Dark Matter

Since their thoughts determine where they go, Amanda and Jason decide to write their desired destination in a notebook. Amanda writes that she wants to go to a world where it’s “a good time to be alive” (187). They emerge into a futuristic Chicago with a bullet train version of the El and crystal skyscrapers. Jason thinks of what Daniela and “Jason2” might be doing at that moment. After exploring, Jason and Amanda decide to leave: It is a beautiful world, but it is too different from the world they know.

After the next dose, Jason writes in the notebook that he wants to go home. Before they leave the cube, they hear footsteps. A naked, bloodied, dazed version of Jason walks past them, letting out a blood-curdling scream as he passes. He disappears into the darkness.

They emerge into a Chicago that is under 24-hour curfew, quarantined for a deadly plague. At his home, he finds Daniela hideously disfigured by the disease. She tells him he died and that their son’s body is rotting upstairs in his bed. She thinks she is hallucinating. A medical team arrives and gives Jason morphine to ease his wife’s suffering. Amanda stays in their stolen car, threatening to leave.