Plague Doctor

Yu Chi ransacked the already messy room before he finally found what he was looking for. It was a ping pong ball. He walked to the working table and shoved all the crap away.

“Captain Gu, let us assume this is Earth.” Yu Chi placed the yellow ping pong ball on the table and then grabbed a mirror to place it beside the ping pong ball. “There is another Earth inside the mirror.” Then, he used his phone as a mirror to place on the other side of the ball. “There is another Earth here too.” Yu Chi’s eyes danced with excitement, “They are different even though they are reflecting the same things!” Gu Jun nodded slightly, he slowly caught up to what the man meant.

“That split cross.” Captain Yu excitedly grabbed over a pen and searched for a piece of paper. He said, “Many people don’t understand the importance of symbolism. Symbolism is at the start of every civilization. They might be simple but they carry the common messages of a shared community. It is the precursor to cultural empathy, and language… So Captain Gu, why this symbol? What is the message ‘we’ try to transmit in the signal?” Gu Jun had been pondering the same question. He already shared his opinion regarding the transmigrating power of the cross and he understood from Yu Chi that the cross was featured every time he saw an illusion about Gu Jun.

“Captain Yu, I see two possibilities about this. One, this split cross symbol possesses some kind of power like the Ancient or Branching Seal, and was adopted by the signal transmitter as a medium; Two, the transmitter chose this symbol and then imbued it with power.”

“Yes, the order is important.” Yu Chi nodded incessantly, the man appeared like he was on drugs. “But they must have something to tell us from the specific usage of this symbol! They know about the weak transmission of this symbol but they still use it. Why?… I’ve considered many possibilities, could the symbol represent something more like sunlight or crosshair? I could not figure it out until today, until your appearance. After the talk we had, something cleared in my mind. See…” Yu Chi opened another piece of paper and drew a split cross on it. It had 4 ends and a disjointed centre.

“We’ll call your world the Phecda World and mine the Mysterium World.” Yu Chi said as he wrote down Phecda World on one end and the Mysterium World on its corresponding end. “They’re split open right? But how about now?” he added a stroke to join the two lines together. “They’re now connected! Captain Gu, they’re all parts of Earth.” Yu Chi widened his bloodshot eyes. “This whole split cross in its entirety represents the Earth.”

Gu Jun’s heart quivered but different from Captain Yu’s excitement, as he studied the split cross, a spine ran up his spine. “Captain Yu, before I arrived at the Mysterium World, I transmigrated to two different worlds, they too are different versions of Earth. One of them contains landmarks that I know do not exist in both of our worlds.” He already asked Yu Chi earlier about the existence of Innsmouth and Arkham. Gu Jun took over the pen and wrote down the Wasteland World and Massachusetts World on the two unoccupied ends and connected them. The four worlds then formed a complete cross.

“Yes, yes…” Yu Chi mumbled as if cast under its spell, “Four worlds, you’ve visited all four worlds of Earth…” Gu Jun pondered deeply. This explained why his parents and Uncle Lee could not locate Innsmouth even though it should be located in Massachusetts. Because it was not the same Massachusetts. Similarly people from the Wasteland World would not be able to find Hawaii. Some places even though they existed on Earth, they were exclusive to specific worlds.

“Captain Yu, is it possible for these worlds to have their independent timeline?” He posed another question, “Both our worlds are in the year 2022 but the Massachusetts world appears to be around the early 20th century and the Wasteland World’s timeline is probably about 100 years into the future…”

“Yes, it’s possible but it might be a temporal distortion during travelling as well…” Yu Chi grumbled. He scratched his hair anxiously, “I suspect there are more than these 4 worlds. The cross is the chosen symbol because these four worlds are more deeply connected, but that does not preclude the possibility of other worlds… Of course, that is just my guess… It’s not a parallel universe but different reflections of the same world. They’re supposed to be split but they’re now crossing, will they one day coincide?” Yu Chi was drawn into fanaticism but his rambling chilled Gu Jun even further, ‘coincide’?

That sounded impossible but he, someone from the Phecda World was standing at the Mysterium World. Furthermore, the witch wanted to consume him so that she could descend on the ‘innocent and perfect world’. Thinking back, it was possible that the witch originated from the Massachusetts World. She could not physically transmigrate but her shadows could. His constant transmigration and Yu Chi’s illusion… were they caused by the imminent coincide of the many worlds?

“Captain Yu…” The more he thought about it, the more chilled he was, “Is it possible that we’re the ones who triggered the closing of the split cross?”

“That is possible, anything is possible.” Yu Chi pulled out a handful of his hair. “Or this is already happening. Like part of nature, rising and falling of the tides. But we’re the ones who discovered it first. Captain Gu, our worlds might not have much time left, the responsibility on our shoulders is heavy…”

Gu Jun frowned deeply, how would the worlds coincide? Time was a concept, space was not. Different worlds could have different locales but the locales were reflections of each other. So if the four worlds coincide, which space would be replaced? And which space would be dominant?

“The most immediate thing for us to do is to contact that signal…” Yu Chi was still mumbling, “We need to figure out a way to respond to it…” They were both unique PTSD patients. The long discussion on supernatural events almost drove Yu Chi insane and Gu Jun’s headache was returning.

At that moment, there was a knock on the rental’s steel door. That snapped the duo out of it. A beautiful female voice came from outside. “Captain Yu? Open up, I know you’re in there, I bought some food for you.”

Gu Jun sighed and shrugged. “Your girlfriend?”

“Told you, I have no girlfriend…” Yu Chi whispered, “She’s a colleague, a former teammate! Quick, put these things away, we mustn’t let her know!” Yu Chi threw himself into the clean-up detail. Gu Jun helped. “We have to come up with an explanation. Who am I, why am I here? What is our relationship?”

“Hmm, how about you being a drifter?” Yu Chi suggested, “I saw you rummaging for food among the trash and I brought you home out of kindness. Yes, that’d work…”