Inspired by the movie Shutter.

Crossing Over - Alternate realities "bump" into one another, and crossings over of certain things are born.

There are times when you realize that something's not all right. You know what I'm talking about. Have you ever heard a baby cry in your house...but there aren't any babies there? Have you ever seen someone standing in a doorway, but when you go into the room, there's no one there? If these phenomenons have just escaped you by completely, then ask yourself this: Have you ever seen an animal or a small child stare at something for hours on end that is not actually there? I know you have. Everybody has.

But trust me: If your child is staring at a completely blank wall or off into space, there is something, or someone, there. Don't doubt that.

I thought I was crazy. I really, really did. I mean, you just don't go off and see strange things for no reason, right? I figured either I was crazy, or there was something going on that only I was aware of. I decided to pick the first option, because I really didn't believe at the time that Hollows even existed, or, to be correct, that there really were such things as big spirit thingies with bone masks running around causing havoc.

The psychiatrist could find nothing wrong with me, but told me that I was probably having aftershocks of my mother's tragic death and was seeing things. He told me that it'd wear off in a few months or so. It didn't. I started to question my sanity, and when I realized that I was still perfectly sane, I decided to question the fact of what I was seeing and if they were indeed real.

One day, as I was going to school, I walked past the mirror in the front hall. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw my reflection...but it wasn't me. True, it did look like me, but it was an albino reflection of me, with snow white hair and skin. I paused, stared at the mirror hard, and waved my hand in front of the glass. The albino did the same thing. I basically stood there for fifteen minutes, doing all sort of weird stuff, and the albino copied my every move. A reflection of me.

But somehow, I knew it wasn't me. Couldn't be me. I didn't smile that sadistically, I knew that much. Also, I didn't have this look of bloodlust permanently stamped in my eyes and the word KILLER clearly implied on my forehead, like my reflection did.

It was at that point that I decided to entertain the concept of alternate realities. Maybe somewhere, there was a place where there was an albino, sadistic version of me. Maybe there was a place where my mother hadn't died. It was a 50 - 50 chance, that she would have survived. So, what if somewhere in the universe, there was that other 50 percent? What if there was a place where unmade decisions came true?

So the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that, I stood in front of the mirror before school, trying to get my alternate version to come up again. He didn't, and after a few weeks, I gave up trying. And that's when it happened:

As I was walking past the mirror on my way out the front door, I felt something cold sweep over me, and next thing I knew, I was in the mirror. I know it sounds crazy, but you gotta believe me. God knows the crackpots at this mental ward won't. They think I'm just blabbing to myself, but it's true, I tell you!

So anyway, I was in the mirror. As in, there was a world behind the mirror, and I was in it. Everything here seemed wrong, you know, like the buildings were all sideways and stuff, but I seemed able to balance pretty well on them. I didn't know where my albino version was, or if he was even in this world. I was kinda new to all this stuff, and had no idea what the heck was going on, but I figured that as long as I was there, that I should try and figure some stuff out.

The place was deserted. There wasn't anybody there, except for me. Me and my shadow, which had started to rise up from the sideways building and envelope me in a smothering darkness. I tried to scream, but there wouldn't have been anybody to hear...

And that was when I woke up, in a cold sweat. I was panting, as though I'd just run a 26 mile marathon, and I could see, out of my peripheral vision, that there was someone standing by my bed. Someone in white. But when I turned my head to fully look at them, they were gone.

It was all confusing to me, but these visions started to happen to me regularly. One moment I'd be walking out the front door, the next I'd be in a different reality in which all the decisions that I'd ever made took a turn for the other path. The time when I'd decided to party all night and not do homework, the time when I'd decided not to do weed, the day when my mother died. They were all 50 50 chances, and I was reliving out every single one of them the way it would have happened if I had not chosen the other path.

I think some of that craziness started leaking into my daily conversations with my family. My father and sisters started to get concerned, because I guess at one moment I'd be making rice balls and the next I'd be shaking on the ground and begging for them "not to do it." My father had psychiatrists and shrinks and the whole kahuna examine me, but they could find nothing wrong with me. But the visions continued, and grew even worse, to the point where I was screaming during the middle of the night and the whole neighborhood was complaining about me.

My father decided to put me in this mental ward. Why? I don't know. It's clear that there's absolutely nothing wrong with me.

At any rate, you probably don't want to hear the ravings of a deluded lunatic any more. So let me just conclude with this:

If you see something, or someone, standing by your bed in the middle of the night, there probably is someone or something there. The reason they disappear when you turn to look at them is because the moment has passed, the moment where your two realities cross. And unless you take some action before they disappear, then they'll be gone, might be gone forever.

Alternate realities are created by the decisions we make, the paths we choose. Somewhere out there, there's another place where the whole world is opposite, where people are brought back from the dead and where your wildest dreams can come true. I'll try to find out more about it, just for you. And you...you go and make your decisions, live your life, but know that somewhere else, someone exactly like you is living out the consequences of your decisions. Just think about that before you decide to go get drunk and drive somewhere, get in a car accident, and just happen to survive. Know that somewhere else in the world, you've just killed someone. Think about it.