Earth, 2030. Hyannis, MA.
I can't believe it's only been ten years here. For us, it's been a lot longer. I take a deep breath, and knock on the door to the condo. After what seems like an eternity, the door hesitantly opens, as though time is rejecting the meeting about to happen. A slightly wrinkled face peeps out from the house, fearful of what is waiting just outside. With a gasp, the owner of the face faints. I turn to face the others.
"That could have gone better," I say to Dusty, who just glares at me, "What?"
She says nothing, and simply sighs. Suddenly, the door opens, revealing an old man in his seventies, slightly balding. I am very familiar with that face. Dad. He stares at us with unbelieving eyes, totally unsure of what he is seeing. After a moment, he shakes his head, and reaches for the nearest object he can find. An old lamp, sitting on the counter next to the door.
"I don't know who you are," he shouts menacingly, raising the lamp, "but I don't want you anywhere near my wife!"
I stand my ground, while Rose cowers in fear, understandably. Before the lamp handle strikes me, I try to reason with the clearly confused and angry husband in front of me. "Wait," I say, "Don't hit me. I'm your son, um...uh...Sean!"
The words hit him harder than I was expecting. He visibly stumbles, dropping the lamp, which shatters. "No," he whimpers, "It can't be. My son died ten years ago. It was on the news. You can't be him, and you can't be real. All I have of him are a letter and a journal, neither of which make any sense," he curls up into a ball, and starts crying. I rush over to give him a hug, the type of hug only a son would give his father.
"It's really me," I say as he starts to relax, "The letter and the journal are telling the truth. I wrote both of them. Me, Dusty, Rose, and Chase. We just wanted you to know the truth. I can't think about how much it hurts to believe your son and daughter are both dead. But, here we are."
I break the embrace. Dad looks at me funny. He smiles a small smile. "It really is you, isn't it," he remarks, "Come in."
We enter the house, still not completely sure what is supposed to happen. Looking around, I see that Dad moved Mom, the owner of the fainting face, to one of the big chairs in the living room. We all gather there, Dusty and me on the floor, Rose and Chase on the couch. We sit in an awkward silence, until Chase speaks up. "Well, what are we waitin' for? We came here to tell them what happened while we were gone, so let's do it already!"
I chuckle, Rose and Dusty groan, my dad looks at us curiously, and my mom starts to wake up. Looking at us wide-eyed, she looks about to scream. Dad walks over and puts his hand gently on hers and looks into her eyes. "It's okay, Cindy, I think that they are Sean and Sara. Something about them seems very familiar."
Seemingly placated for the time being, she calms herself down.
"Now, I need to know," I begin, "Does the TV have an HDMI cable? It is important that I know, so that I can connect the computer to it. Then, I can show you what we've been doing."
"Yeah, it does," Dad answers, "The cable is attached to the DVD player. So, where is this computer of yours? I didn't see you come in with one."
"It's right here, Dad," I say, opening up the cover on my leg, revealing a keyboard and a set of ports. Opening up the cabinet, I take the cable and detach it from the player. Snaking the chord back out from behind the TV, I attach it to the port labeled HDMI. Dad turns on the TV, and switches it to HDMI 2. Typing in a code, I bring up the recording of our adventure that the multiverse created*, and it appears on the screen.
"Now we can get started," I say.
I press play, and the screen goes black...