The darkness cleared away. 

His vision was still blurry yet he sat up groaning- trying to make sense of everything. He could feel small sparks all around his head.

Then a rush of memories flooded his head as realised he was in some sort of vehicle.  The inside was like that of a military helicopter, with seats lined up against its walls.

Various crates and cargo boxes lay peacefully at the back of the vehicle and there were two pilots ahead of him. 

He crawled towards his left and peeked through one of the small round windows on the wall. Looking outside, he saw nothing but clouds floating. He moved closer to the glass pane.

He was pretty sure they were in midair, that is unless something had messed with his head causing him to hallucinate. He recalled that moment right before- 

A  sharp pain stung his eye.

 As he put his hand on his forehead- he noticed Esae sprawled across the ground, a few feet away from him. Next to him was the boy in a leather jacket. 

He shook his nephew who then regained consciousness.

"Jay!" Esae woke up gasping. 

Fortunately, as they were pretty far in the back, the noise did not alarm whoever was piloting the aircraft.

Esae clutched onto Jay’s sleeves as Jay patted him.

“Yeah,” He whispered back and told him to stay quiet, softly.

“What do we do now?” Esae asked Jay in a panicked voice. 

They noticed that the people who had kidnapped them were piloting the craft.

The two strangers seemed to be bickering about something. Their voices becoming louder and louder with each sentence.

“We could grab them from the back but-”

They both had an unspoken understanding that retaliating now, won't do them any good.

Who knew what other kind of tricks they had up their sleeves…both figuratively and literally.

Jay and Esae decided on being quiet and waking up Esae's doppelgänger for the time being. They should stay put and extract as much information as they could while they were being held, hostage.

"He looks eerily similar to you...except the hair off-course,” Jay blurted out. He couldn't stop examining the boy’s face.

“He even has the same name as me. It's pretty freaky… And what's with the purple highlights?”

Esae paused then continued.

“…White would've been better.”

Jay gave him a look as if to say- really? In the situation we're in, that's all you care about?

Esae shrugged apologetically and gave the boy a push, who woke up panting.

Jay quickly peeked ahead at the two people who were in the midst of an argument, and back at the two kids; he signalled them to be quiet.

"My dad, I have to tell him," The boy patted his pants and took out his phone. To his surprise, it had completely shut down.

"Listen, I don't think calling your dad would work," Jay winced.

"I know, but that could've helped him find me…somehow. He’s gonna notice that I'm gone!”

"Alright, but we have to figure out how to escape right now. Calling your father-dear, won't help." Esae added.

The boy looked out the window.

"Yeah, we're in midair genius.”

"I know!" Esae almost shouted.

"Shut up, both of you-" Jay whispered.

"Finally you all are awake." It was the girl. She left her seat and walked towards them. 

She inspected the seats below the window. The little girl sat down and motioned them to do the same.

Jay and Esae sat on one side while the boy sat beside the girl.

Both the boy and Esae felt sparks around their head. They both reached for their head when -

“Ah, don’t worry, it’s nothing. The effect just didn’t wear off yet.”

“Speaking of which, you guys are being awfully calm about this, y'know!" 

The girl exclaimed while popping a lollipop in her mouth. 

They noticed how weirdly she was dressed. Her clothes and behaviour were like that of a child yet she seemed to be very confident of what she was doing. She was almost condescending.

Her frock had layers of red fabric with hems of white lace. It was intricately stitched in a Victorian pattern. Even her ponytail was tied back by strips of red fabric jutting out as if it was blown by the wind.

"What else can we do?" Jay smiled.

“Don't look at me like that, it wasn't my idea. It was his," she said pointing at her accomplice, who was still driving the aircraft.

“You should’ve just listened to me back then, but I suppose it is weird if two people suddenly ask you to come with them.

Anyway, this all must seem strange for you, especially you," she said pointing her lollipop at Esae. Her lips curved up as if she was enjoying the show very much.

"No shit, Sherlock,” Esae replied looking back at the boy who shared the same name as him. 

Reina rolled her eyes muttering something along the lines of- urgh Omegans.

"So you gonna tell us why you kidnapped us?" The boy said.

Jay and Esae looked at her in agreement.

“Okay, okay. I get it. Must be strange for you Omegans. Most of you don't even know we exist. I am Reina from Beta 2713. It's another Earth-”

"Another earth?" All three of them said in unison,  jerking forwards as the ship made a sharp turn.  

The girl, unbothered by the turn as if she had experienced plenty like that before, said "Oh my, I think I have to explain the whole thing.”

"What?" Esae was about to say something when Reina stopped him.

She brought out her hand. She quickly pressed something on the red wristband she was wearing.

A huge hologram of the space surrounded them. Jay and the boys gaped at this display.

Reina continued, "You live in one of the many universes. They exist side by side to explain in the simplest terms. 

Here, this is what it looks like if you take just Earth into perspective.”

The hologram changed to multiple Earths together as far as they could see, "They all exist side by side, but are separated by the space-time fabric. Your Earth belongs to the triplet system because these three Earths started developing around the same time, but they each branched out to have different futures. I come from Beta 2713, your Earth is Omega 2713, and the other Earth is Alpha 2713. This is a lot to take in but you," she pointed at the boy sitting beside her, "You're from The Alpha Earth."