He hadn’t sat on this couch since last year. Thanksgiving. Christmas had been on his work schedule and money had been tight enough that he couldn’t afford to lose the job. It wasn’t that his family had cut him off, he’d just wanted to make it on his own. To not feel like he owed them everything, to have to ask every time rent was due. Well, that wasn’t a problem anymore.


    Nine hundred and seventy two million dollars. And a few numbers afterward that hardly mattered. Not quite a billionaire, but it was quite the inheritance Dad had left him. He’d barely touched it after following last minute advice from Chris about where to put it and who to contact. Somehow it was all legal, all taxes already paid by the trust prior to its dissolution. That was about as far as he could go with the financial terms that had been regurgitated over the whole process.


    Now, two weeks later, he was back home. The flight hadn’t gone well, but it was over. He was home. So was his mother, and Alex. The school she taught music at was out for break allowing her to drop everything when he’d contacted them after all that time in the bunker, while Ami was still wrapping up some project at her marketing job. From the snippets he’d heard over the years Ami made more money but Alex was happier.


    He sighed, turning on the TV and randomly changing the channels until he finally found one he wasn’t looking for and just stared out of a window. Leave it to Mom to still have cable, he idly thought, seeing the evergreen trees mixed in with those that had already shed their leaves. Being in the house always hurt him. It was built just far enough into nature to have satisfied his dad while not being considered rural. The twins might have fomented a coup growing up if it hadn’t been for the mall ten minutes away, while he’d been content enough with the small city that provided ready access to video games and the few friends he’d had in high school.


    Then his dad had died, or at least, they thought he had. Hunter was dead for sure. He would never say that hurt him more than it did Octyrrum-Daniel, but his heart still ached with the twin loss of the ringcat and any hope of getting his dad back. All he’d known was that Garret was out there somewhere and the link that had been formed between the two Daniels had been crucial to the plan. He’d always had some questions about how that had all worked but there’d been no one to ask.


    The ultimate answer had finally come, and it was nine hundred and seventy two million dollars. Less than what the richest person in the world made in a week, but more than he could ever dream of spending. It’s not like he’d go around buying private jets. He hadn’t had time to spend much despite the unlimited potential of the small debit card in his wallet. The key to anything besides what he truly wanted.


    He heard the front door open and braced himself. His sister walked in, coming back with the fast food she’d picked up for lunch. The way she immediately looked for him in the room made it clear she’d half-expected him to be gone even though she had the only car. Kara, his mother, had hers as well but she was at work. They were keeping at least one of them on him at all times like he was a baby that would hurt itself or a ghost that would vanish.


    Alex silently passed him the wrapped burger and he weakly smiled as he picked the onions off. No matter how many times he’d asked, she always ordered his with them. “So, do you want to talk about it? I won’t tell Mom or anyone if there’s something you just want to tell me.”


    “No. I only want to go through this once.” The haunted feeling in his soul must have been picked up by his voice because Alex didn’t ask for more details. She looked a little guiltily at his sandwich, even though that old joke had done something to shake Daniel out of his depression.


    “What are you even watching?” she asked instead, narrowing her eyes at the news station. It was one of the more business-related ones talking about something weird going on with cargo ship fuel. Daniel sighed and just turned it off.


    “Nothing.” He checked his phone and Alex pointedly didn’t comment on the new model. It had been the only major purchase he’d made since the old one had been copied when Octyrrum-Daniel had been sent over. That was not a reminder he was going to carry around. Nothing from Chris, though there was no reason for the guy to reach out unless there was anything related to ‘The Project’ that he received. One last desperate plan, perhaps, one last chance. But there was nothing.


    “The kids are doing well. Hey, do you remember Scheherazade? I’m considering teaching the seniors a part of it for spring recital. There’s some real talent in that group.”


    “What’s that one?” Daniel asked, glad for the tangent.


    “It’s from my high school recital, the one you almost fell asleep at,” she said, fake punching him in the arm. “The one with the solo?” she added when that didn’t help.


    Oh. Another stab to the heart. That had been what Octyrrum-Daniel had played the first time Hunter had almost died. There hadn’t been any time for it on the Eye. “That’s good,” he choked out. I could probably buy your school, if they let people do that. Just another random thought nine hundred and seventy two million dollars would give you. “How’s the budget? I mean, you always hear how music programs are suffering,” he quickly added.


    “Why, are you going to donate after paying me back for lunch?” Alex asked sarcastically. “We’re fine. The bake sales do well and we only need that money for extra stuff like competitions. If I ever get into trouble I’ll just ask Mom and Ami for a couple thousand. They can afford it.”


    “Yeah. Hey, Alex, what you’re doing, I think it’s great. I wish I’d… I wish I’d been able to…” he couldn’t finish the sentence. Alex’s face had grown hard for a moment as he’d almost broached that time. It was just the crust of old anger that she quickly broke away as she sighed.


    “It’s not too late. Hell, you’re only 23, Daniel. Plenty of people go back to college late. Take some online classes here, I’m sure Mom wouldn’t mind.”


    I could buy a college. A small one, at least. “Maybe. I’m still trying to figure out all of what happened.” He waved away another question and took a bit of the burger, the faint taste of onion as sickeningly familiar as it was just sickening. “When’s Ami getting here?”


    “Tomorrow, and she’ll be here for the holiday. Mom wants the family back together and we do too. You think you can stay here again?”


    “I don’t know,” Daniel answered honestly. “But I’m going to try.”


    …


    A car horn broke through the trees the next day and reached Daniel as he was walking around the backyard. Ami had arrived on time for once, and as melodramatically as always. As he rounded the side of the house he saw her get out of a car whose model had been out for less than a year, the leather business jacket and stylish purse just more ways she flaunted the benefits her career path had over her twin sister’s. He was perfectly positioned for the ultimate one up but hadn’t told anyone about the money yet.


    “Hey baby brother. Looks like someone got tired of living in boxes.” She flashed him a smile, though the humor was less playful than Alex’s. “Finally hit rock bottom?”


    “Yeah.” Daniel did enjoy the troubled half-frown Ami that crossed her face but ultimately regretted unleashing a fraction of his true feelings early. “Alex is on a call, there was some kind of leak in the band room or something.”


    “What? Is everything alright?”


    “No.” The development had come in the early morning and had devastated his sister, leaving him in the odd position of comforting her. “A pipe burst and flooded a few rooms. It got some of the instruments but most of the damage was the auditorium. Apparently the school’s considering moving band classes online while it gets fixed since they don’t have another space large enough to hold the class.”


    Ami’s face scrunched. She’d mostly abandoned music as far as he knew, but she’d been in the trenches of high school band with Alex while growing up. “How do you teach a concert band class online?”


    “If you go in you’ll hear her shout that question every minute or so,” Daniel replied with some pity in his voice. “I don’t get why that’s become popular all of a sudden.”


    “It’s just business,” Ami shrugged, as if it was obvious. “The community colleges started it. Make your stuff available online and you get a better market share. Adolescent education caught on to the fact that they can capture days lost to minor sickness instead of letting kids laze around in bed or something.”


    “Yeah, can’t let the sick kids have it too easy.”


    Ami shrugged as she remotely opened the trunk and continued talking as she walked around the car. “What, you’d rather they be forced to go to class and get everyone else sick? What kind of expectations do you want them to have when they get a job? You know, my office is starting to adopt it. There was this whole email about how much money the company could save if we ditched our office space and just reserved hotel meeting rooms whenever something comes up.”


    She pulled out a sleek suitcase and a more heavily stuffed duffel bag after that. It didn’t belong to a significant other as both of his sisters were currently single, it just gave her the ability to bring what she needed while also flaunting the smaller all-black rollercase. “You know Daniel, there’s always people hiring for jobs like mine. Doesn’t have to be marketing. If you went for a degree in business you could land a job by just banging rocks together. It’s how some of my coworkers must have done it.”If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.


    I could buy everything you have a hundred times over and not break a sweat. “I need to get my head right first.”


    “Right. So are you going to tell us what’s up with that? Those texts were cryptic as shit, Daniel. ‘I fucked up but everything is ok’ isn’t exactly the clearest or most comforting message. You don’t have any active warrants, do you?”


    “No, it’s not like that.” He caught the duffel bag as Ami hefted it at him and followed as she walked towards the front door. “I had this opportunity to do something that would have changed everything and it, I just ruined it.”


    “Are you talking about a startup?” she asked, now very interested. “Hey, even if that failed that’s experience the people throwing crap at the wall to see what sticks don’t have. If they hired Edgar they’d hire you somewhere.”


    “Thanks, but I need some time before I do anything like that.” He winced as Alex’s shouting reached his ears. Whoever was on the other end of that line was finding out what happened when you pissed her off. He knew she wasn’t angry for herself but her students who’d be missing out. “I’m going to tell you everything, I promise. Mom has the day off tomorrow and I’m going to do it over dinner.”


    He’d set that deadline in his head so that he couldn’t wriggle out of it later. Part of him was worried they’d think he was crazy and he wasn’t sure if he should mention the other world at all. His phone camera had picked up everything in the bunker just fine, but it only showed black space where Octyrrum-Daniel should have been whenever he came to Bridge Space. There were some rough screenshots he’d made while monitoring his other self, but image manipulation and CGI could explain away those. He had no magic to back up his insane story.


    “Alright, tomorrow then. But if you chicken out I’m going to fake a resume and let you deal with recruiters calling you nonstop.”


    “Tomorrow,” Daniel promised.


    …


    The time was here before he knew it. He’d gone to sleep early yesterday, missing his mother coming home entirely. From the sound of it Alex’s call hadn’t gone well and the welcoming front the family had tried to put up for his return crumbled. Between dealing with his regrets and trying to comfort his sister, he just hadn’t been able to stay awake. His sleep schedule was still a little messed up from shadowing Octyrrum-Daniel’s anyway.


    It wasn’t until dinner that they were all in one room. His mother had spent the better part of the day cooking unaided, in fact throwing off Ami’s attempts to help. Alex had spent a good amount of time in her room, the sounds coming from it alternating between the violin and silence. Now that he was sitting across from her, he could see a very faint redness in the eyes that everyone pretended wasn’t there.


    Ami was, as always, sitting next to her and his mother was at one of the ends of the table. The other sat empty as it had for the last five years. “-in Jesus’ name, amen,” his mother finished the prayer, and Daniel opened his eyes as he wondered where the god of this world was. “Daniel, it’s so nice to have you home again.”


    “Yeah. I’m glad,” he quickly added after the uncommitted grunt. She was about to say something else, but Alex broke into the conversation.


    “I need to tell everyone something,” she said, her voice better expressing what Daniel truly felt. “I lost my job.”


    Daniel’s eyes widened as his other sister exclaimed, but at the end of the table his mother’s eyes sharpened. “Because of the damage? Alex, I’m so sorry.” She stood up and looked to where her phone was resting on a table just out of arm’s reach. “There’s a nephrologist with a brother on the school board, I’ll-“


    “Mom, please, can we just eat? This doesn’t have to be fixed now,” Alex said quickly, and his mother paused. “I wasn’t- I didn’t handle the news yesterday as well as I should have. They fired me for ‘conduct unbecoming’.”


    “I’m sure the fact that they can put off some of the repairs without a class to teach had nothing to do with it,” Ami added snidely. “You should sue.”


    “That wouldn’t solve anything,” Alex retorted, pushing his chair away a little from her sister. “Even if I won it’d just be taking money out of the school’s budget.”


    “I thought you said they were doing fine?” Daniel asked, and it seemed everyone realized he was there again.


    “That’s before the school flooded,” she sighed. “I don’t want to go into details over the holiday after I spent all of yesterday fuming about it.”


    “Ok,” Kara said calmly, like she was instructing people on how to survive an imminent plane crash. “We’ll talk about this later, but we support you. This home will always be here, and you know if you need anything you just have to ask.”


    Daniel admired his mother for the way that none of that was directed at him. The strife he’d gotten into with Alex over his father’s disappearance had been the worst of the family drama, Kara having tried to act as a mediator while in mourning herself. There was still a silence that fell as everyone started eating the slightly lukewarm meal, and as time went on Daniel felt every look that crossed his way.


    Eventually, his mother spoke again. “Daniel, do you still have things in your old apartment? We could look into getting those shipped here after dinner.”


    “I just had what I took on the flight,” he answered, gearing himself up for his confession as his mother carefully broached the topic. He wasn’t going to be as graceful. “I also have nine hundred and seventy two million dollars.”


    A look of concern crossed his mother’s face as Ami choked and Alex waited for the joke. “Ok,” his mother said slowly, beginning to diagnose the problem.


    “Wait, how is almost being a billionaire ‘fucking everything up’?” Ami asked incredulously.


    “Ami, please be quiet,” his mother shushed, then turned back to Daniel. “Were you seeing any psychiatrists? If you were on a medication I can find someone to prescribe it here.”


    We’re just getting started with the crazy, Mom. Daniel took out his phone and his mother identified the newer model as Ami had, though this didn’t relax her. Numbly, Daniel logged into his banking app and handed the phone to her. Ami half got out of her seat to look while Alex just looked confused. “It was Dad’s money.”


    Kara dropped the phone. “W-what?”


    Daniel hesitantly reached behind him for the backpack sitting against the wall and pulled out a thick manila folder. “I got this about six months ago. It’s a lot to explain. I wish I could prove it like the money but all I have is this.” The folder was held in the air for a few seconds before Alex snatched it. Conflict crossed his mother’s face but she let her daughter read the pages first. They were the originals and were wrinkled, one with a noticeable indent from where it had been clamped onto a clipboard.


    She stopped reading halfway through the first page and threw the pile to the ground. “What the fuck is this!?” she asked fiercely, the anger directed yesterday at the phone now fully centered on him. One of the glasses was knocked over as she planted both hands on the table to lean over towards him. “You, what, win the lottery or something and type this shit up to make yourself feel better? If you wanted to bring Dad back then you should have gone with him in the first place!”


    “Alex!” his mother protested, coming to her feet as well.


    “No, you need to read that trash before you yell at me.”


    “Alex, this is Dad’s signature,” Ami said, the twin reserving a little more benefit of the doubt no doubt due to Daniel’s sudden inheritance. “We never found his body so it’s…” she trailed off as she returned to the top of the page and began to read down, getting to the part about magic and other worlds. “Ok, this is fucked up. Mom, this is saying Dad’s trapped in some kind of game or something.”


    Daniel tried to summon Hunter’s courage as he looked at his mother, unaware it had already been claimed. “I’m not crazy and I’m not lying. I got a letter Dad wrote before he left. Did anything he do before he left make you think he wasn’t coming back?”


    “God, Daniel,” Ami said from where she was reading, astounded by his gall in asking that question.


    Kara pretended not to hear it. “Everyone just calm down. Daniel, it’s clear you should have come home sooner. I was worried about the stress you’ve been under, and this money, it’s not going to fix everything.”


    Daniel picked up his phone from where it had tumbled onto the table, Alex still glaring at him but letting her mother take the lead. He pulled up one of the last photos that had been transferred onto his phone, a picture of him and Chris at the airport. The older guy had suggested it as a parting gesture. Neither were smiling, though Chris had a sympathetic look that still slightly comforted Daniel. “I wasn’t the only one involved, there was a guy Dad looped in to set everything up. Him, check the date on the photo.”


    “Daniel, this is insane, seriously,” Ami said, neatly stacking the papers before putting them back in the folder which was awkwardly placed by the ignored gravy bowl. “You have to see that.”


    He glanced at her, but his focus was on his mother, who had zoomed in on part of the image by the way her hands were moving. Even Alex picked up on it and moved her Tlara-level glare away. “Mom?”


    Kara’s eyes widened and she nearly dropped the phone again. “Who is that?”


    “Chris,” Daniel said, surprised by the reaction. “Do you know him?”


    “No.” Her chair screeched back and her hands shook as she put the phone back on the table.


    “It kind of looks like you know who that is,” Ami said, looking at the magnified image of Chris’ face before shaking her head and passing it to Alex. Her twin had quickly lost her anger after the momentum was stolen, which was more usual for her than the hour-long tirade against the phone yesterday.


    “Who is this?” she asked as their mother stiffly left the room without explanation. Daniel wanted to follow her but his sister was demanding his attention through her voice.


    “It’s just Chris. He called me before all of this happened, even before I got that letter. I still have his number, you can hear everything from him if you don’t believe me.” Daniel asked for his phone back with his hands and heard the soft vibration as he got a text.


    Alex furrowed her brow in slight disbelief. “He just texted you. What the hell is this?”


    “Let me see!” The twins ganged up on him, tapping something before reading as Daniel rounded the table.


    “Ok, this is starting to make more sense,” Ami commented. “He probably, what, spoofed a bank account. Downloaded that banking app for you, right? That sounds more likely than what’s in the letter. You haven’t spent any of that money, have you?”


    “What is it?” Daniel asked, getting aggravated now as they blocked him from viewing the screen.


    “Some guy sends you all this conspiracy crap and makes you think you’re rich, points you our way and…” she trailed off in thought as she tried to continue playing out what she’d ‘unraveled’.


    Alex just tossed him his phone after locking it and ran off to look for their mother. Ami stayed to watch his reaction as he read the text.


    <hr>


    Chris: Hey man, hope you’re doing well. Don’t know if this was related but just came across this. Was this the weird stuff you were talking about? Dad = cryptid hunter? Don’t have to say if you can’t, just let me know if you need anything.


    <hr>


    There was an attached article below the text leading to some fringe news platform that existed solely within its own website. Daniel frowned, and instead of reading it searched the title on the web, getting a strange feeling as he saw several immediate hits from more well-known organizations. It didn’t seem like a story that would ever make primetime news, but it had some veracity in how much it was being picked up elsewhere.


    Daniel picked a link at random and like his mother before him zoomed in on the image attached to the article. It was about a photo taken by a fisherman after they’d gutted a shark with terrible wounds found floating in the ocean. A humanoid but not human leg found inside was ringing all of the classic alien conspiracy bells. Only he knew the truth; they were right.


    “What are you doing?”


    “Texting him, just, I…” he tried to calm down but his mind was moving too fast. He’d never understood why he couldn’t tell Octyrrum-Daniel where Eido was when he’d had no idea what had happened to it. He only learned what his other self did, if you ignored what he had to screen out from the notifications. Based on what he’d seen, they wouldn’t reveal that kind of information. It should have occurred to him earlier. There was only one reasonable circumstance in which he would learn about Eido and his copy wouldn’t.


    The city was on Earth.