This world was the same, yet different in many ways. And as such, the repercussions presented a much different earth that most knew, though it was localized to one continent.
Most of history was the same:
The fall of the soviet union in 1991. The digital revolution in the late 20th century. Decolonization in the mid-20th century. The Cold War (1947–1991). The Creation of the United Nations (1945).
Then came the Gap. The warped bridge in the planets historical archive.
World War II (1939–1945)
The major events that took place followed the same order, but the cost... the cost was much more devastating for a group of people.
Timelines had diverged. Not wildly, nor were they clean, the diversions were more subtle. Small shifts compounded into larger ones.
Africa's timeline was… scarred.
Draft records. Colonial troop movements. Casualty estimates that climbed higher and higher the more one actually dug. Entire regions marked with vague language. "Labor losses." "Population displacement." "Long-term demographic impact."
Africa during the mid-20th century was a bleeding continent. Not just exploited. It was and still is being bled dry.
Millions drafted. Ten times that number killed in proxy wars that never made it into the popular narratives. Supply routes turned battlefields. Resource zones turned killing fields. Colonies fighting other colonies for masters half a world away.
When the war ended, the world recovered, rebuilt, advanced.
Africa; majorly western, central, south-central, and eastern Africa, were still in the process of recovering, not to mention rebuilding and advancing.
The population curve dipped sharply and hadn't recovered.
Africa had been bled dry in blood, and now it was being bled dry in resources. Very slowly.
Half.
That was the percentage of Africa's population. It was at approximately half of what it should have been at this period in time.
This world wasn't just different. It was wounded. Not in one place, but everywhere, in quiet ways that stacked on top of each other until the absence in and of itself became normal.
So many people who should have existed… didn't. Though oddly though, every major name in history despite all that, still existed. Every person of note with some fame, pivotal historical moment, or two-cents to their name, whether they were of color or not, they all still existed.
Humanity had showed it true nature at the wrong moment. The world was scarred, it was bleeding, and it was ugly.
The forest had long since regained its sound. Insects resuming with their rhythm. A bird shifted on a branch. Somewhere close by, the sound of water moving was audible.
"So this is the world," he said quietly, admiring the creatures
The boy stayed there for a long while, thinking in the strange way only he could. Not linearly. Not emotionally. Threads of logic braided with curiosity and instinct.
He stared at the jungle around him, suddenly feeling an emptiness he had sensed earlier, but this time much more profound and pained. This forest should have had villages threading its edges like veins. It should have carried human traces, smoke, canoes on the river.
Instead, it was too quiet. Abandoned.
"That's… unfair," he said aloud, a flood of pain washing over him. And in that moment of loose emotions, he accidentally teleported from there.
~Monte Carlo, Monaco~
He reappeared in Monaco, and for the strange outer being, something tugged at him. It wasn't sharp or urgent. But it was consistent... no, persistent might have been a better word. A thread, faint but distinct, weaving through the noise of the world, had pulled him here.
He turned his head slowly.
A woman sitting on the ground by a wall, quiet as she slowly bled out. Alive... for now.
His mind fluttered strangely.
"So that's one," he whispered, seeing one this close up. Even with his sight prior, all he had seen were extremely small moving figures. His initial attempt at looking at the sun, having limited his sight severely to avoid straining him in his pre-infantile state.
One thing he understood instinctively about his current existence, was that he still wasn't tethered to this universe or multiverse, and he likely wouldn't, but he could be tethered to this reality to a major extent.
He didn't move toward her right away. He watched.
"Why are you leaking?" He asked, his mind translating what he was seeing. "You are death process..."
She let out a weak laugh. "So many lights. Burning, blinking, how beautiful."
He stared at her for a few moments, her life pouring out of her each passing moment. 'Why do I know what I am about to do will be painful?"
He held both her wrists suddenly. Nothing happened for some time, until something eventually did her blood slowly flowed back into her veins, her complexion brightening gradually with it.
Then came her vision slowly returning, as she saw the silhouette of the titan of a being as he was.
His form was still what it had been since arrival. Over nine feet tall. Hair of liquid starlight. Extra arms of white energy drifting at his sides like patient ghosts.
Keiko felt it then. Awareness coming to her like a gentle whisper, her senses electrified. She straightened slowly and looked up.
They saw each other at the same time.
Her breath caught. It wasn't panic, but the recognition of something vast. Her eyes widened reflecting starlight that wasn't there a moment ago.
He froze.
She didn't reach for anything. Didn't step back. Didn't raise her voice. She just looked.
"Well," she said quietly, "You're certainly not what I was expecting to see..."
He tilted his head.
"I… don't know what you expected to see." he admitted. His voice was clear. Young, but not weak. Curious.
Keiko's pulse jumped at the sound, but her posture stayed relaxed.
Her eyes settled, "That's all right," she said. They stayed there, blood slowly finishing returning into her body, as the cuts began sealing without a mark, she could almost swear the world was holding its breath.
He studied her openly. Her height. The way her shoulders squared naturally. The scars beneath the skin that his sight could see but her clothes hid. Her muscular structure, her nervous system, her organs, womb...
He flinched.
There was something, dead? ...no, not dead, more like it was damaged in a way that made no sense to him. Tissue twisted unnaturally. Scar layers folded over one another like pages glued together.
It bothered him, his thoughts trailing off. That childlike curiosity influencing him. He took a step closer without thinking.
Keiko didn't move. "You can come closer," she said. "If you want."
He hesitated. "You're… not afraid."
"No, I'm not." She considered that. "...at least I don't think so."
"Why?"
She looked at him for a long moment. At the extra arms. At the starlight in his eyes. At the way the space seemed to bend around him.
"Because you're looking at me like you're a curious child." she said. "Not like prey. Or a problem."
Something in his chest loosened. He smiled back. It was unpracticed, uneven, but sincere. His mind briefly diverting to something, human at its core.
"My name… I don't have one," he said. "Yet."
Keiko nodded. "I'm Keiko."
He repeated it softly, testing the sound. "KAE-ko. Cayko..."
"Kei. Ko. K-E-I-K-O. Keiko." She carefully enunciated, spelled it out, and pronounced it again."
"Kei-ko?"
"Yes, Keiko. You got it."
The name settled in his ears easily. He reached out, slow and deliberate, palm open. Not touching. Just close enough for her to feel the warmth of him.
"Kei-ko, what happened to you?" he asked, pointing. Not at her scars, but at the hollow place inside.
She blinked. Her throat tightened, letting out an awkward life. "That's… complicated." It was then that something clicked in her mind, something she had overlooked from the beginning of this encounter in her stunned state. "Wait, how are you able to communicate with me."
"I... just can." He frowned slightly, looking back at her torso. "That shouldn't be like that, right?"
Before she could ask what he meant, his fingers brushed the air in front of her abdomen. Pain exploded through him. It was deep and crushing, like trying to lift the weight of a planet.
He gasped and dropped to one knee.
Keiko moved instantly, grabbing his shoulders without hesitation. "Hey... hey, stop, what are you doing?"
"I didn't... mean—" His voice shook.
His secondary arms flared bright, then spasmed, flickering like dying stars. Keiko felt it then. Heat. Pressure. A strange, spreading warmth low in her belly that made her knees go weak.
The pain hit him harder.
He screamed once. A raw sound, tearing out of him before he could stop it. The house shuddered in response, objects trembling, the ground humming faintly.
Then it was over. He collapsed forward, forehead against the tiled floors, breathing hard.
Keiko knelt beside him, hands shaking now. "What did you do?"
He lifted his head slowly. His eyes were dimmer. His form smaller somehow. Drained.
"I fixed it," he whispered. "I think. But... I shouldn't have. Stopping you from death process, was already too much. Living things; animals... are difficult."
She stared at him, then at herself. Something was different. It was undeniable. A tension she'd carried for years was gone. The phantom ache, the sharp reminder of absence, had vanished like it had never been there.
Her vision blurred.
"You… you did something to me," she said hoarsely.
He nodded weakly. "You were in pain. That place." He pointed, confused. "It wasn't meant to hurt, was it?"
Tears spilled down her cheeks before she could stop them. She laughed once, breathless and broken. "You have no idea what you just did."
He watched her cry with wide eyes. Alarmed. "Did I... give you pain again?"
"No," she said quickly, pulling him into her arms without thinking. He stiffened, then slowly relaxed against her. "No. You didn't."
She pressed a trembling hand to her mouth, then to her stomach. "Oh my god," she whispered.
He leaned back, studying her face. "Why are you… leaking, again?"
She laughed through the tears. "Humans do that."
"So are you happy? Or sad?" He asked, the laughter
mixed with tears confused him.
"Happy!" Keiko said, exasperated.
He nodded solemnly, filing that away. Looking at her abdomen again, then up at her. Something slowly clicked. "Humans, are confusing."
"You're… mother," he said, pointing at her abdomen with childlike certainty.
Keiko froze. The world went very quiet. Her breath hitched. Her hands trembled where they rested on his shoulders.
Her eyes filled again, this time with something sharper. Hope. Terror. Wonder. She pulled him to her chest, holding him tighter this time. She whispered, "Thank you..."
He sagged against her, exhausted. "Good."
They stayed like that for a long time. Eventually, he stirred.
"I feel… small," he said.
Keiko brushed her fingers through the strange light of his hair, then stopped, startled as it began to change beneath her touch. Thickening. Whitening. Curling.
He pulled back, startled too, as his body began shrinking. Bones rearranged. Light condensed. His massive height shrinking rapidly, painfully, until he was no longer towering over her in height, but sitting on the floor around her height, and growing smaller by the second.
She watched every second of it. Didn't look away. When it was over, he was the size of a baby, though larger than the average baby.
His hair spilled down his back in thick white curls. His skin had lightened up to a warm caramel tone. His eyes still strange and impossibly deep, now mirrored hers in color. Red in one. A vivid purple in the other.
He looked up at her, as Keiko swallowed hard. "You look… like me."
His head hung, tired but at peace.
She chuckled. "That's okay," she said softly, voice steady despite everything. "It's okay. We'll figure this out."
She cradled him dearly, somewhat afraid he was a dream, his eyes already drifting shut.
"Ma-ma?" he murmured, testing the word.
She closed her eyes. "Yes," she whispered.
"I'm here."