Level: Infinite

Light flashed around me. Buzzers rang, bells dinged. The air was thick with the scent of hot chips, a sausage roll that had clearly overstayed its welcome in the heat cabinet, and the unmistakable tang of teenage sweat. Every few seconds, a puff of fairy-floss vapour drifted past—courtesy of one guy who thought he was being subtle about his vape.

None of that mattered. I was mid-battle, hacking through a zombie field, seconds away from beating the venue’s top score.

“You’re pretty good at this—for a girl,” said Fairy Floss Scent, leaning his elbow on the machine. His weight hit a few buttons, freezing my character.

“Hey!” I shoved his arm off, jamming the controls, but it was too late. The zombie got me.

“Dammit!” I kicked the side of the machine. It lurched, and part of the wall behind it crumbled.

We stared into the hole.

“You’re pretty strong for—” he started.

“If you finish that sentence, I’ll make your face match this wall.”

We peered closer. A narrow corridor stretched behind the rubble, ending in a door glowing faint blue. My heart raced. Secret staff room? Hidden level? Treasure chest of unclaimed tokens?

Before Fairy Floss could object, I climbed through.

“I really think we should—ow!—go back,” he whined, bumping into the walls.

I ignored him. The door at the end was plain, but on a table beside it sat a small metallic box pulsing blue and green. A puzzle box, maybe. I pressed a few buttons at random.

A deep whoosh filled the corridor, light exploding outward and swallowing us both.

When I came to, Fairy Floss’s face hovered too close, that sickly sweet smell invading my nose.

“Hey, girl, you alive?”

I pushed his hand away and stood. The box was dark and silent now. Shrugging, I stepped back toward the arcade.

Except… the arcade wasn’t there.

The zombie game was gone. No rubble. No flashing lights. The air was cooler, quieter.

“They cleaned that up fast,” I said.

Fairy Floss frowned. “We must’ve gone out the wrong exit.”

But as we stepped through the doorway, the room opened into a dimly lit saloon. Wood walls. Candle sconces. Ragtime piano. A handsome man at the bar tipped his hat.

“I’m still unconscious, right?” I muttered.

“Nope,” Fairy Floss said. “I woke you up.”

“Then I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Toto.”

The bartender turned. “Kansas? That near Rockhampton?”

The man introduced himself as Zeke. Everyone around us looked straight out of an old western. When I asked the year, he frowned.

“This here’s 2025,” he said.

I pulled Fairy Floss aside. “What the hell? That box did something.”

We raced back, found the box, and hit random buttons again. The same surge of light—then rubble, arcade noise, the world snapping back to normal.

I breathed relief and headed home.

“Mum, it’s me!” I called.

She dropped a stack of plates. I ran in—and froze.

Another me stood in the kitchen.

“Who are you?” we both demanded, in unison.

And then Dad walked in.

My knees nearly buckled. Dad had died when I was four. But there he was—alive, confused, real.

There was a knock at the door and mum went to answer it.

Fairy Floss appeared behind her. “Hey, um… you might want to see this.”

The other Fairy Floss—fitter, sharper—stepped into view.

“Jackson’s my boyfriend,” the other me said.

“Ew,” I whispered. “You and Fairy Floss?”

The fitter Jackson scowled. “Fairy what?”

Eventually, the four of us piled into their car—a heavy safe almost tank like vehicle that didn’t exist in my world—and returned to the arcade. Along the way, we compared worlds.

Their version of Earth had almost no road deaths, no racing, no reckless drivers. Cars capped at safe speeds, retested every year. My father had never died.

When we reached the box again, I hesitated.

“What if this is the life we could’ve had?” I said softly.

But I pressed the buttons anyway.

Light. Silence.

And another world.

We stepped outside and other Jackson and other me were waiting.

“Didn’t work?” another me asked.

The red sports car they were sitting in told us different.

“Wait did you just drop us off?” I asked.

“Dude why can’t you remember anything?” A very jock version of Jackson asked.

“What is going on?” Fairy Floss asked. We briefly spoke to this version of us and this world was obsessed with sport. And that was all we needed to hear. We headed back inside to the box.

We jumped again and again. Worlds that were utopias, wastelands, matriarchies, neon metropolises. Sometimes we met other versions of ourselves; sometimes, the worlds were empty. In one, women had always ruled—everything was efficient, beautiful, and oddly pink. In another, technology was so advanced we could barely breathe the air.

Eventually, we landed in a sterile white room, glass walls, scientists staring in.

“Hello, travellers,” said a voice through a speaker. “State your names and Earth number.”

“Lauren and Jackson,” I said. “No idea what an Earth number is.”

“How did you find yourselves here?”

We explained the story of the hole in the wall and the journey we had been on.

“We should just go,” Fairy floss cried.

“Who is your president?”

“We are from Australia so we have a Prime minster his name is Albo.”

I watched those through a window bring up screens in the air like I had only ever seen on TV.

“We have never had an Albo can you tell me more.”

“Anthony Albanese,” started Fairy Floss. “Who are you?”

A door hissed open.

Zeke walked in.

“Zeke?”

He smiled. “You’ve met versions of me before. Welcome to the Archive.”

He took us out of the room and down to a café. It was the most fantastic thing I had ever seen I though to myself that I could really have some hot chips and before I even asked they were in front of me with a variety of sauces on the side.

“can we stay on this Earth?” I asked.

Zeke laughed. He then went on to ask us several more questions about our Earth and we were from one that no one had been to or come from before. He explained the theory behind what was happening and how many Earths had what they called the travelling box but there were also some that didn’t. He gave us Earth number – 89853.

“How many Earths are there?” I exclaimed.

“So far we have encountered 89853,” he replied. But there could be infinite.

“Wow can we stay on this Earth?” a voice behind me exclaimed. I turned around to see another me with a plate of hot chips.

“Is it always us?” I asked.

He gestured to the room it was full of us—hundreds of Laurens, some with Jacksons, some without.

He explained there were nearly ninety thousand catalogued realities. The “travelling box” existed on some Earths, not others. They studied the travellers who stumbled through.

Behind me, another me spoke. “Can we stay here too?” She was holding her own plate of chips.

They ran some tests on us letting us know some versions of earth had different physical characteristics for humans and some had different bloods and virsues and their job was purely to collect the data and send us on our way.

He took us back to the room and gave us the code to put in to get us home.

“If you ever decided to keep travelling. Remember what happens to you on each is permanent. So if you die or lose a limb they don’t come back on other worlds. Additionally if you find one you really like you have a 7 day window that you can stay if there is another version of you there. If a world detects more than one of the same person on an Earth they one who has been there the least time will slowly start to disintegrate so you need to find your way to the traveller box immediately.”

When we finally returned home, the arcade wall was half-repaired. The zombie machine was gone for good.

“Until next time,” Jackson said quietly.

“Yeah,” I replied.

He hesitated. “So, uh… I noticed some versions of us were… together.”

“One thing at a time, Fairy Floss,” I said, smiling faintly. “Let’s just get home.”