Mimesis

++++SPOILERS AHEAD++++ At 6.00am HERO’s day starts. Her life is straightforward, repetitive and mostly spent working at Archives, a large library like place where her friend, EXILE also works. One morning she finds Exile lost and confused and understandably concerned, Hero takes him back to her apartment. However, when she returns to Archives, she sees him there too. Suspicious over who or what she has at home, Hero convinces this Exile to come back with her to find out what’s happening. Back at the apartment, the Exile whom Hero found previously (Exile A) explains how he is from another, similar reality. Hero is sceptical but thinks they can find out more in the files kept in the sub basements (Subs) at Archives to which Exile has access. They make a plan, Hero and Exile A will go to Archives whilst Exile goes to the Subs, but when he doesn’t return at the end of the day, it seems something has gone wrong. Next morning, Hero and Exile A are taken to a facility where they find the missing Exile. The Head of Facility here tells them how they already know about the duplicates. How every decision made in this universe creates a new universe where the opposite decision is made. This is the multiverse. However, it seems space to hold these universes is shrinking which is why duplicates are appearing. The Head of Facility tells Hero of another Exile duplicate lost in the city. Concerned he might be in trouble, Hero and Exile agree to look whilst Exile A stays behind. Whilst searching, Hero and Exile see a strange woman and after following her, discover she is one of five duplicates living together. This is ADRIFT. Adrift tells them how when a duplicate dies all the choices branching from that life also die. This is why she keeps her duplicates with her, but Adrift is confused and doesn’t remember who is the original Adrift from this universe. Adrift and her duplicates are taken to the facility where they are using a machine to connect with other universes. Contact is made and it’s clear things are worse elsewhere. Awestruck, Adrift agrees to stay and help. Later, questions from Exile A force Exile to reveal himself as the missing duplicate (Exile Z). He’s under the facility’s control and kills Exile A to keep his secret. When contact is lost with the other universe, a frustrated Head of Facility brings Hero back to the facility and orders Exile Z to kill Adrift and her duplicates to restart the machine. Horrified at what she’s seen, Hero escapes and heads to Adrift’s apartment where she discovers the original Adrift. Hearing how her duplicates have been killed, Adrift is bereft. With Exile Z alive, Hero reasons that Exile must be alive too and she and Adrift resolve to rescue him. Hero and Adrift break into the facility and find Exile captive and beaten. Hero is caught by the Head of Facility who tells her how the multiverse isn’t made up with alternate choices as she previously said, but Hero’s thoughts and ideas. With Hero a part of the machine they can stabilise and rebuild this universe using her imagination. As the collapse of the multiverse intensifies, Hero escapes but the Head of Facility finds her and tells Hero how she is living inside a memory, an echo of her life. Hero can’t escape- there’s nothing to escape to! Hero takes a leap into the unknown and the final truth is revealed- she is an old lady dying in a nursing home. As her brain shuts down, she’s trying to hold onto one final memory by constantly reliving it- her last day with Exile.