SNAP! and the Alter Ego Dimension by Ann Hite Kemp Read Free Book Online

paused to give the newcomer time to process this strange new world. Then he continued: “Did you want to play
Snap
?”
    “Yes. Yes, but why does that matter? And who are you?” the youngster asked with an unmistakable German accent.
    This
Snap
game was played internationally, Tammy decided. Across the whole world people have another self and they can all come here periodically. To the Alter Ego Dimension. How many of them are stuck here? More importantly, how many escape?
    “I am Hiroshi Tanaka from Japan and she is my sister, Etsu. The one with the curtain-dress is Tammy Delport from South Africa,” Hiroshi introduced them all.
    “Ulrich Zeiss from Frankfurt am Main in D . . . Germany.” He looked at them uncertainly. His eyes rested a few seconds longer on Tammy in her peculiar curtain-dress. “Are you really telling me that I’m not on Earth? Did you . . . did you just start floating and . . . here you are?” He indicated to their surroundings.
    “Yes, we floated here. We know what ‘here’ is called, but we don’t know where ‘here’ is,” answered Tammy. “What we know for certain, is that the alter egos are our enemies. They don’t talk much. They only want to overpower us and keep us here, where they are stored, for eternity.”
    “What? What are you saying?”
    Tammy could hear that Ulrich didn’t believe a word of what she told him.
    “The four of us are here in this strange dimension. We can breath, but we don’t know much more. The three of us are not your enemies. The other three that resemble us and the one that resembles you, they are our enemies. Believe me,” Tammy tried to make him understand.
    “Look, I was busy on the Internet,” Ulrich began to explain while using his hands. “I can remember I was thinking about my dad and how wonderful it would be if I was as clever as Albert Einstein. And bright enough to read as fast as my dad. Then I could absorb all the information on the Internet like a sponge. Then there was this irritating
Snap
message on my monitor. I thought it was an advert. It didn’t want to move, so I had to play. As soon as I clicked on the ‘Yes’ everything went black and I started to float off and landed here. But where is this place? Are we dreaming? What are we doing here?” Ulrich asked and looked from Tammy to the Japanese. Then he looked down to his shoes, shoes that stood on nothing but grayness.
    “Sit down, so that we can tell you the bad news,” Tammy proposed and sat down first. She was now so hungry that she didn’t want to stand any longer. Maybe she should have taken a bite from one of those birds . . .
    Never in my life!
she thought.
Raw meat. How gross!
She would rather die.
    The other three sat down beside her. Ulrich was the last to do so, and he was much more careful than the Japanese, because of course there was no proper floor to sit on. Hiroshi urged them closer to each other, getting them back to back so that all of them could keep watch in case an alter ego approached. Tammy listened while Hiroshi told Ulrich what he knew of the fate that awaited them. Hiroshi said that they were going to get weaker from lack of food and water and that their alter egos would then overpower them and take their place on earth—if they couldn’t find a way home. In some unexplained manner the alter egos discovered a way to transfer the real people to this dimension and then replaced them permanently. The real people were then stored here for all eternity—whatever that stored meant.
    Ulrich listened in disbelief. He frowned.
    “So, how are we,” Ulrich tapped his chest, “going to get out of here?”
    Tammy saw that although Ulrich’s face was a little distraught, he was very good looking. He was sitting next to her with his legs crossed in front of him. His chin was broad and his hair longer in his neck so that it touched the collar of his red jacket. His brown eyes had an intensive manner of looking at one and he was always trying to catch her