Not quite a mirror image

Viryx recently gave us a new mission. The Apexis artifacts he gathered in the Spires weren’t enough for him, apparently and he decided he needs more power to dominate the lower races. So he gave us a new mission – to go out into all of our continent and look for Apexis artifacts wherever they may be. I was sent with the people under my command to fly all the way to Gorgrond, where the core of the Apexis civilization once was, before the Breakers took over and ruined Northern Gorgrond. Let me tell you, that is a rather insane mission. No, it’s the right area to search for these… but Gorgrond is one of the most savage and treacherous places on this planet. It’s almost a suicide mission. Almost – not for someone with my skills. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about. That would be the other me. The corrupted alternate future me.

So yeah, I helped him… me… no, him, that’s easier. I helped him push the exit aperture of his rift out of Skyreach. I regret to say the Sun-Sages cannot be really trusted with that kind of opportunity in their hands. With some assistance from his end, I pushed the rift out of Skyreach and far into Terokkar Forest. From all my calculations, I wasn’t sure if I could really push into a stable direction, or that it would remain in one place once set off to travel, but oddly enough it was completely stable. The other me, or my “brother” as I agreed to call him to make it less awkward, informed me later he was in control of his end for quite some time and originally, like I suspected, it was completely out of control, but they managed to establish some control over it. I determined it stopped over Duskfall Island and didn’t expect I’d need to care about it anymore.

But then he called to me again, saying he wants to meet. I was understandably apprehensive at first. I mean, haven’t we heard enough stories like this? About two temporally displaced versions of the same person meeting and collapsing the time-space continuum because of that, or that one where the two melted into some kind of creepy goo? Well, he wasn’t hearing none of that and assured me that as far as the universe is concerned, we’re different people. It’s true that our past diverged from the very start, but all the similarities… all the constants between the variables… were slightly frightening. Nevertheless, at his insistence I finally agreed but remained fearful.

I separated from my group and landed at Duskfall Island. Only then I realized that the rift stopped there not accidentally. Some outcast shacks were strewn about the land, although empty at the time. The corrupted me must have been there in the past. His past, my future. Or potential future, as I would hope. I have seen some of these outcasts – the hunched over, decrepit beings they are. I would never want to become one of them. Then he emerged from that rift, shining between the ruins. It was so odd. In a way, he looked and moved like me. But at the same time, he was so completely unlike me. It was the vision of an old, grizzled man who lost all joy in life. I was shocked. Was this meeting telling me what I would become? Giving me a way to avoid his fate?

But no, he just wanted to trade. I voiced a concerned about lack of pesticides I would need in Gorgrond and he simply sold me some in exchange for some herbs from Draenor that he can no longer acquire in his timeline. He was so… flat. His voice, his movements – everything about him told me he lost all depth in his life. He simply lived for the moment, traded and experimented just to survive to another day. He didn’t even confront me about it – no “this is what you become if you lose yourself”. No, he was so… trite.

I will work with him if need be, but I will try to avoid meeting him. His very existence frightens me about what I could become, even if our histories were always different.