What Follows

Today’s prompt: “Choose a person who interests you. Write about following the person home.”

You’re familiar with the concept of the multiverse, right? The idea that in an infinitely large universe, there could be an infinite number of worlds, all different, because an infinite universe contains infinite beings making infinite choices. Perhaps some would only be different in that you had one less cup of coffee yesterday than you did in another realm. In others, you might never have existed, and in still others there could be massive differences, like watching historical fiction spool out where the Confederates or the Axis powers had won. Authors of genre fiction like to play in these realms, and comic books are notorious for them. There’s canonically a Marvel universe that’s just like the main Marvel universe, except all the members of the Avengers have beards, including Scarlet Witch and the Wasp.

Authors like to play with metafiction, as well. Canonically, comic books exist in both the Marvel and DC universes.

If the interpretation of multiversal reality that allows for all fictional universes to exist somewhere is true, then certainly some intersection with metafiction must also exist, where elements of a world are both true and believed to be fictional. Magic may exist, but be believed not to be real. This can be dangerous. And you are living in a particularly dangerous metafiction-come-true universe.

The problem with living in a world where Lovecraftian horrors exist just outside of time and space, and are worshipped by frightful cults making human sacrifices in an attempt to appease the dark gods and bring them to our realm, but whose existence and worship are otherwise unknown to the human race except where tales of their exploits have bled into fiction, is that when you’re seen reading the wrong book by the wrong person, you might be seen as a threat. You thought you were enjoying some classic horror stories. But the man who saw you checking out At the Mountains of Madness thought you were doing research to interfere with him and his fellow members of the Chesuncook Witch Coven. And that is why he found you interesting enough to follow home, fingering the knife in his pocket all the way.