Yesterdays Gone: SEASON TWO (THE POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIAL THRILLER) (Yesterday's Gone)

you doing at 2:15 a.m. on October 15?”
    “Sleeping. I woke up sometime in the morning, and my wife and son were gone.”
    “Right. But it wasn’t they who vanished. It was you. You, me, and everyone else you’ve met on this island.”
    “What are you talking about? We didn’t go anywhere.” Brent said, his exasperation clearly rising.
    “You know how you’ve felt off since the vanishings?” Ed said, “Like the world around you isn’t quite right?”
    “Well, yeah, but look around. It’s not like things are exactly normal .”
    “More than that. Deeper. Anything unusual, about the world itself? Something slightly off - like the feeling you get if someone’s been in your house when you weren’t home, or when you’re trying to remember something but can’t, or even déjà vu? It’s like all of that, but different.”  
    Ed waited for a response.
    “What are you saying?” Brent finally asked.  
    “I know this is going to sound crazy, but considering all we’ve seen, please just hear me out. This isn’t our Earth. It looks the same, feels the same, and has a lot of the same history, but this is not our world. It’s a parallel world, and on October 15, something happened here that killed millions in an instant. That same something pulled us over from our Earth to this one. You, me, and everyone you’ve met on the island so far are all from our world, snatched over at the exact instant that The Vanishing happened here.”
    “Wait a second. So people here, on this other Earth, vanished too?” Brent said, “I’m confused.”
    “Millions died in an instant, all at once. We’ve seen their corpses. But there’s a hell of a lot more people that vanished. They went somewhere; maybe to our planet, or maybe taken away by some giant spaceship; who knows?”
    “So, what does this have to do with Gina and Ben?” Brent asked, his eyes scared and confused as he tried to work out what Ed was saying. If he even believed Ed.
    “The Gina and Ben that are on Level Six, the infected people we found, they’re from this world, not ours. Everyone we’ve found that are still alive from this world are also infected with this alien parasite; the same aliens we’ve encountered. They’ve infected all who remained here.”
    “I know my wife and son when I see them!” Brent said, eyes red with emotion and struggling to hold back the tears.
    “Yes, but they’re not your wife and son; they may look the same, sound the same, and maybe even have the same histories, but they’re alternate versions of your Gina and Ben, or what we’re calling parallels.”
    Brent shook his head, “No, this is all crazy Twilight Zone shit. You’re either insane or fucking with me.”
    “All the things you’ve seen since October - the dead bodies, the aliens, the weird weather - and you choose to close your mind now?”
    “Listen, I love science-fiction. I get the idea of alternate worlds as a concept, but the reality of it is impossible. To suggest there’s millions of different realities based on each action we take, branching and spinning off new worlds, that’s all bullshit theory, not fact.”
    Ed sighed. He wasn’t sure why, but he thought Brent would be easier to convince. “I’m not saying there’s all these different worlds, different versions of us, and all that. I don’t know what there is. Hell, the scientists here don’t even have a grasp, so far as I can tell. All I know is that there are two Earths in question; two versions of us all. I met my parallel when I got here. He’s one of the scientists, hell of a lot smarter than I am, so obviously this isn’t an exact duplicate of our world. But it’s as real as you and me sitting here, and that broken beer bottle you dropped that’s stinking up the room.”
    Brent sighed with a slight shake of his head, then a gentle nod.
    He’s getting it. Just a bit more convincing.
    “OK, let’s say you’re telling the truth, or the truth as you see it, anyway. How do you know that Ben and Gina didn’t come over here with me? That they aren’t my family?”
    “There are slight chromosomal differences, the scientists said, between our two peoples. Like I said, I’m not a scientist, and I didn’t understand what they told me about that. Something about their people being slightly different, maybe more evolved, but whatever it is, they know the difference. And they tested the woman and child on Level six. They’re not yours.”

    Brent looked like he was