77 year old Archibald Fleming had already achieved great things in his long and eventful life. Born at the tail end of the Great War, he had served in the second, joining the Royal Academy of Science at a young age. He had published countless papers, and achieved many breakthroughs, yet despite everything, he felt something was missing, a single, defining legacy that would put his name at the forefront of history books.
Unlike him, his sister, Sarah, was a family woman, uninterested in his work. She had two daughters, one of which, named Melissa, looked up to and admired her uncle, while the other, Alicia, was largely uninterested as well, moving to America and becoming a successful actress. She one son and one daughter, with another on the way, and only rarely came to visit. But family matters concerned him very little. He had work to do.
So he began work on his secret project, funded by the British Government and carried out in a secret underground facility located deep under the Antarctic ice sheet. His mission? To achieve unlimited energy by drawing power from other universes. With this, humanity would be unstoppable, and he would be its greatest hero.
The time had finally come, after decades of work and testing, to activate the device for the first time.
His assistants and colleagues waited with bated breath, when suddenly, in an instant, everything went black. A hole torn in the space-time continuum had ripped a number of inhabitants from this world and flung them to a nearby parallel universe, sparing them from the havoc wrought by the massive energy surge that ripped apart their home reality. Unbeknownst to them, there was no reality left for them to return to.
Doctor Fleming awoke in an unfamiliar room, which was decorated with pink and filled with stuffed animals. It was a young girls room, and for some reason he was sitting in it. Looking down, his heart jumped in his throat. What he saw was a young girl wearing a frilly purple dress, but, it was as if he was seeing from her eyes. He was, in fact, seeing from her eyes. He slid off the bed, noticing how short his new legs were, before rushing over to the mirror. Staring back at him was the tiny figure of his 11 year old great-niece, Avery Fleming. “Dear God!” He exclaimed, hearing the girl’s voice and seeing her movements following his. Suddenly, he heard the sound of her voice, but this time it seemed to be coming from inside his head. “Hello? Where am I, what’s going on? Why can’t I move?”
“Who’s there?” He shouted, once again speaking with the little girl’s shrill voice. “Avery? Is that you? This is your great uncle, I don’t know what’s going on but I’ll fix it, I promise.”
The voice in his head spoke: “what’s an uncle? I don’t have one of those?”
This didn’t make any sense, surely this child must have at least heard of him. They were family. Maybe she just forgot.
“I’m a scientist, remember, I gave you a present on your birthday last year. Your grand-mommy is my sister.”
“No, she doesn’t have a sister, or a… grunkle?”
This was baffling, not only had she not heard of him, it seemed he was absent from this world entirely. He quickly rushed to find the nearest computer, marveling and just how large everything now seemed to his diminutive form.
He opened up his browser and began to search. One thing that stood out was there wasn’t a single man anywhere to be seen. Everything was about women, with men, husbands, brothers, uncles, all being words that produced no results. He found records of his former colleges, all changed to women, and found that none of them had ever worked on any project with him, and in fact, there was no record at all of his accomplishments. He’d been wiped from history.
He collapsed back into the computer chair, unable to fully comprehend what had become of the world. He had to fix it, even if all of his notes and all of his equipment no longer existed, he had to start over. He had plenty of time to do so, now.
***
The doctor and the girl spent a long while conversing, with the answers he got not quite painting a full picture of what this world was like. He had asked how babies were made here, and she had no answer, being too young to know, anyways.
It was then that he felt a strange pressure in the upper part of his chest cavity. Perplexed, he asked what was happening. “I think we have to pee” said the girl, nonchalantly.
When he went to sit down, the girl asked, “why are you doing that?”
“I’m pissing, what does it look like.”
“Well you gotta turn around, dummy.”
He felt the sudden urge to vomit, so he turned around to do so, a stream of piss poured from his mouth. It tasted awful and smelled just as bad. Coughing and sputtering and cursing, he cried, “WHAT IN THE BLOODY HELL IS THIS???”
“Uhh, it’s pee, you never peed before?”
“Yes I bloody know what it is, but why in the devil is it coming out of my MOUTH!!! It’s disgusting!!!”
If she had a body, the girl would’ve shrugged. “You get used to it.”
The old doctor quietly cursed himself for ever messing with the fabric of reality.
“I can hear your thoughts, y’know. Mommy is gonna wash your mouth out with soap.”
“I damn well HOPE she does, given how filthy it must be. Do you realize how unsanitary this is? How do people even manage? By GOD!”
“You’re funny, missy.” She giggled