Somewhere there exists a version of this world free from sickness, ailments, aging, and death. Call it a utopia, or a heaven of sorts. The perfect world. Whatever this place is, wherever it is, why would a person choose to leave? And how?
Prestin was a small town, free from the ever-marching burden of time long before the Pragredium fallout rendered the planet a paralyzed paradise. As an old, self-sufficient farm town nestled in the valleys of eastern Appalachia, the people of Prestin were used to the seclusion and content to carry on with life as normal, even after the new air had granted them immortality. But after 15 years of complete isolation, just when they were starting to believe they may be the only people left on the planet, a research group showed up on the edge of town. Ignis, as the group called themselves, had trekked across the country in search of one thing: The rift.
Asteria Walker grew up in this world, where no one was supposed to be able to die. Of course, the facts that were meant to persist and the events that transpired didn’t always align in Ria’s version of life. She also knew about the rift, though she’d never known it had a name. The valley that contained the beautiful iridescent glow was her favorite spot to journal. That space in the sky, the rift, had always stayed the same; the biggest constant in her life full of constants.
Ignis had insisted that the rift was a harmless magnetic field anomaly, unimportant to someone without a science background. But Asteria knew it was no coincidence that shortly after this research group set up shop, she began having reality-transcending nightmares, and the rift began to change.
How were they connected? And how could she explain the debilitating dreams that transported her into a haze of vivid memories, alternate timelines, and certain futures?
Of course, that was all in Asteria’s past. Now, as she recounts her life story on her premature deathbed, the only question that remains: Why would she choose death over life?
Between Parallel is a slipstream fiction novel, with both hard sci-fi and literary fiction elements, complete at 100k words. It explores the meaning of death through the lens of immortal life, found family, near-future science, and alternate history. The story blurs the lines between science and magic, with spiritual undertones, while adding a small touch of the friends-to-lovers trope.
I am currently an unpublished writer, with Between Parallel being born from my lifelong fascination for all things astrophysics and magic, and my upbringing in rural eastern Kentucky. It blends setting elements of Robert C. O’Brien’s Z for Zachariah with the hard scientific basis of Ted Chiang’s “Story of Your Life”. The suspension of belief aspect of an alien molecule changing the air in my novel is reminiscent of the Protomolecule approach in The Expanse series by James S. A. Corey, where it remains an overarching driving force behind the story’s plot while often going unmentioned. Science and afterlife elements are intertwined and explored in a fashion much like The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, and many introspective aspects similar to the soliloquies found in Circe by Madeline Miller. Other titles of comparison may include Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer, Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, and There Are Doors by Gene Wolfe.
Emily J. Hollon 