Dark Matter
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you’re free to see how she found at least some iteration of this cat irresistible.
with the name Max inscribed upon it.
The usual thing, Charlie replies.
Theres a lot of yellow in that red, he muses.
He announces a pop quiz, commanding the group to tear a sheet of paper from their notebooks.
No one uses notebooks anymore, a student protests.
Good luck, he says, walking out on his class and his job.
Jason A and Amanda emerge from the Box into yet another reality, this one sylvan and peaceful.
There was no atmosphere!
Jason A gasps after slamming the door on that dumb universe.
Amanda panics, running down the infinite corridor until she at last collects herself.
Lets start opening doors and hope one of them looks like home.
The next door they try leads to a Chicago even colder than the one we know.
Whatever ecological catastrophe has befallen thisespeciallyWindy City has blanketed everything in ice.
Theres no running water or electricity, but Jason A finds some matches.
Its enough to get a fire started to venture to save Amandas life.
I want to show you something, Jason B tells him.
But hes disarmed when his old college pal offers him a very special psychoactive drug.
No one can refuse the Lavender Fairy!
Jason A, meanwhile, has managed to source some warm clothes and camping gear in that abandoned house.
The Box has been buried in the snow.
Jason A speculates that the Box was responding to Amandas subconscious by guiding them into this snowbound world.
If thats the case, Jason A theorizes, We could go home.
They dig their way back in and enjoy a thermos of hot something-or-other.
Amanda seems to accept this, saying that her Jason wouldve tried to rationalize it.
She asks Jason A if he was wealthy in his world.
He was not; Jason B obviously was.
Jason A realizes that today is Charlies birthday.
Mother and son take a seat in the backyard beside a tree.
Tell me the story?
Charlie had a twin brother who had an unspecified birth defect.
Max lived long enough for he and Charlie to become inseparable, Daniela says.
But Max died during a surgical procedure when he was just a few years old.
The family planted a tree in the backyard in his memory, stirring his ashes into the soil.
Leighton A, meanwhile, emerges from the Box with Jason B. Jason B returns home to find Daniela and Charlie making dinner.
He perceives that he missed something significant, but he doesnt know what it is.
Daniela is, understandably, pissed.
Shes not placated by her husbands disclosure that he quit his job today.
He thinks she should quit hers, too, and go back to painting.
We dont have to worry about money anymore, he tells her.
If only it was so simple!
