Chapter 27: Chapter 27

Ellie , thought Ellie, as she made the bed. She was at work as a nursing auxiliary, and her main duties in the morning included making literally hundreds of beds.

She felt better that morning, more positive about her future. She knew it was time to leave, time to move on, and Maya’s brief awakening wasn’t going to change that. Australia seemed like an excellent idea, and the thought of no more bed making filled her with a hope she hadn’t thought possible the previous day.

“Elinor, you need to come now,” a flustered nurse called out from behind her. The over weight woman was red in the face and breathing heavily having evidently hurried across the hospital.

“Is she awake?” Ellie froze to the spot, as her brain tried to decide whether it was a good thing or a bad one.

“No, but she has a large number of visitors, one looks just like her,” the nurse breathed quickly, beckoning for Ellie to follow.

Confused, Ellie followed her to Maya’s ward, wondering why on earth she suddenly had visitors. The only people that frequented her bedside were her parents and Ellie herself. They were the only people in the world who cared that Maya existed.

Ellie walked onto the ward to see Maya standing with four men, beaming at her.

“You’re awake,” Ellie gasped, stopping shy of the party. Maya slowly shook her head, as they all stepped aside to reveal the comatose Maya lying in the bed.

Ellie looked from Maya to Maya, wondering what on earth was going on.

“This isn’t possible,” shaking her head, Ellie was unable to fathom how Maya had a twin sister that she didn’t know about.

“That’s what we thought,” two of the men said together, with exactly the same voice. Ellie looked up to see two identical men, a matching pair for the matching set of Maya’s.

“What is this, the identical twin cult?” she demanded, somehow angered by their presence.

“Is there somewhere we can talk privately?” asked Maya’s twin in Maya’s voice.

Ellie didn’t know what to say, whether to go with the strange person or not. But she had to find out, had to know who she was and why she looked like Maya.

After hesitating for a moment, Ellie asked the doctor if there was an empty room they could borrow. It seemed that talking privately involved all five of them. Ellie wanted the new Maya on her own, but that clearly wasn’t going to happen.

As Les closed the door, Ellie leaned against the wall, realising that they were in between her and the door. She kicked herself for being so stupid, but knew that help would come if she screamed.

, she thought sardonically.

“Hi, I’m Maya, but not the one you know,” smiled the twin. No part of Ellie could comprehend what was happening. This Maya may have looked and sounded like her Maya, but she was inherently different. Confident, self-assured, blooming even. Not like her broken Maya.

They all exchanged glances as the pretend Maya moved towards her, causing her to recoil into the solid brick wall.

“I need to show you something,” she said softly, “but I need to be touching you. The other Ka is in the same boat as you, he only met his mirror this morning.”

Ellie had no idea what that meant, but one of the male twins nodded, looking thoroughly perplexed. She held out a hand, not wanting Maya to come any closer to her.

Maya took Ellie’s hand and showed her the iridescent portal that had now become familiar to Maya. Ellie was astounded at the appearance of the slightly flickering shape that seemed to possess every colour of the rainbow at the same time, while remaining silver.

Maya inserted her head into it, making her head effectively disappear, causing Ellie to pull backwards, letting go of Maya’s hand. The shape promptly vanished to her, and then Maya’s head reappeared.

“Put your head through, see another world, another universe,” encouraged Maya. “You need to know that this is real. That we have travelled from a parallel universe, and that is why there are two of us.”

It was far too much for Ellie, who had spread herself flat against the wall. She looked like a cornered animal, and they all backed away to give her space.

“What on earth is happening?” wondered Ellie out loud, thinking she might be losing it too.

“You need to see,” said the identical twins in unison.

“See what?” mumbled Ellie in confusion.

“Through the portal,” said Maya, holding out her hand to Ellie, who remained flat against the wall.

“Okay, well, I’m Les,” said the shorter and somewhat portlier man of the two that were not twins. “It’s all pretty new to us all right now, just go with it, things may one day make sense,” he added with an ironic grin.

“This is Rob,” he pointed to the taller man with short grey hair who looked slightly his junior. “And these are the Ka’s.” Ellie looked at the identical twins but couldn’t compute anything the kindly man was saying.

Meanwhile, Ellie’s head was spinning with all that was circling it, and the realisation that Maya wasn’t mad hit her like a sledgehammer. Her Maya said she went to other worlds and got attacked. She escaped from locked rooms, had self-inflicted injuries in places she couldn’t reach.

Ellie sank to the floor, her pulse racing, feeling nauseated and repulsed. It was some time before she collected herself enough to address them, and they left her in silence for a moment to collect her thoughts.

“So you get taken to places against your will,” Ellie eventually addressed Maya, who was squatting down next to her, such a familiar face.

“Only when I kept waking up here,” she replied gently but nonchalantly, as if inter-dimensional travel were an everyday event. Ellie guessed it was for them.

“You woke up here? That was you? You’re Ka,” the penny dropped, as she realised one of the twins was the boyfriend that Maya had spoken of when she woke up.

“Yeah, I woke up three times. I saw you. You had your hair in a ponytail. You never have your hair in a ponytail,” said Maya, scrutinising Ellie’s face and pulled back hair.

“There’s another me,” it was too much to take in and Ellie wasn’t coping well.

“Yes, there is another you. She’s my best friend.”

Ellie remained slumped against the wall, feeling like all the life had drained out of her.

“What do you want? What are you doing here?” she demanded weakly, trying to make the world make sense again.

“Not entirely sure I’m afraid. One moment my life is peachy, the next I’m waking up and being told I’m insane and have been in a coma. Ka and I went through a portal and ended up here.”

“But Maya, my Maya, she kept being taken to places against her will, places she got hurt in, why not you?” It felt like there was a hot knife being inserted into Ellie’s chest cavity at the thought of what Maya went through alone. Because she didn’t believe her.

“I don’t know any more than you do,” sighed Maya heavily. “I just want to go home, and never wake up here again.”

“You’re welcome to come with us, and try and work out what the hell is going on,” Les offered in his pleasant manner.

“That makes you a pair of movie stars,” Ellie looked at Ka and Ka. She wasn’t one for movies so she was unlikely to recognise him, but remembered from when Maya woke up, or didn’t as it were, that the doctor said she’d taken a movie star to pose as her boyfriend in her delusions.

“Indeed,” they replied, again in unison.

“I’m so sorry,” Ellie burst out to Maya, to both of them as hot tears flowed down her cheeks. Maya held her as her as her body was wracked with sobs, tears for her lost Maya, wherever she was.

When Ellie began to calm down, Maya pulled away, asking Ellie to accompany them to Les and Rob’s house. She nodded, all sense of intrepidation towards her new acquaintances lost to exhaustion.

It felt strange to Ellie, leaving the hospital with Maya comforting her. It was like a parallel universe.