Twin Earth
Chapter Twenty Two

“Stop!” Rachel shouted, pulling my hand away from the controls, but it was too late. The gravitational pull of the anomaly quickly latched onto our tiny craft, hurtling us towards the centre of the ripples ahead of us. “What have you done?” Rachel screamed at me as the effects of its pull shook the ionohex to its very limits and we tried to hold ourselves in position. “We’re going to be pulled apart!”

Staring at her, I couldn’t reply. A few seconds ago, I had been convinced I’d made the right decision, but now I began to question my abilities to pull off this new mission.

‘Have I condemned yet another woman to death?’ I asked myself, but before I could find an answer, we swooped around a jet of asteroid debris that clattered all around our exterior - one in particular leaving a noticeable dent in our roof - and then everything stopped.

“Where are we? Are we through? Where’s the ripple?” Rachel asked frightened, as we now drifted in silence, the engines now dead from exhaustion.

Without replying I scanned for the anomaly, but it had gone for now. It was as if we had ended up exactly where we had started, but just a few thousand miles from our previous position.

“I don’t understand,” I muttered rubbing my head like a mad man.

“We’re fine, we’re fine,” Rachel breathed to herself. “Tom, what the hell were you playing at? We could have been killed. Are the engines completely dead? How will we get home?”

“Will you shut up!” I shouted, making Rachel jump. She looked as if she was going to cry, but seemingly restrained herself and looked away. “I’m sorry...” I paused, immediately regretting my anger. I knew it was my own guilt from making such a stupid and dangerous decision. “I’m sorry,” I repeated again softly.

“Are the engines working or not?” Rachel repeated angrily, but before I could reply another anomaly suddenly ripped open, right above our heads, yanking us towards it. “The engines Tom, the engines,” Rachel screamed, but I was too shocked to respond. I simply stared at the twisting of matter around us. Thousands of ferocious, tornado like swarms of dust and debris hurtled around us, yet this time there was no rattling, no shaking, no vomit inducing turbulence. Everything was silent as we spun peacefully to whatever dance was being played, but then I noticed the distant Earth and the moon, even the sun slowly becoming warped behind us, stretching almost beyond recognition, and the light around us grew brighter and brighter until we couldn’t bare it any longer and had to slam our eyes closed.

I painfully squinted to see as I frantically fiddled with the controls to dim the view outside our craft until eventually our eyes adjusted to the change in light. Our silent dance had ended, and apparently so had the ripple.

Neither of us spoke, instead we blinked slowly to clear our watering eyes to gaze in astonishment at the view before us.

“Is it... a reflection?” Rachel finally whispered, not removing her eyes from the huge Earth like planet now sat in front of us, but I couldn’t speak. I knew it wasn’t Earth. Africa looked wrong. Asia was in the wrong place and oceans filled the poles.

“No,” I eventually whispered back.

“Then... what is it?” Rachel stuttered.

“Another Earth.”

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