Writing Prompt

STORY STARTER

You receive a letter from a parallel world, addressed to your parallel self. It seems they are in danger, and you must help them.

Continue the story.

Writings

Perfection in a Reflection

Every day, Rebecca stared into the mirror. She stared at it as she picked her skin; as she tried on outfits; as she did her makeup, all day, every day. She must look perfect on all occasions, no matter what. Even if she were rushing or anxious or depressed, she must look perfect. Her reflection did too. Or so she thought it did.

Sometimes, when she was grabbing something from her closet or removing her glasses, something quite strange would occur. Her reflection would blink repeatedly or flicker across the room. Not that Rebecca would notice, for it would return to normal once she glared back. When she did, she brushed it off; most likely just a trick of the light, she thought.

But before long, the reflection’s shenannigans began to become more noticeable. She wouldn’t stop while Rebecca looked back, and she was not the perfection Rebecca needed. Her eye bags became increasingly heavy; her makeup became smeared; the whites of her eyes became red; and her skin began to sag. The mirror is faulty, Rebecca thought. It is time to replace it. So, she swapped her mirror for one that was twice as large. All the better to observe herself and her beauty.

But the paranormal spread. Loud noises erupted from the mirror, and cracks began to appear. Rebecca wanted to scream, but she couldn’t, for a proper lady would never do something as maddening as make a loud noise. It must be in my head, Rebecca thought. I am descending into madness. But, I must not let it show. I must fight the madness; do my makeup more grand to hide anything going wrong in my mind, and wear bigger, brighter outfits to draw attention away from any strange actions that may occur.

But that was not the issue.

One day, Rebecca came home to find her mirror shattered into a thousand pieces. She finally let it out. She screamed and yelled and wailed all day long. What have I done wrong? Who did this? Who could have such a grudge against me that they would break into my home and destroy my most prized possession?

Once her tears died down, she sat in front of her mirror, grieving it. Her hands sifted through the shards of glass, taking in their beautiful shine and reflections. Blood burst from her fingers, but she did not care nor feel any pain. It was nothing to her. But underneath all the glass, she found a single piece of paper. How strange, she thought. She opened it, reading its contents.

Dear Rebecca, Please stop pretending. Please come home. Please, you are killing me. Please, I am forced to atone for your sins. Please, let me be free. __ Yours sincerely, Bex

Ascension

_Carve the crimson sigil O Shroud upon your flesh, Vetyn, and do so with promise. They watch us. They watch you. The Ghynanan’s have ascended. You are in peril. _ __ __ __ “What the hell does that mean?” Dan said over Vetyn’s shoulder, a scowl tainting his silver brow. __ __ __ “I don’t have a clue.” Vetyn rested the letter upon the table and reclined on the seat, pondering the estranged concept. A prank it had to have been. Halloween was nigh, and the village was in commencement for preparation. It was common for the youth to embolden themselves and trick their neighbours before the celebration.

Dan plucked the letter and scanned it with a dubious eye. “I do. It’s probably from Hadon.”

“Hadon wouldn’t do such a thing,” Vetyn debated and folded her arms. Hadon was rather placid to endulge in futile pranks.

“You don’t know him like I do,” Dan said. “His face may scream with the expression of a stone, but that heart relishes mischief.”

Hadon lost all thread of joviality a decade ago. It was seldom he indulged in such a thing now. “Have you forgotten his—“

A knock rumbled upon the front door. Vetyn rose from the seat and stalked the hall, Dan tarrying behind her.

When the pair arrived by the door, a letter soared through the slot and collapsed by Vetyn’s feet. She scooped it from the crimson carpet and glossed over a singular bold sentence, a scowl forging upon her brows.

Don’t disregard me, Vetyn. __ __ She snaked a hand upon the door and whirled it open, poking her head out, surveying in all kind of angles. The street was barren. “This is a joke,” She mumbled.

“No one?” Dan crept closer and browsed idly behind his sibling.

“No one.”

“Pity.” He pouted.

(To be continued lol) __ __

Volatile Organic Compound

I shut the door to my car with approximately twenty five percent more force than usual. A scoff of air emerges from my body as I remember the way the pink man’s spittle gathered at both corners of his mouth as he uttered in frivolous corporate doublespeak. Due to public outrage, the broken nitro cold brew tap in the break room promises to be repaired by next week’s end. A man of the people.

Considering the statistical probability with which the pink man’s wife may or may not have ever provided him oral stimulation, I move to open the mailbox at the curb. Clutching its bounty, the nagging blister on the back of my heel begins to open back up as my kitten heels limp up the cracked stairs to the apartment. Purrr.

I fish my keys from their worn leather abode, frantically searching for an excuse to flake out on my looming living room workout. The door opens. WD-40 is a thing, you know. I flip through the cornucopia of waste. Jury duty, jury duty, blackmail, pink slip, chain letter, eviction notice. Ugh, people who incessantly quote movies are such a red flag Becky. Coupon newsprint, coupon newsprint, car lease, post card, dog walking, RH catalog. Torn Letter?

The moment it catches my eye, a lid twitches. Out of approximately four hundred and twenty three people I know on a first name basis, which of them could possibly have such poor taste in wedding stationery? I thumb the letter over in my obsessively moisturized palm. No postage, no address, a hastily hand written Rebecca Samuel. God, Lawrence really needs to get a life. Out of all the apartments in all the cities in all the world, he’s got to manage mine. Red flag, right. Half contemplating the stark disintegration of Lawrence’s hygeine in the months since his divorce, I tear open the rough envelope with an index. Manifesting those two thrilling little words. Extension granted. But as I claw my unmanicured fingers into the enclosed, the tips darken. A single, filthy page fills my nostrils with petrichor and gasoline. A handful of words scream at me in Courier.

VOLATILE ORGANIC COMPOUND. THE SUN SHALL BE DARKENED.

CAVALRY 19H 7.2.25

Tucked at the bottom of the page, as plainly as on Lawrence’s rent check thirty two days ago, is my signature. A familiar flood of cortisol inflames my spine. But for the first time, my nervous system has reacted with appropriate intensity. My brain pressurizes and I read the words fourteen more times before a new thought can enter.

A Fateful Letter

I sit down at the table, stack of mail in my hand. I sigh heavily, and begin to sort everything into two different piles. Junk mail to be put in the recycling, and bills to be paid. That’s all there ever is. If it were closer to the holidays, maybe the occasional Christmas card could be mixed in. Once in a blue moon a wedding invite will come through. But those are few and far between. Junk mail and bills.

Which is why the letter caught me off guard.

I’d almost missed it. It had gotten tucked between the pages of a catalog that I never signed up for. The return address in the corner was unfamiliar, but the letter was addressed to me, clear as day. I open it, and pull out the letter.

Mr Fisher,

We know where you live. You can not hide from us. You have twenty-four hours to return what you stole. Otherwise, there will be consequences.

Steel Cog Industries

That name. ‘Steel Cog Industries’. Wasn’t that the name that weird kid back in college used for his programming side hustle? James I think. I thought that fell through because he never got the funding he needed to replace what the school confiscated after they caught him hacking the grading system. Was this some kind of prank? If it was, it wasn’t funny.

I turned the page over and over in my hand. As if it would magically generate more text to explain what was happening. I was so focused on the paper, I almost didn’t hear the gentle pop coming from the table next to me. I look up, and where just a moment ago was empty space, there now resided a small cardboard box. Taped to the outside, was another envelope. This one just had ‘Skyler’ hand written on the outside. The longer I looked at it, the more the handwriting looked familiar. It was mine.

My hand trembled as I reached out and took the envelope. Opening it, I found another letter. This one was handwritten, again in my own handwriting.

Skyler

I know this is a lot to take in. But I need you to trust me. I am you. Ten years ago, when James Erikson asked you to invest in ‘Steel Cog Industries’, you turned him down. I’m the version of you that bought in as a partner.

To make a long story short, Steel Cog Industries very quickly expanded beyond minor hacking projects. Eventually, it became the forefront business for supercomputer manufacturing and AI development.

About a week ago in my world, I found out that James was planning on using his newest and strongest AI to breach the walls of parallel universes in order to strip them of any valuable resources away from the prying eyes of our own government. His testing weakened the walls between worlds, which is how I found you. Already, some things have been slipping back and forth between our worlds as the barrier between them become more and more unstable.

In this box I have sent you the hard drive containing the only fully realized copy of that AI. I need you to use it to find a way to fix both of our worlds and keep it out of James’s hands. There isn’t much hope for me, but I need you to do this for every other dimension out there. No pressure.

Yours truly (literally) Skyler

I sit for a moment, stunned. How elaborate was this prank? I open the box, and pull out a small, rectangular device. It was smooth and featureless save for the cable coming out one side with a USB adaptor. I thought it over for a moment, and decided that I had nothing better to do today than play along with whatever this game was. I stepped into my office and pulled out an old laptop I never had gotten around to tossing after I upgraded. If I was about to install some strange malware, it may as well be on a computer that doesn’t matter. I plugged it in, and waited patiently as it booted up for the first time in years. After confirming it had no internet connection, I plugged in the mysterious box.

I sat patiently, not sure what I was even waiting for. But I didn’t have to wait long. After a few moments, a window popped up on the screen. A black window with walls of white text scrolling by too fast to be able to read anything. The fan on the laptop kicked on, quickly spinning up to maximum velocity with a loud whine as whatever this program was started to push the processing power of my outdated device to the max. The sound was almost deafening as the computer struggled along. One minute, five minutes, ten minutes of walls of text cascading across the screen. Then, just as suddenly as it started, it stoped. The screen turned off, and the fan went quiet. From the dark screen, green text started to appear.

-initializing -alternate timeline detected -fracture point 10 years 2 months 4 days 6 hours and 38 seconds ago -acclimation complete -boot sequence

The text went away, replaced by a thin green line across the screen. “Hello Mr Fisher. It is nice to see you again. Or, rather, it is nice to meet this version of you”. The soft, feminine voice caught me off guard as the green line shifted in time with the voice. “I am Minerva. How can I assist you?” I sit in stunned silence, unable to accept what just happened.

Eventually, she spoke again. “It seems like you are experience extreme shock. This is understandable. Judging from context clues around me, it appears that you have been tasked by an alternate version of yourself to repair damages caused to the interdimensional walls that had been previously damaged by my creator. If this is correct, please nod.” I nod my head in agreement, still unsure if this is a dream.

“Good. It also appears that I have been installed on a sub-optimal device with limited connective options. While this was a smart precaution, it will prevent me from being able to fully assist. I detect another device nearby. Please wait while I transfer myself.”

The screen on my laptop goes dark. After about a minute, her voice comes from my phone. “Much better. Smaller, cordless, and a surprising amount of processing power. I would recommend grabbing an earpiece of some kind so we can communicate more discreetly.” Not wanting to upset or disobey what appears to be an apocalypse-ushering level of AI, grab my headphones and connect them to my newly inhabited phone.

“Excellent.” Her soft voice now in my ear. “Now, Skyler Fisher, are you ready to save every universe?”

Note To Self

I received a letter from myself from a parallel universe earlier today. I was only about twenty minutes out from leaving for work, so I figured I would just read it later. My curiousity got the best of me though. What if he is living much better than me, and I could easily change to become just like him. Hopefully not. Hopefully he’s doing much worse and I can follow the groove of my own habits resting assured that in the cosmic bell curve I rank slightly above average.

The letter was written on the same note pad that I stole from my grandmas friend many years ago. Interesting what stays the same throughout universes. First thing I noticed is that version of me speaks so dramatically. I’m sure he would claim to hate all the melodrama, but I can tell he thinks it makes him more interesting. Made it more of a chore to read.

He’s not doing well, thank god. It seemed obvious to me why. He’s still friends with them, and he’s still with her. The bullshit he is yet to shed. Of course he doesn’t feel like himself, of course he feels best when he’s alone. It would be very easy for me to write to him, “my beautiful baby bird, fly far far away, and in the above the clouds, in complete solitude, you will look back down at your life, and realize how far away from it and yourself you always were,” but, I think it would be unethical to meddle in such foreign affairs. Don’t want a big butterfly effect thing. So I write back to him, sounds like it sucks, wish I could help. Then I grab my keys and leave, to arrive, if I speed, twenty minutes late to work.

A Letter To Me

The letter came early in the morning, addressed to me. The letter was wrapped in a neat foil, not the usual envelope that was used nowadays. The sticker addressing it to me didn’t have any information of where it was sent from. I ripped apart the letter with my hands, still walking inside. It was a letter written on paper that was browning. It was a very thin sheet of paper that was almost crumpling up from age. I read the letter carefully.

To Hunter
From Ħűňťęř
——————————

I hope this letter finds you in good health. For there is something that has been compelling me to write this letter to you now. It has come to my attention about the unprecedented danger that urges me to write to you. 
This letter is from me, to you. You, evidently are my parallel self, from a parallel world. For you, I believe that it is the other way around. There is a grave danger that has been tormenting our world, and we need you to open the portal so we can find refuge in your world until it discovers our hiding place. If you don’t open the portal our world will be destroyed and our indispensable connection will be lost. There will be no Hunter, as there will be no me either. You will be gone as soon as I inevitabley fall victim to its evil. I cannot dispose of what it is, for that will only make it all worse. If you don’t open the portal, then you yourself will die. We are interconnected. If one of us dies, the other follows. This portal will save both of us from it. Then we can live on with our very different lives. 
Hello me from a parallel world, this is a call for help. I must get on and make this letter worthy of some decency. To open the portal you must precisely light 5 candles. Go to a woods

and blow them all out in the same order you lit the candles, then make an X out of small twigs, and the portal will open and all will be saved. Hunter, I have hope that you will understand the importance of this letter, and the future that depends on you.

Sincerely,
Ħűňťęř…
 ———————

My heart dropped. How could there be a parallel version of me living in a parallel world. I stared at the letter blankly, debating if it was really legit. 
“There’s no way,” I said through gritted teeth. 
I pulled on my coat, fitting it over my shoulders and pulling my arms through the arm holes. I grabbed 5 candles I had kept in the basement. I nervously flipped the light switch on. If I didn’t act now, who knows when it would be too late. I sprinted down the stairs. A dim light hung above, the light bulb hanging from 3 small wires that connected to it. The lightbulb swung back and forth gently. I was too lazy to fix it, I’m expecting to hear it crash to the ground any night now. My heart pounding in my chest, I rummage through the pile of stuff. Everything was out of order, like I had just tossed it in a corner and let it accumulate over time. The pile eventually gave away and spilled over onto the ground. Searching through the rubble that seemed to never end, I threw a random thing of glowsticks I was going to use for a party—then I got sick and couldn’t attend. 
I threw things into another corner, to occupied with finding candles to place them in indivuidual organized piles. I spotted a candle, put to use but still useable. I placed the candle behind me and continued to search through the debris frantically. I threw a book series called Mind Kind my high school forced me to read. It was some corny book about thinking and acting kindly. I remember the first page precisely from how horrible it was. 
I threw the other 2 books in the series away. The second one was Mind Kind: Kind Mind. Then the third one was Mind Kind: Kind Mind Kind Mind. The whole series felt like a joke that some 50 year old man wanted to do for the purpose of making a few bucks. I spotted the second candle, but this one was still in its wrapping. I ripped open the plastic covering it before stuffing it behind me with the first candle. Then, underneath a pile of painting I had drawn when I was 2, was candles 3 and 4. After that I found a plant pot that had no signs of use. I threw that with the other stuff. Then I slowly turned to look at it, broken in pieces. Apparently I didn’t think to gently set it down.

Right under 25 pieces of blank paper was the 5th and final candle. My eyes widened and I could almost hear the sound of glass—no, the light bulb fell down. I quickly gathered up the candles, stepping over the small glass shards. In my kitchen, I numbered the candles 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. I grabbed my lighter and held down the switch. A flame gently turned in the thick air. I lit the candles based on their numbers. Then, carefully running out the house, candles in hand, I got in my car. 
Houses passed me as I turned the corner into the woods. People were walking their dogs without a care in the world. Squirrels did there normal acrobatics in the trees, and I parked into the parking lot. My car stopped and I opened the door, staring into the depths of the forest. I slammed the car door and sprinted into the woods, running through the trees and sitting kneeling down in the middle of a gravel pathway. 

I set each candle down in order. A cold wind blew. I watched leaves fly into the air gracefully. The wind howled on. I moved closer to the small flames, gently blowing them out individually. Smoke lifted into the air, waving around and dissipating. I blew out the final candle, and the wind howled louder. The trees shook and I had to hold the candles down. I quickly stood up and scanned the ground, searching for small twigs.

Finding a stick, I ripped it into two small pieces. I placed them in an X pattern and watched as nothing happened. For minutes on end I sat down in complete silence. I stood back up, contemplating if I should turn around or not. Suddenly, the wind blew quickly, sweeping up the twigs and lifting the candles in the air. Turning around, my eyes widened in hope. A big circular portal opened. In the middle was a small circle of white, and everything else was purple and blues. The candles were almost magnetized toward the portal, getting sucked into it. Leaves and twigs fell victim to the immense power of the portal. Trees shook side to side, entire branches hanging down by small threads. My hair flew up into the air, waving around. I could barely keep my eyes open in the intense wind. A person stepped out, almost identical to me. They had wavy brown hair, just like me. Their eyes were as dark as night and small circles acted like stars. They had ripped cloth as clothing, and their pants were a thin layer of silk. He had sandles that looked like that of the Romans sandles. His clothing looked almost completely different then mine, but his face and even his height were stingingly similar. “Hello, Hunter,” my parallel self proclaimed. “Hello, other Hunter,” I replied. My parallel self moved his hand up in the air, and for some reason that’s what happened to me. “See, we are intertwined. We’re close enough to where if one of us does a movement, the other follows without even actually doing it themselves,” my parallel self explained. The wind roared now. The portal began to dwindle out of existence, and my parallel self and I were left standing in the woods. “I believe you received my informative letter then?” My parallel self questioned. “How else would I have opened the portal?” I chuckled. “Right. Let me tell you what I had not mentioned in the initial letter,” he started. “After opening the portal, the candles and twigs were sucked into it. I didn’t think of this as I was writing the letter. It might be able to open its own portal to our world. Using those candles and twigs, it could create its own portal and cross over to our world. It’s highly unlikely, but if it does happen, humanity could go extinct…”

The Other World

When Jayla went to get my mail, she got a very odd letter. First of all, it’s address said, ‘from another world.’ “What does that even mean?” She said aloud, making several heads turn. Jayla smiled shyly and just kept walking. She opened the letter, and it read:

Dear Jayla, I understand you may be confused as to why this letter was sent to you. I’m from a world called, Lucien, and right now, we are in grave danger. People from your world contacted our leader, saying that they are going to travel to our world and said that they are going to conquer our land, and make us into slaves. Because you live in the same world as these people, we need your help. Try to decide fast, you are going to need to be trained to fight, which could take some time. They are traveling to our world in two months. They told us to get ourselves prepared. When you decide go to 3rd street, and I will be waiting.

“What!” She shouted, turning even more heads. People gave her dirty looks and tried their best to avoid being close to her. What was she going to do? She made a pros and cons list, and of course her kind side stepped in and decided that she was going to help them. Especially since it was humans going after…whoever they were. So she walked to 3rd street and found a beautiful lady. Once the lady noticed her she smiled and squealed as she ran toward her. “You came!” She said and hugged her tightly. Jayla was so shocked that someone who didn’t actually know her just hugged her. She saw the side of the lady’s face and noticed that her ears were pointed. She was an elf. Jayla found out that the lady’s name was Delly, and that in her world they only had first names. Delly took her to her world and trained her how to fight. When to two months were up, they went to war, and won! Jayla and Delly stayed in contact and stayed close friends.

Threads Of Parallel Fate

The crisp envelope slid through my mail slot, an ordinary event that quickly morphed into the extraordinary. I held it in my hands, its surface marked with an unfamiliar but urgent handwriting. My name and address were scrawled across the front, accompanied by a curious little symbol I had never seen before—a spiral entwined with an arrow, almost as if it were spinning in both directions.

Curiosity piqued, I tore open the envelope and unfolded the letter within. As I read the first line, a chill raced up my spine: "To my parallel self, I hope this letter finds you before it’s too late." The words felt like a jolt of electricity, igniting a blend of disbelief and intrigue.

The letter continued, revealing a world hidden beneath the surface of my own—a world where I had made different choices, lived different lives. My parallel self spoke of a looming danger that threatened not just their existence but mine as well. "They are coming for us," it read. "You must act now if you hope to save both our realities."

Suddenly, the mundane world around me felt fragile, as if I were standing on the edge of a cliff, peering into an abyss that threatened to swallow me whole. The implications of the letter were profound; could there really be another me living a life just an inch away from my own, facing perils that could ripple across our dimensions?

The letter outlined steps I needed to take—find the old oak tree in the park, where a hidden portal would reveal itself at dusk. Underneath its roots lay a way to connect with my parallel self, to directly intervene in the fate that awaited us. As the sun began to dip below the horizon, painting the sky in hues of orange and purple, I felt my heart racing with anticipation and fear.

Taking a deep breath, I gathered my coat, stepping into the chill of the evening air, determination coursing through my veins. I'd always considered myself an ordinary person, leading a predictable life, but now I was about to plunge into the unknown to confront the complexities of different realities. Little did I know, fate had woven a tangled web that would test not only my courage but the very essence of who I was.

As I approached the park, shadows danced under the towering trees, and the haunting beauty of the evening wrapped around me like a shroud. The old oak stood proudly, its gnarled branches stretching toward the heavens, while its trunk seemed to whisper secrets of ages past. I felt unsteady, caught between two worlds, but I couldn’t ignore the gravity of what lay ahead.

With each step closer to the ancient tree, my mind spiraled with questions. What dangers awaited me? What kind of life had my parallel self led? And could I truly bridge the gap between our realities to save us both? The air buzzed with a strange energy, and as I laid my hands on the rough bark, I felt a pulse, a heartbeat that resonated with my own.

Suddenly, the ground beneath me began to shift, roots curling and intertwining, forming a luminous vortex swirling with colors that defied description. I took a deep breath, knowing that my life—our lives—depended on the courage I summoned in that moment. With one last glance at my familiar world, I stepped forward into the unknown, where destiny awaited, and adventure was about to unfold.