If you ever hear Deejay tell it, this story is also referred to as “A Discussion on the Perpetuation of Our Species, and the Eventual Ramifications That Would Entail”. If he ever finished school, I think that was going to be the title of his PhD thesis.

–

Deejay stood alone in a dense forest, surrounded by rich greenery. He took a deep breath and smiled. I heard him talk once about how he wanted to turn Utopia into a giant greenhouse. I assume a world like this was what he had in mind, not what the rest of humanity was doing to the Earth.

The world he was visiting in this instance was a canvas painted almost entirely with green. He stood on a hill, completely surrounded by lush green grass covering every inch of the ground. Shrubs, ferns, and miscellaneous plant life in all shapes and sizes were dotted across the landscape. Massive trees stretched right up to the sky, some of them seeming to reach as high as skyscrapers. If there was any place in the multi-verse that drew comparisons to the garden of Eden, this was it, minus the snakes and confused naked people.

Deejay started walking down the hill, moving parallel to a crystal-clear river running down below. He trekked carefully down a steep incline and perched on a large rock to get a closer look in the water. Some of the fish swimming past were enormous, maybe four feet long or more. As he watched with fascination, a two-foot-long dragonfly darted past his head.

“Woah. Holy crap...”

He turned and headed back up the hill, deeper into the forest. His surroundings grew darker as he moved further into the woods. The towering trees overhead all but blocked out the brilliant sunlight above. A few pillars of light still broke through the canopy and covered patches of the forest floor in their warm glow. Deejay stood still for a minute and just took in the scenery, all clearly untouched by any sort of civilization.

“Okay, enough sight-seeing for one day. Gotta finish this report and get back home. I kind of feel like I’m corrupting this place just by being here.”

Depending who you ask, he should probably feel that way about most places.

Deejay walked over to a tree roughly as wide as his childhood home (which, for reference, was a pretty nice house) and sat carefully down at the base of its trunk. Once he was settled, he took out a tablet and started writing notes.

Entry #213

Location: North America, Earth 4-D, country N/A

Summary: The planet appears to be devoid of human life, covered mainly in dense forest. My hypothesis at this time is that evolution on this planet took a different path, meaning the great apes, among other large mammals, never came into being. Further research on the local animal population is needed to confirm this. Examples of both vertebrate and invertebrate megafauna have been observed, but no mammalian life has yet been discovered.

He tapped on the screen, and a rough map of the surrounding area appeared. There was a bright orange spot in the middle of the display, surrounded by nothing but irregularly-shaped rings of dark green and blue.

“Dang. How does this ecosystem even work? I'm like the only warm-blooded thing in the whole area. Hmm... Weird, wild stuff.”

A tiny winged creature resembling a butterfly was fluttering happily around some flowers nearby. As he started talking to himself again (or thinking aloud, as he would call it), the creature turned and flew toward him. He looked up and noticed it circling around in front of him. It moved a little too fast for him to get a good look at what it was, but he was charmed anyway.

“Heh, you're kinda cute. And hopefully not extremely venomous.”

He set down the tablet and slowly held out his gloved hand for the creature to land on. With little hesitation, it settled gently on his fingertip and stretched its wings.

“Hmm?”

The closer he looked at it, the more Deejay wasn't sure he could believe what he was seeing. He blinked repeatedly, expecting what he was looking at to change into something more understandable. It didn't.

“Woah. What the...?”

With his free hand, he fished a magnifying lens out of a compartment on his belt and held it up to his eye.

“No. Freaking. Way. This has to be a dream...”

Through the magnifying lens, he could clearly see what was standing at the tip of his finger: a tiny humanoid woman with green skin, large round black eyes, antennae on her forehead, and butterfly wings sprouting from her back. She wore simple clothes made from tiny leaves, which to his delight didn't leave a lot to the imagination. She cocked her head to the side and looked up at him, her mouth turned upward in what might have been a smile.

“Okay... This is definitely going in the report.”

There is a lot I've had to adjust to since coming to live in the Tower. The concept of infinite alternate universes, of the idea that different worlds where human history or even world history played out totally differently, where the people you know might have never met you or were never even born, that stuff I could wrap my head around for the most part. But then having to wrap my head around all the other stuff, that there are living creatures in the gaps between dimensions of reality, that demons or at least things that convincingly pass for demons actually exist, that so many things you would never have imagined as possible in any timeline somehow exist anyway...

There's a version of Earth where fairies are real. It shouldn't exist, it doesn't make any sense that it would, but it's there. I still struggle to believe it's real, but at the same time, I can hear the voice of 4-year-old me in my head, and she won't shut the hell up about wanting to go visit.

–

Alright, if I'm honest, I'd rather not tell the rest of this story at all, but there are reasons why the following discussion might actually be pretty important, reasons that will become apparent later on. At least it's relatively short as far as these stories go.

Later that afternoon, Ty was sitting in his room reading a book, his tie discarded and collar unbuttoned since “office hours” were over for the day. Deejay stuck his head in the open doorway and knocked lightly on the frame. For once, I couldn't really tell you what was on his shirt, but I know I've seen it somewhere before. It had two cartoon guys who I guess work at a convenience store or something.

“Hey. I'm back.”

“Hey.” Ty waved but didn't look up. “How was, uh, Earth 4-C?”

Deejay stepped fully into the room and stood awkwardly by the end of the couch.

“4-D. It was cool.”

“That’s the one you said was uninhabited, right?”

Deejay started to fidget, playing with the zipper on his hoodie. “Yes. Er, no. Uh- I mean, it’s devoid of human life, but it has a flourishing global ecosystem. Nice variety of flora. A few... interesting fauna, too.”

“Cool.”

Ty continued reading, then stopped when he realized Deejay wasn't leaving. He set the book down and turned to him.

“Something on your mind?”

“Yeah, I kinda wanted to talk to you if you've got a minute.”

“Okay.” He gestured to the open seat on the couch, which Deejay took but remained perched up on the edge. “What's up?”

“I mean, this is kinda weird, but...”

“Weird by our standards, or weird in general?”

“I don't know. Maybe both.”

Ty shrugged. “Alright. Well, don't keep me in suspense. Spit it out.”