Chapter 1: A New Life to Live

Gasping and coughing, trying to get air as I lay on the ground. My mind finally caught up with me as I remembered everything that happened, my death, limbo with Freya, and Paula. “I’m alive... ?” I managed to croak out before being hugged tightly by a woman, who I’ll find out in a moment that is my mother.

“Oh, Paula are you okay!?” frantically looking me over as I continue to cough up the last bit of the water. “Oh baby, you are okay, thank the Gods” Gods? I thought as she said that.

“M-mom?” looking up at her and hugging her the memories of Paula come flooding in as I remember everything she knew. A moment later I heard a siren in the distance, an ambulance was coming for me before feeling the adrenaline leaving me and passing out.

I awoke in Paula’s, well now my room as I look around, feeling a bit better now. I got up slowly and looked around. the room wasn’t your typical tween room. It wasn’t decorated in boy band posters or anything of that nature. It was however filled with cheerleading trophies. Apparently cheerleading was one of her passions, and the other was gaming. She had a serious gaming rig and streaming set up in her room. I had to check it out, it had the latest hardware, a Texas Instruments 2080 ti ... wait, Texas Instruments? Aren’t they a calculator and microchip manufacturer, not graphics cards? I shook it off as I booted the system up, Mac-OS is on the machine, but looks like windows? Maybe a mod pack ... no, it wasn’t. Fortunately, I was able to access the internet and found out that Apple was the majority of PC users and that games were made for Mac instead of for Windows.

There was a knock on the door as I was looking for what else was different and why. “Paula dear? Are you awake?” It was Paula’s mother.

“Yeah mom, I”m awake.” wow ‘mom’? It just came out as naturally as It would as if it was my own mother. I guess that’s Paula’s side of the memories that I now have. Mom came into the room with a smile as she saw me at the computer.

“Already at it again dear?”

“uh ... no mom, I’m ... just checking on a few things.” stammering a bit as not sure what Paula would say, I guess it’ll take a while for me to readily be Paula.

“There’s food in the fridge if you get hungry, and know it’s your birthday and what happened but I have to go into work, I’m the only one who can fix the networking issues and have to be on-site for this. I love you so much” She came over to me and gave me a big hug as I gave her one as well and felt right at home.

It had been an hour or so later when I got hungry and decided to go exploring, while I knew where everything was from Paula’s memory, I decided to look around for my own experience. The place was nice, very nice in fact. Two stories, plus a finished basement and finished attic, Master bedroom, 4 extra bedrooms on the second floor, two of which were occupied by me and my new brother Jake. One was a guest bedroom and the other was an office-like room, it was mom’s office she usually worked from home now since dad ... died. I remember now what happened to him. We were in a car wreck, he died instantly but me, mom, and Jake didn’t even have a scratch on us. The driver of the other car died as well, and it turned out he was driving drunk.

“Hey, sis! You’re alive!” a voice said I turned to see who it was and was instantly hugged tightly by a boy ... it was Jake “I was worried about you! You passed out as the ambulance got here they said you were alright, and to keep an eye on you just in case.” “I’m alright now Jake, everything is fine.” I said and stroked his blond hair, again all seemingly natural, guess Paula’s family was a lot closer than mine at this age. “Come on let’s get something to eat.”

After a little food and just some quiet contemplation as we watched some TV. I could feel the love Paula had for Jake, and now slowly I’m starting to feel it as well as I learn about my new family. Paula was wanting to become a FaceTuber for games, and now legal to do so. Jake, on the other hand, didn’t know what he wanted to do. He felt stressed about not being able to choose, I wonder why? I decided to take a deeper dive into Paula’s memories and learned that children should decide what they wish to do by 13 so they can apply to the proper secondary school or High School. My eyes shot open as the realization hit me finally. I didn’t realize it at first but the Texas Instruments graphics card and the Mac-OS being the top computer operating system, it seems so familiar I didn’t put two and two together. I told Jake I was going to my room for a bit and hurried upstairs.

“Freya! Can you hear me?” Not wanting to shout too loudly and have Jake investigate.

“Yes my child I can” Slowly she appeared before me “What is it you want Luke?”

“This isn’t the same place I left!” I exclaimed.

“No this isn’t your world, but this is Paula’s world. A parallel Earth some things are different, yet many things are the same, for example, what you call 9/11 never happened here, none of the planes made it to their targets because of the brave people who stopped it. Yet the ‘war on terror’ still happened. Some things were meant to happen and some things could change. And you dear Luke, now Paula, get a second chance at life.”

“So, I’m dead on my Earth and moved to this parallel Earth? How is that possible? Wait never mind, you’re a goddess, and can do many things. Is there a me here? I mean a Luke Masterson?” I asked, curious as to if my doppelganger was here. Why did I think of that?