Yesterday's Gone: Season Three (THE POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIAL THRILLER)

world, the one whose life he had stolen. But he was young again, not old. He sat across from him on the bed, his palm pressed hard against Luca’s mouth, trapping his scream mostly in his throat.
    He’s come to take his life back.
    He’s mad and he’s come to get me!
    “Shhh,” the other Luca whispered, looking at the closed bedroom door, then back to Luca. “Okay?”
    Luca nodded, and Other Luca slowly removed his hand.
    “What happened?” Luca said, “How did we get here? How did you get here? What happened to the island?”
    “It’s all gone,” Other Luca said, his voice calm, no emotion. “The Darkness won.”
    “What?”
    “The Darkness. It had another name long ago. Now it is just The Darkness. It took over everything.”
    Luca swallowed, thinking back to what happened on October 15 — how the old preacher man had taken the vial from his brother and opened it. When darkness spilled out and started to swallow everything, Luca had managed to get away, and pulled Boricio away, too, though he wasn’t sure where he’d pulled his brother to.
    That’s when he wound up here. It was the last time he’d seen his brother. Luca had tried to contact Boricio several times, but was never able. Instead, he only saw the Other Boricio, with the Other Luca and Will.
    “Was it the vials? Is that what was in the vials Boricio asked me to get?”
    “We are the Light, but also can be made into Darkness by intervention from dark souls. We changed you when your brother used us to cure you. And you carried the Light over here to this world and put it in this child. But then you changed us when you found us again. You, your brother, and the others, tainted some of us — turned them into the Darkness. Our only hope was this child, Luca.”
    “What do you mean this child? ” Luca whispered. “You’re not Luca?”
    Other Luca began to softly glow, as an impossibly bright light seeped through the child, then spilled onto the blankets and wall.
    “What are you?” Luca asked.
    “What are we, ” Other Luca answered, pointing to Luca’s stomach, which, to his surprise, was glowing with the same light.
    Luca let out a startled yelp, as Other Luca quickly returned his hand to the boy’s mouth. When skin met skin, a spark of electricity shot through him, causing him to jump from the bed, in surprise rather than pain.
    He stepped back from Other Luca, trying to figure him out.
    “No, I’m human. I’m still me,” Luca said.
    “Yes, you only have a part of us inside you. This child, Luca, opened the final vial. His purity, his kindness, gave us strength to fight. But we could not defeat It . Despite all the people I pulled over to fight, we were not enough. Now the war is over, and that world is lost.”
    “Where is my family?”
    “Your father is dead. Your brother has become The Darkness, Chaos, The Void. I could not destroy it. I could not bring him back. I had to leave before he murdered us all.”
    Luca cried, swallowing tears, along with the urge to wail and wake his — Other Luca’s — parents.
    Luca suffered through a long silence, where Other Luca stared at him as if observing a rare insect even though he was the one glowing more, until he finally asked, “What happened to everyone? The other people I saw with you? The other Will, the other Boricio? Are they … dead?”
    “Will died. Boricio Wolfe, he is alive. Many died. Many are now part of The Darkness. Others, I saved, as I did you, and returned them back to their world before the Darkness could claim them.”
    Luca fell to the floor, sobbing. “I’m so sorry. I thought I was helping Boricio. I thought he’d save Rose.”
    “I know your intentions were good,” Other Luca said.
    “And I didn’t mean for you to be taken from your family and brought to my world,” Luca cried. “I didn’t mean to take your family. But I didn’t know where else to go, and I was scared. When I came here, you were gone. I didn’t know you were gone. Then, when I did see you over there, and tried to switch places back, tried to talk to you, you couldn’t see me.”
    “It’s okay,” Other Luca said as his light began to burn brighter.
    “What’s happening to you?” Luca asked.
    “I have to go.”
    “Go? Go where? Don’t you want your life back?”
    “That’s not possible.” Other Luca shook his head. “We are now one — Luca, and the Light. We cannot stay here.”
    “What? Where are you going?”
    The glowing child began to fade, barely