Drawn towards the wooden bookshelves hung on the wall, Tae traced his fingers along the black mahogany, over the engraved patterns on the wood.

He moved his gaze to the books neatly placed on the shelves.

The selection was quite varied starting from topics such as Philosophy and Herbology to fiction novels by both renowned and unknown authors.

His eyes moved along the leather and paper-back book covers to finally reach a peculiar title. 

This. 

Perhaps this could answer my questions.

             Untold secrets and realities 

                              All the knowledge

                               now in your hands 

                              2020 ver.

 Realities huh?

This must definitely be about the parallel dimensions.

He pulled out the book and examined its cover. 

Flipping to the contents page, Tae noticed the number of subtopics that were there.

Dimensions introduction, basics etiquettes, and ethics for travellers-

He scoffed. Never in his life had he imagined he would read up on something like this unless it was in a manga. But here he was, with his IE, in the Omegan Organisation reading about the ethics of dimension travel. 

How’d it all change by just one encounter?

He recalled the memory of the retail store where he met Esae.

…Never mind back to the book.

Alright then..mechanism and how it works….

His eyes moved further down the page.

The triplet system 2713, there it is. Beta 2713, Omega….Alpha 2713…page…

Finally, he’d get to know about his birth dimension. 

He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous. How could he not be? It seemed like a lot was going on in Alpha. 

Then again he still couldn’t believe he belonged to another dimension. He had spent almost every second of his life here. 

Alpha was just like a fever dream to him-  a useless nightmare, a fragmented memory.

Then why hadn’t something weird happened to him yet, like sparks on his body. Or why hadn’t he pixelated at times, like in the books he had read.

Well …those were fiction for a reason. Tae sighed. 

And this is real life…Okay then.

He finally got to the page and started reading. 

The first two pages were filled with photographs from various time periods, both in colour and in monotones. 

Each told a different story. Some were of ordinary citizens in theme parks, or near monuments while others were of soldiers near battle sites or scientists with inventions.

The captions explained the fact that the Alpha Earth was part of the triplet system, similar to Omega 2713 and Beta 2713, in terms of development and history till 1777.

 From 1777, it had all started changing slowly, as one woman, with her trusted group of knights formed a gigantic empire around the globe, bringing all of its nation under one union.

She did the impossible and formed the first Humanity Council- which she headed as the Emperor. Here all the nations’ leaders would discuss issues together. 

She believed that this was the first step towards Humanity’s advancement. 

Her goal was to achieve peace and unity amongst the divided nations: to prevent further turmoil amongst them and at the same time progress humanity as a whole.

She ruled peacefully having diplomatic relations with most of the sub-kingdoms. And indeed the consensus deemed her a worthy leader.

However, even though the cause was noble, Queen Aurelia’s ambition fell short of a few things. 

The scientific and technological evolution was not up to par with even Omega let alone Beta. It was way slower than the expected rate of growth.

Tae moved on to the next page where a painting of a tall woman greeted him. She gave off a dignified aura, part of her hair was tied up and the rest was let loose behind her nape.

On her head was a crown studded with jewels and she wore a beautiful black laced gown. 

There were four men who stood behind her with swords and wore clothes that resembled the royal guards’ uniform as the woman was seated in the middle on a majestic chair.

Inscriptions below the picture explained that it was the Empress that united the nations in 1777- Queen Aurelia.

There were a few more details regarding how the nations were brought under the empire but Tae did not deem that as important for now. He flipped the page again and this time it was a timeline of all the rulers from 1777 to the present day. 

It started with a picture of a painting of Queen Aurelia and her family- King Cassius, princess Ver and, prince Eric.

Aurelia still looked distinguished as ever. Her beautiful fair face and jet black hair with golden stripes. It was peculiar but beautiful nonetheless.

Their eyes stared back with such intensity, that Tae let out an exasperated sigh.

He further read what was written beside the picture.

Queen Aurelia belonged to a family of royals who ruled a small nation that was on the border of Europe and Asia. It is still unclear what nation it was.

Later in her life, she had married one of the knights who had assisted her throughout her quest.

Tae breezed through the rest of the timeline. Throughout the years there were brief mentions of rebels but they never really posed a big threat to the nations. That is until the present Ruler’s time.

At the end of the timeline was a painting of an impassive man with black hair slicked back, hands over his sword. His wife, seated on a chair while his two children stood side by side, in front of him.

They looked solemn and grim. The painting exuded a subdued aura.

The children stood silently with their dirt blonde hair, morbidly looking back at Tae. 

His wife looked even worse- pale and anaemic. Needless to say, the King looked determined, his eyes packed with an array of emotions contrary to his face, of which grief and pain were dominant.

Below the picture it explained that during his time of reign, some anti-government groups had started resurfacing, to oppose the monarch. They were becoming more and more violent as the years passed by. 

However it had abruptly stopped, and all activities of the rebellions had completely ceased by the early 2000s.

There wasn’t much information about the recent years in Alpha which seemed pretty odd to Tae, but he brushed it off and read further.

As of 2020, the nations exist in harmony united under the current Monarch with no signs of anarchy.

Harmony my ass. Someone definitely paid this guy to write bullshit, Tae thought.

Below was the last picture that was taken from Alpha in 2020. 

It was of the elite royal guards, with the Crown in the middle. These guards were the ones responsible for successfully suppressing the revolts.

The King’s face was stoic as usual with sharp features. 

Wait…is that… dad?

There, beside the Monarch was his father in the royal guards uniform. 

It couldn’t be him, could it?  No, it was definitely him- 

The loose strands over his forehead, the semi-long hair tied back, and his commanding yet soothing brown eyes, this was definitely him. 

He was one of the royal guards? 

He looked further down to see - 

Uncle Jay …and mom too?!

Tae sighed defeatedly and accepted the fact that he really was from Alpha.

 I guess there is no turning back now.  He mentally prepared himself because he knew that his life was never going to be the same again.

I just wish this wasn’t the way I found out about everything… Tae cursed internally at his father. 

Why didn’t his dad just sit down over a cup of coffee and tell him something?

Anything.

 It didn’t matter what side his father was on, he would rather have an honest one over someone who was hiding his entire past. 

He didn’t even talk about his own wife. All Tae knew about his mother was that she was a police officer- which to his dismay, turned out to be false as well.

All he keeps is a watch from his past-

At the moment Tae felt someone breathing on his shoulder as a familiar voice murmured-

“Damn, what the fuck is going on in Alpha?”