the dark. But right now, the monsters seemed that little bit too real, and I wasn't ready to fight them head-on. I didn't know if I would ever be ready. Perhaps I would get there. That strange figure, whoever it was, seemed to think I would. But right now, all I wanted to do was hide away from everything and never come out.

So I hid.

Laura stayed for the whole day, and we came up with a plan. I wasn't sure I liked it, but if nothing else it would help both of us to work out what was going on.

We — well, she, mostly — decided that she should stay over and keep an eye on me. If something weird happened, I said I'd tell her, and she'd tell me if she could see anything. If nothing else, it would help to establish if I was really seeing Alice, or if I was just going a bit weird in the head. I didn't really want to think about what it meant if she didn't see anything when I did, but at least it would be proof that this was maybe something I couldn't handle on my own.

But then what if she did see something? What would that mean then?

These questions swam around inside my head as I lay down on my bed and closed my eyes. I heard Laura rustling in the sleeping bag on the floor. She said she'd try and stay awake, but she already sounded like she was getting comfortable.

Within a few minutes, her breathing became soft and regular, and it was clear that she was asleep.

I smiled bitterly to myself. Most people my age would probably be thrilled to have a girl in their bedroom. But these were hardly normal circumstances. Laura was here — let's not be under any illusions about this — to determine whether or not I was going insane.

I scrunched up my eyes tightly and tried to banish the thoughts from my head, but it wasn't really working. I rolled over onto my front and buried my head in the pillow, but it was hard to breathe. Was I ever going to get to sleep tonight?

What felt like minutes later, I woke up with a start. I could hear Laura's soft snoring still coming from down on the floor. The room was noticeably darker than it had been when I was trying to get to sleep. I looked at the clock radio; sure enough, as I expected, it was 2:30.

I sat on the edge of my bed and stretched my aching muscles. Then I nudged Laura with my foot. She gave a mumble but didn't stir.

Possibilities crossed my mind. Should I just not wake her? If she didn't wake up, I could just say I slept through the night and nothing happened. It's possible that nothing will happen anyway, but perhaps it would just be easier if she…

"Oh, hey," she groaned. I heard the sleeping bag rustle as she sat up. "What time is it?"

That answered that.

"2:30," I said. "I keep waking up at this time for some reason."

"Is something…" she began, then hesitated. "Have you seen anything?"

"No," I said. "But the last few times I've woken up at this time, I've… I've seen Alice in her room."

Laura was silent for a moment. The only sound was her gentle breathing. There was something delicate and feminine about it. I felt a strong and sudden urge to try and keep her safe.

"Do you want to go and look?" she asked eventually.

"Yes," I said, almost immediately. I felt the same usual sense of unease and fear, but rather than stopping me from acting, now it felt like it was spurring me on into action. I had to see her again. I had to see her. "Yes. Come on."

"All right," said Laura. She yawned. "Let's get this over with."

She braced herself on the side of my bed and stood up, shaking the sleeping bag off her legs. I couldn't stop myself from stealing a glance at her in the dull glow of the digits from the clock radio. She was wearing one of my T-shirts to sleep in, and nothing else. My eyes followed the contours of her shapely legs for a moment before I stopped myself. I shouldn't look at her like that.

"Hey," she said. "You all right?"

"Yeah," I said, trying to shake the impure thoughts out of my mind. "Yeah. Let's go."

We walked out into the hallway, and I led the way to my sister's room. I paused in front of the door as usual. I felt Laura place her hand on my shoulder behind me, and I felt somewhat reassured, but still uneasily.

I put my hand on the doorknob and opened it. I stepped over the threshold into the darkness of my sister's room. I felt Laura's hand release me as I stepped inside, and I knew she was hanging back to wait for me rather than intruding on this.

I sat down on the side of the bed as I had done before and reached over to try and stir my sister. She was already awake.

"Hello again," she said. "Is this going to be a habit? It would be nice to get a full night's sleep one of these days, you know."

"Sorry," I said. "I'm trying to work all this out."

"I'm just joking," she said, her voice softening a little. "I want to know what's going on too. And I know it probably means at least a few nights of interrupted sleep."

"I'm still sorry," I said. I felt a wave of emotion rising up inside me. I felt like I wanted to cry, but I held myself back from the brink. "I wish I could have done something. I wish I could have saved you."

"Whoa, wait, what?" she said. "Save me? From what? I'm here! I'm safe. See? Here."

I felt her small hand touch me on the cheek. It was freezing cold, but she was definitely there. A tear fell from my eye.

"Yeah," I said. "Sorry, I…"

"Yeah, something funny's definitely going on here," she said. "It's like… you're convinced I'm dead, right?"

"Yeah," I said in a voice that wasn't much more than a whisper.

"And… I'm convinced you're dead," she continued.

"Yeah," I repeated.

There was a momentary silence.

"No, I got nothing," she said. "Well, nothing that makes any sense, anyway."

"This isn't exactly a situation that makes sense anyway," I said to her, wiping my eyes. "So let's hear your situations that don't make sense."

"No, they're too stupid," she said. "They couldn't possibly be happening."

"Come on," I said. "You can tell me."

There was no response.

"Alice?"

I wondered what weird suggestions she had, and my mind started wandering, trying to think of some of my own. All of them just seemed too ridiculous to even consider. But like I said to her, this whole situation didn't make sense. When you rule out all of the plausible things, what you're left with, however implausible or impossible-seeming, must be the truth. I'd heard that somewhere.

She wasn't saying anything.

"Alice?" I called. I reached out to touch her, but found only bedding.

She was gone again. But now there was a different sound coming from outside the room. It sounded like someone crying.

Laura?

I stood up from Alice's bed and pulled the door open. Laura was kneeling on the floor of the hallway, sobbing.

"Hey, uh, you all right?" I said. Her head snapped up and she gazed at me with wide, tear-filled eyes — eyes that looked afraid.

"How the fuck did you do that?" she whispered in a broken voice.

"Do… what?" I asked.

She stood up and walked slowly towards me until she was so close our bodies were almost touching. Her hands moved to my face, her slender fingers caressing my cheeks, as if she was a blind girl trying to visualise the appearance of someone she would never see with her eyes. She was breathing raggedly through her mouth, and I felt her hot breath against me.

"You're really here, right?" she said.

"Yes," I whispered. Her face was very close to me. I didn't know what was happening. She put her arms around me and pressed herself against me.

"Please," she said. "Just hold me until morning."

*

I woke up as the sun was rising. My bed felt more cramped than normal, and it took my sleepy mind a moment to realise that there was something in my bed with me, another moment to realise that it was a person and yet another to remember that it was Laura.

She was still sound asleep, facing away from me towards the wall.

I had only dim memories of exactly what had happened last night, but as my brain went through its startup sequence I remembered Laura's words, her request, her plea for me to hold her until morning. I remembered how scared she'd looked. What happened?

She looked peaceful now, at least, so I decided not to wake her. I honoured her request as best I could, though, and hesitantly draped an arm over her sleeping figure.

I closed my eyes and found myself drifting off again.

*

The next time I awoke, Laura's face was right in front of me. Her hair was a mess and her eyes looked tired.

"Hey," she said. "I'm, uh, sorry about last night. Not that I imagine you're complaining."

I was suddenly very conscious of the "morning glory" erection I had, and tried discreetly to ensure that I didn't poke her with it inadvertently.

"It's, um, all right," I said. There was an awkward silence that I felt the need to fill as soon as possible. "You seemed pretty upset about something… did you see my sister?"

"No," she said, the cheeky smile from a moment ago fading instantly. "In fact, I didn't see anything."

I felt an unpleasant feeling, like icy-cold fingers crawling up my spine.

"So… I am going mad, then?" I asked.

"No," she said, her voice becoming a little more agitated. "No, you don't understand. I didn't see anything at all. You weren't there. You just disappeared, right in front of me."

Her eyes filled with tears.

"You went away," she said again. "You disappeared. I couldn't see you, couldn't find you. You were gone. You left me. Please don't leave me. Please don't go away."

She buried her face in my chest, and all I could do was put my arms around her and hold her as she broke down completely. I'd never seen her like this before, and I hated myself for the fact that I was the one who had done it to her.

"Please don't go away," she kept saying. "Please don't leave me."