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“Quickly!”

Yalaz wheeled toward the device. A sudden burst of static tore through the silence, a sound wave appeared on the huge screen. The waveform danced erratically across the monitor, intermittent and unpredictable.

“Another nonlinear resonance.” Yalaz sighed. “The device is as inefficient as before, Ray. We can’t go any further. The last attempt increased tension by five percent, this seems even more erratic than that. Too risky.”

I let out a mirthless laugh, my voice laced with agony. “So there are more messages.”

“The real-time ones are gone, but those texts might’ve been preceded by audio messages. I haven’t checked if they’re in that wormhole yet, the signal’s pretty spotty.”

“How can we get them?” The messages might have been sent from a source outside the local laws of physics, but I didn’t care. I had to hear it, even if it was coming from hell.

“Ray… just let it go, man. I’m saying it’s impossible.”

“Are you helping or not?”

My brain stopped working, my senses went numb… I knew nothing. About myself, about my beloved, about the damn universe. What had I done to Mina? Was there a dimension the monster inside me had won?

Yalaz looked away. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“I’ll pay you whatever you want.”

“Who needs your money? Ugh.” He let out a tired sign again. “I’ll have to do some digging. But you won’t watch me, you won’t see what I’m doing. And you won’t tell Cora. I’m serious.”

I nodded quickly. To keep myself occupied while Yalaz did his work, I tried to prepare the presentation of the ‘dream televisions’ which will be scheduled in next week. But I couldn’t focus. All I could think about was those stupid texts.

The sweetness is gone, the only thing remains of her is the disaster.

I didn’t want to think about what that meant or let my brain create scenarios, but I couldn’t help it. The last dream I had wasn’t helping me at all. So sweet, so disastrous. Mina herself—her smiles, her words, even her anger and selfishness… Everything about her was so sweet.

How could this disappear? What power could destroy it? Whose?

“Ray.”

I had no idea how many hours had passed, but my eyes began to tear up when Yalaz called me. I had been on my feet for over forty hours. While my body was built to endure far more, the exhaustion I felt wasn’t in my muscles. It was deeper, a heavy weariness that had settled in my soul.

“I filtered the acquired audio data,” Yalaz handed me the device. “I heard a few linguistic pattern and then turned it off, don’t worry.” His tone was insinuating, but I just clutched the headphones like a lifeline.

“You’re welcome.” Yalaz said sarcastically and left the room. I switched on the device and watched the sound waves flicker steadily across the monitor, my own voice filling my ears.

“Today Mina Olind kissed me for the first time.”

I threw the headphones away and rubbed my ears as if the sound waves could kill me.

Fuck.

I couldn’t have done that. I couldn’t have used such a risky device as my diary. Am I stupid? I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Hesitantly, I picked up the headphones again and pressed them to my ears. I took a deep breath as I rebooted the device.

“Today Mina Olind kissed me for the first time. She ran to bus without giving me a chance to kiss her back. She was so cute, so so so so cute. I couldn’t act immediately, but tomorrow when I see her, I’ll kiss her too. I’m telling you this because the person who will most likely access this record is another me. If anyone other than Raymond Kern accesses this record, please delete it. I’m probably not going to tell you anything important. And you, Raymond, don’t you think the best part of the academy is seeing Mina Olind? I can never take my eyes off her. If she didn’t hang out with Bernova all the time, I could get closer to her. Fortunately, my beautiful Mina doesn’t seem to be afraid of me. She tells me about meteorites and natural gemstones found on Earth. She’s so genuine that I want to be like her. I want to match her brilliance. But I know I can’t, I know I’m different from her. I’m a liar. Mina doesn’t know I’m the person in the bear costume during theater week. I don’t know how to tell her. She’ll hate me, and everything will end. But I can’t stop wanting her. I can’t stop looking at her. How can I let her go now that I’ve finally found a companion for my soul? She’s the first person who makes me feel real. This is also my first trial recording, so I wanted it to be about my Mina. Mina is so special, so precious to me.”

When the message ended, I waited a moment before moving on to the next. I waited until I stopped feeling like going crazy because that wouldn’t be possible. I couldn’t be jealous of my other self. No way. I went to the same school with Mina and I couldn’t experience it? I was going to find that fucking Raymond and kill him.

“Today my Mina stabbed me for the first time.”

My mouth opened wide, I tried not to throw the headphones again. I was beginning to fear my calm tone. I’d never heard it so peaceful, like telling a tale. It was such a proud tone I was convinced the messages were not fake.

“Ever since she found out I’d deceived her, she’s been torturing me. But I’d rather have her do that than leave me silently. She thinks this will intimidate me, but she doesn’t know how beautiful she looks every time she raises her hands to hit me. No one else knows; only I see that face. That’s why I told her to ruin me more, to harm me until nothing of me remains. Yesterday, she made me drink something while we were kissing, hours later I realized it was poison. When she saw me arrive at the academy in the morning, her face was dreadful, and she ran away from me. When I stopped her, she hurled insults at me. Every time her little mouth opened to scold me, I wanted to kiss her. To make her scold me more. I wanted to be the only one in the whole world to experience her mesmerizing rage. Then she sank her teeth into my flesh, when that wasn’t enough, she pulled at my shirt and brought her knife down from my shoulder, leaving a long, deep cut. Whenever she tries so hard to make me suffer, I can’t take my eyes off her. Then she said she was a witch and I was under her spell. If that was the case, I asked her to keep me conscious, because I couldn’t bear to forget any memory of her. After hearing my pitiful confession, the storm in my Mina’s eyes subsided. She kissed me again. She was so pretty, so so so so pretty. She looked at me so beautifully with my blood on her lips that it wouldn’t matter if she made me bleed many times, I wanted to die for her. Death is the only meaningful end for us anyway, isn’t it, Raymond? Does your Mina look at you that beautifully too? I get angry when I think about missing Mina’s facial expressions in another dimension, and now you get angry too, don’t you? Haha, but don’t worry, I’m not sending you these to make you jealous. I need to share my research with you. This is probably an area of interest to all my variants: Souls. My real.”

The other Raymond in the recording sighed, and a small chuckle was heard. I also took a deep breath, paused the message, and stared at the wall. What was wrong with you, Raymond? Why are you an annoying freak in every dimension? For a moment, my hand went to my wrist. Seeing Mina’s chip was showing a bar in The Buzz, I grimaced. She never went to bars, so I had to find out what she was doing when I left here.