WARNING: This is an Alternate Universe, as it says on the tag. There are things here that violate some canon but may obey others. You have been warned.
Chapter 1: Just
I’m not much of a morning person. It’s not like I sleep until it’s three in the afternoon, but I’m not an early riser either. It’s just that sleep time was one of the times that I felt I was truly at peace. I didn’t have to deal with life, or school, or one of Dad’s crazy experiments. I had my own little piece of paradise, and I liked to keep it that way.
“Son! Wake up, son!” I heard a gruff voice yell at me.
I curled up into a ball. The soft covers of my bed caressed me, and I tried to ignore the persistent calls through the thankfully thick doors of my room.
“Come on, wake up!” the voice insisted.
“No," I grumbled as if that would silence the beast. I waved a floppy arm in the vague direction of the disturbance. "Go away."
Then, I hear the Doom theme song start up.
Duuuuuuuue-DuDuDuDUDUDuduDuuDuuuDuUuDuuDuuu-Da-Da!
It might have been funny when I was five years old, but not so much now. My eyes shot open, quick-smart.
“Okay, okay!” I yelled, flinging my hands in preparatory defence. “I’m up, I’m up!" After several seconds of not being shot in the face by a water cannon, I peeked out from between my fingers.
My Dad was there with a mug of coffee, waving it in front of me and chuckling to himself. “Feeling wide awake now?” he asked, an amused smile dancing amongst his lips.
I snatched the coffee out of his hands and downed half the contents. After a few more gulps and feeling the brew strip my insides, I peered owlishly at my father, trying to get a gauge on him.
“What’s the deal, Dad?” I demanded, placing the mug on my bedside table.
Dad’s grin widened until I was sure that it would quite possibly split his face into two.
“You know how I work in mysterious ways?”
“You mean in crazy, weird ways?” I shot back.
He looked offended. “I meant, you know how I was researching a way to get to other parallel universes?”
I waved away his enthusiasm like an annoying fly.
“No.”
I interrupted my Dad before he could get into the full swing of things. “And I meant no,” I continued with an annoyed tone creeping into my voice. “As in, ‘I don’t want to know’ rather than ‘I don’t know about it, please explain it’.” I ended my little monologue with rolling eyes for good effect. I was good at it, Dad gave me plenty of practice.
“But I’ve kept it secret for so long!” he whined, tugging at my arm. I tugged it back.
“Nope." I was about to turn away, but sighed as he made soulful eyes at me.
“You know, that only works if you’re the opposite gender of me or under ten years of age," I grouched, picking up the mug of coffee and heading towards the kitchen. “Come back when you’ve got something better.”
My Dad whipped past me, blocking the doorway. “Funny you should mention that," he said quickly, spreading his arms out around the door. I stopped with a jerk. My eyes narrowed suspiciously.
“Dad… what are you hiding?”
“Let’s just say that beyond this door is a whole new world," he replied cryptically.
I snorted and tried prying him from the frameworks. He wouldn’t budge. I still tried. I needed sustenance.
“A whole new world of food maybe. You woke me up at—” I consulted my watch “—6:30! That’s it, forget breakfast, I’m going back to sleep.”
I trudged away from the kitchen door, heading back towards my bedroom. I heard Dad scrambling behind me and then I felt a shove as he shouldered past me once again.
Now he was in front of my bedroom door in much the same manner as he did in front of the kitchen door.
I let out a frustrated sigh, shaking my head.
“Son, listen, I have something to say," Dad began, but I cut him off.
“Dad, do you know what this is?” I asked, pointing to my face.
He cocked his head in confusion.
“What?”
I narrowed my eyes and jabbed myself in the cheek.
“This is a grade-A teenager rebel that don’t listen to no authorities, capiche?”
My Dad just continued to stare at me with blank incomprehension. I sighed.
“I stopped listening to you when I hit puberty. Now I really want some sleep.” It was the weekend. I needed sleep. It had been a late night.
Dad opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted when a solid knocking sound came from down the hallway. It sounded like it had come from the kitchen doorway.
“Oh hel– Dad did you let your experiment spill into the kitchen again?” I growled, heading towards the source of the sound, post-haste.
I heard my Dad scrambling behind, but I wouldn’t let him get past me this time. I doubled up. I would find out what he did with the kitchen, fix up the mess and go to sleep. Priorities.
“Wait, son!” I heard him call behind me.
I flung open the door.
I was face to face with a winged unicorn.
“Why hello there," it said with a serene, feminine voice.
I couldn’t help myself, I threw the coffee mug at it.
The coffee mug flew pretty fast but the unicorn-thing caught the offending mug in its… sparkly glowing red field-thing. Okay, brain shutdown time. I can’t deal with this, not this early.
The winged unicorn thing seemed like it wanted to say something.
“Greetings, I hail from the land of Equest—”
I held up a hand.
“One moment, please," I mumbled, closing the door on its face. Under different circumstances I might have laughed at the poor thing’s mortified expression.
I turned to my Dad.
“What was that?!” I whispered urgently at him.
Dad crossed his arms in front of him, then immediately flung out his hands in a frustrated gesture.
“That was rude," he replied. I stared stonily at him before he relented.
“I tried telling you, but you kept ignoring me," he said.
I took a deep breath.
“One of your experiments is in the kitchen!” I almost yelled. “It’s almost as tall as me. It talks!”
My Dad nodded sagely as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
“I know right? It’s great!”
I groaned and tried to put this in perspective for him.
“What do you plan on doing with it?”
My Dad gave me the biggest troll grin I have ever seen on a living or perhaps even an imaginary creature.
“I’m going to marry her.”
I almost snapped then and there. Instead, I pushed past my Dad, walked into my room and locked the door.
“What the heck is wrong with my family?!” I shouted throwing an innocent book across the room.
I heard my Dad call out from the other side of the door.
“Just roll with it!”