Unaware to Jeff, the person who had entered the house is his little brother Riley, the 10-year-old seems to have had an argument with his friend, his face is filled with anger, “Kyle is such an a-hole,” the boy grumbles to himself as he kicks off his shoes, “why am I even still friends with him,” he asks himself as he storms up the stairs.
Riley is about to enter his room, when he hears snoring coming from Jeff’s room, what causes the boy to hesitate is the sound of the snoring, it doesn’t sound like his brother Jeff, it sounds more like a young boy. Curiously, the 10-year-old carefully opens the door to Jeff’s room and peeks inside, his eyes widen in shock, there on Jeff’s bed lies a boy that looks exactly like him. Riley slowly and quietly walks up to the bed, staring down at himself in disbelief, “what the hell,” he whispers, “why… why does this boy look like me?”
The 10-year-old looks around the room, “and where is Jeff,” he asks, “he wouldn’t leave his laptop running if he wouldn’t be here. I better shut it off,” Riley walks up to Jeff’s laptop, that is when he notices a weird game open on the screen. Riley tilts his head, “weird, looks like some 3D-editing software, or some programming software,” he mumbles, the 10-year-old enjoys programming software he had programmed several gaming apps, this program somehow intrigues him so he decides to copy it over onto his phone to check out later.
“Do you wish to have your copy be connected to the original,” a message asks the boy.
‘Better not, I don’t want to risk messing up Jeff’s programming,’ Riley thinks to himself, so he declines the suggestion.
“Independent app created,” a new message reads.
“Works for me,” Riley says, he then puts his phone back into his pocket and shuts off the laptop, he then turns back to his “clone”, “now… who the hell is he,” he asks himself, “I could wait for him to awake or I’ll simply just wake him”.
Riley decides to wake the strange boy, so he walks over and shakes the boy, “yo… um… me… wake up!”
Jeff stirs as he is shaken, he slowly opens his eyes with a groan, “what is…,” his eyes snap open in shock when he sees his brother staring down at him, ‘oh… fuck me,’ he thinks to himself, thinking quickly Jeff then says, “wh-what… why am I looking at myself?”
“THAT is the question I SHOULD ask YOU,” the real Riley says, “who the fuck are you?! Why do you look like me?! Where did you come from?! WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!”
“I… I dunno what is going on,” Jeff says, not wanting to tell Riley the truth, knowing it would make Riley hate him even more and even think he, Jeff, is a sick pervert, “I… my name is Riley. I… I was in school, then I suddenly felt tired and when I awoke… I was here! I dunno what happened, really! I… I’m scared…!”
Riley blinks a couple of times, seeing his “clone” seeming to be just as confused and scared as he is, the 10-year-old relaxes a little, “okay… okay… let’s just calm down,” he says, “we… we’ll figure this out!”
Jeff looks up at his brother, ‘he actually bought that,’ he asks himself.
“Okay… I’ve heard about parallel universes supposedly existing,” Riley then says, “I always thought that it was some kind of crazy BS… apparently I was wrong”.
“Parallel universes,” Jeff/”Riley” asks.
The real Riley nods, “that would explain why you look exactly like me and also have the same name as me,” he says, “maybe something happened that caused you to somehow travel from your dimension into mine. And since we both have no idea how that happened… I guess, at least for now, you are trapped here… I just hope my parents and Jeff won’t mind that there are now two of… me”.
“M-maybe… maybe it’s only temporary?”
“I hope so,” Riley says, “though… how can we be so sure?”
Jeff stays silent, ‘I KNOW “Riley” will “vanish” in two days, but I can’t tell Riley that,’ Jeff thinks to himself.
“For now, you need a different name, we can’t both be “Riley”,” Riley says.
“Um… okay,” Jeff says, “s-so… what should my name be?”