The Other Side

A science fiction short story

Photo by Marek Piwnicki on Unsplash

It was a hot summer day, one of those unbearably hot days when all you want to do is go to the pool or the beach or a walk-in freezer—anywhere to get cool and try not to move too much lest you burst into a puddle of sweat. 

Unfortunately for Philip, he was carrying boxes down the rickety stairs from the attic of his great aunt’s house. He had been tasked by his parents with cleaning it out now that Aunt Millie, Philip’s great aunt, had died. 

Millie had married Philip’s great uncle, Charles Edward Thomas, in 1884 when they were both twenty-two years old, and they settled down together in what was then a quiet part of Philadelphia. 

No children had come of the marriage and, as Charles was of private means, the two had lived a quiet life together in comfort, traveling throughout Europe, North Africa, and the Near East and patronizing the arts and sciences at home.

Having always been interested in new advances in science, while Millie would bring home paintings and sculptures, Charles would collect scientific gadgets during their travels. 

This quiet life continued uninterrupted for nearly twenty years until Uncle Charles disappeared without a trace in 1902. 

Millie Thomas, unable to deal with her husband’s disappearance, shut herself away in their quiet Philadelphia home and saw no one except family for the rest of her life, which ended quietly in her sleep at the ripe old age of 86 in 1948.

The family had discovered Uncle Charles’ scientific equipment covered in sheets in the basement and, too bulky to move, there it had remained. 

Philip climbed the stairs to the musty attic and once more opened the heavy oak door which swung open without a sound. 

The attic had been a mass of boxes of books and papers, cobwebs and rat droppings, and many other odds and ends.

The air seemed to shimmer in the July heat. Dust motes danced illuminated by sunlight from the octagonal window which was split into eight even triangular parts. 

One antique hat box sat in the corner—Philip’s last load to carry down and sort through. 

He squatted down next to the box, wedged his fingers under the edges, and lifted. The bottom, worn by time and a chronic leak in the attic, promptly gave way.

Yellowed papers cascaded to the floor followed by a thud.

Philip coughed through the dust and set the remains of the box aside.

Thus far the boxes had mostly contained old clothes, bits of art and other souvenirs from Europe and beyond, and an assortment of hats and shoes—nothing particularly exciting for an eighteen year old.

Old papers naturally induce curiosity in the young when time and age are such novelties and the papers intrigued him, as did the black journal which lay on top of them.

Philip handled the pages delicately at first but discovered despite their yellowed and aged appearance that they were quite sound and he shuffled through them. 

Some displayed complex diagrams with various elements labeled with Greek letters. Still other parts were labeled with Roman numerals which Philip discovered corresponded to sections on other pages which were nothing but text—pages and pages of text.

But as he looked closer he found that the text, although it looked like English, was strange and unreadable. 

The same for the black journal which he turned to next. 

It, however, contained page after page of numbers crammed onto each page in a small yet elegant hand.

On the loose pages with letters he could make out letters, capitals in particular—A, H, I, M, T, W—but most of the rest of the letters appeared to be backwards on each of the pages. 

Still other loose pages contained nothing but neat rows of numbers and each number grouping contained three numbers, each separated by a dash.

Most of the pages, in fact, were numbers.

Examining the pages with letters more closely, Philip realized what he was looking at—why some letters appeared the right way while others were backwards and why none of it made sense. 

He got up from the floor and went over to a large standing mirror against the wall—the only other object left in the attic and one which he had no intention of trying to move. 

Standing in front of the mirror he held one page against his chest with the text facing out. 

As if he was revealing a secret to himself, from one brown-haired, serious, and earnest young man to another just like him, he read the text as it appeared on the page:

…changing the poles from plus to minus and minus to plus has been a revelation. The simplest solution has evaded me for many months but at last the final goal is within reach. I have adapted Von Sternberg’s array to the new type of charge and enhanced the output of the [mu] emitter. Further tests are necessary but I am close.

Philip could make no sense of the message but he realized that he needed to find the first page as he had apparently started the story in the middle.

He sorted the papers, checking the journal again but finding only numbers on each of its pages, and gathered the pages with letters—there were five in all. He found the only sheet that started with a new sentence and held it up to the mirror.

I have no doubt that this is a primitive and easily defeated method of cryptography but as time is of the essence it should defeat a cursory look at my notes, not that I expect anyone to encounter these notes before I get a chance to encrypt them and burn these copies. 

 Progress at last! This latest trip to Europe has proved especially fruitful. I met Dr. Von Sternberg and we discussed his latest discoveries with his array, the plans to which he was kind enough to share with me. It has taken some time to build the array but now that it is complete I can begin tests. I hope to combine Von Sternberg’s array with the μ-emitter in an attempt to create the stimulus necessary to bridge the gap between our reality and what Von Sternberg jokingly calls the Shadow Realm. As sinister as it sounds, it is merely a theorized dimension of space time outside of but parallel to our own. 

Von Sternberg’s array was his first attempt to peer into the Shadow Realm. He was receptive to my ideas about combining the μ-emitter with the array and some of my other ideas but he seemed to be more inclined to pursue using γ-radiation in conjunction with the array.

Further successes. I have observed visual phenomena when bombarding the electromagnetic field created by the Von Sternberg array with μ-particles. The phenomena have, however, been unstable.

I have added a τ-wave emitter to my modified Von Sternberg array. I theorize that the τ-waves will stabilize the interference whose cause is unknown to me but which is obviously preventing a stable link between our reality and the space time of the Shadow Realm.

I believe it may be possible not only to see the Shadow Realm but also to enter it. It must be a living thing that enters for its own electromagnetic field must be changed to match that of the Shadow Realm on the other side. Naturally, I have few options but to make the attempt myself. How precisely to do that and how to make sure I can return, I do not know.

Using a sizeable battery I have constructed a portable electromagnetic pulse generator which, once on the other side, should enable me to reverse the change to my electromagnetic field necessary to cross over and bring me back. I believe this pulse must be emitted while I am physically in the space occupied by the array since that is where the doorway will have been opened between our reality and the Shadow Realm.

Using τ-waves I have stabilized the visual phenomena but I remain unable to enter the Shadow Realm. Judging from what I have seen, Shadow Realm might be an apt name for this other dimension since in the array I have seen dim visions of our very world but faint and distorted.

Finally, a breakthrough. I have found that by changing the poles from plus to minus and minus to plus and equipping myself with a small μ-emitter I can adjust my electromagnetic field and enter the Shadow Realm. I first tested this today by inserting my hand into the array and observed that it was not visible where it should have been on the other side of the array singularity. 

 I have installed a backup field emitter that should hopefully penetrate the singularity and reverse my field change should my portable generator fail.

 I will attempt to cross tonight. I suppose it’s vanity but should I not return I’d like to make it possible for all of my notes and research to be recovered. To whomever reads this, ask Von Sternberg. He holds the answer.

Philip looked for more but there was nothing. 

He wasn’t sure what to think. Apparently his great uncle Charles had been pursuing the most far-fetched scientific research and the research had been a success—too much of a success. 

It would seem that Uncle Charles crossed into the Shadow Realm and was unable to return. This would certainly explain his sudden and completely inexplicable disappearance over forty years before. 

Philip gathered the papers and the journal and dashed down the attic stairs and all the way to the basement. 

He had never thought much of the rusty equipment covered with sheets. 

He began pulling the sheets off of the bench and boxes. Last of all he pulled a dusty sheet off of the large cage-like contraption in the corner.

He stared at the Von Sternberg array. There was a superstructure of two identical halves: steel bars arranged in two octagons around the circumference. Eight steel bars emerged vertically from each of the octagons before angling to a point at the top and bottom of the array. On the inside of the top and bottom points were two cones with their bases facing toward each other. Thick black cables ran from the top and bottom of the array to a black box with a handle behind the array. 

Nearby was a bench on which sat a small box with lights and switches and a circular dish with what looked like a radio antenna sticking out of it and pointing at the array. Next to it was another device with lights and switches and two sliders on the main body. Coming out of the top of the device were two steel poles attached by a thin filament. 

Philip stood there looking around the dusty dark basement, breathing in the musty mildewed air, wondering about what he was looking at and what he had read. 

Could Charles have gone through and been unable to come back? Could he still be there in the Shadow Realm? Could he still be alive? He would be in his eighties. Did time move the same on the other side? Did he need food and water?

An idea began forming in his mind, a plan to revive his uncle’s experiment and save the man who might be trapped inside. 

The only thing stopping him was the cipher. He had no idea how to work the equipment and could not read his uncle’s notes. 

What did he mean by “Von Sternberg has the answer”? Surely he didn’t expect someone to have to go find the German scientist to get him to decrypt the notes. He must have figured that Von Sternberg could die—at any moment depending on his age—and would take the secret to his grave. 

But the mirror writing wasn’t very complex. Maybe the answer to the riddle of the cipher wasn’t that complex either.

Philip took off up the basement stairs, taking two at a time, and ran to the living room where he had been gathering the boxes from the attic.

He had placed all the boxes of books on one side of the room and he started sorting through these, scattering books across the floor. 

He now understood why his aunt and uncle had dozens of volumes on strange scientific topics. It was only a few moments until he found what he was looking for: The Creation and Manipulation of Electromagnetic Fields, with Notes on Theories of Space Time, and including Illustrations and Complete Appendices by Helmut Von Sternberg. 

“Thank God it’s not in German,” thought Philip. 

It took him all night to decrypt his uncle’s journal and the loose pages that were also encrypted and another few days to repair the equipment, which was still in apparently excellent condition despite its age for when Philip, following his uncle’s instructions, plugged in the Von Sternberg array, the field variance machine, the mu-emitter, and the tau-wave device, and raised the large handle on the transformer the lights dimmed and flickered. 

Nothing.

Philip waited, watching the array in the flickering light.

Still nothing.

Then, finally, as if coming from a great distance, there came a humming, deep and low, an electric bass-thrumming that made the hairs on his knuckles stand up. 

In the yellow light of the flickering bulbs, a blue shadow began forming in the center of the array cage, barely visible at first then growing clearer. As the blue shadow became clearer, darker and darker with flecks of light dancing at the edges, the humming grew louder as well until Philip could feel the reverberations in his skull. 

When he thought it couldn’t get any louder, the humming seemed to reach is zenith and stabilize and in the shadow at the center of the array Philip could see through it the back of the array and the wall in a distorted, shadowy form, and he thought he could even make out the contents of the root cellar on the other side of the wall. 

Unsure of whether the equipment would hold, whether the visible phenomena meant it was ready—unsure of everything—Philip flipped the switch on the field converter connected by a thick cable to the base of the array and held his breath.

A light bulb burst overhead. 

A shape, a vague outline, appeared in the middle of the array, dim like the Shadow Realm itself, but growing clearer, more discernible.

It was a man.

He seemed to be raising one hand—waving to Philip or was he reaching for something?

Abruptly everything stopped. The Shadow Realm disappeared. The lights shone bright again. 

And in the middle of the Von Sternberg array stood a man who looked as if he’d stepped out of a magazine from the turn of the century. He had round spectacles perched on a pointed nose, a large black beard, a white collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up, trousers held up by suspenders, and black boots. 

“I’m back! We did it. Well, I did it.”

Philip stared.

“Hello! Who are you? What are you doing in my basement?”

“My name’s Philip.”

“Hello, Philip,” he said, stepping out of the array between the bars. “You have a surname that goes along with that? And what are you doing in my house?”

“I’m Philip Thomas.”

“Oh! A relation. I didn’t know we were having company. Whose child are you?”

“My dad’s Arthur, Arthur Thomas.”

“My nephew Arthur? He doesn’t have children.”

“What’s your name?”

His brow furrowed. “You’re in my house and you want to ask my name? Charles Edward Thomas. Now really, who are you and what are you doing here?”

“My name is Philip Thomas. I’m helping clean up the house.”

“Clean up? Clean up? Why does it need cleaning up? I can see you’ve made a mess of my laboratory even though I just left,” he said walking over to the workbench. “What have you been doing, you heinous boy?”

“Cleaning up because—” Philip choked on his words. “Uncle Charles, you need to know something.”

“I’m not your uncle. I told you, I don’t know who you are.”

“No, you’re not my uncle. You’re my great uncle. And the year is 1948. No one has seen or heard from you for over forty years.”

A mix of emotions played across Charles’ face as his eyes grew wide. He looked wildly around the room, at the array, back at Philip.

“The array…no, no, no, time was…I was just—”

He took off up the stairs.

“Millie! Millie, where are you? Do you know what this blasted boy is talking about?”

Philip could hear Charles running from one room to the next, then upstairs to the bedrooms, then back down, each cry of “Millie!” growing more and more desperate and shrill, until finally the front door opened and Charles Edward Thomas stumbled outside into a new world, a broken man, desperate and alone.

---

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, strictly a product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance, perceived resemblance, or similarity to any other fictional works, to actual events or persons, living or dead, and any perceived slights of people, places, or organizations are products of the reader’s imagination. This fiction is the result of a partnership between a human writer and the character(s) he accessed with his creative subconscious as he raced through the story with them. No AI of any kind, generative or otherwise, was used in any way to write this story.