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The Paranormal Hunters Society often received letters, emails, or even social media messages about what other people experienced regarding the paranormal. Especially after a couple of our cases made local headlines and some wanted to tell their stories. Mostly, to see if we could investigate them further if they would be willing to pay. Other times though, a few more quirky/mentally unwell mammals wanted to vent their delusions to someone willing to listen. I'd been contacted by conspiracy theorists who claimed to have proof the President was a malfunctioning robot, that their granddaughters were demonic imposters, or that reality itself was controlled by a pessimistic supercomputer.

One crazy story topped them all. It came from a wolverine named Michael Hallowes, a supposed soldier originally born in a parallel universe. Not a U.S. soldier though.

During the night, Michael had left a long voicemail for me while I slept, introducing himself and telling me a wild tale. About whom he was and where he came from; a parallel universe where America never recovered from the Great Depression, resulting in anarchy across the continent. The economic calamity plus a brutal series of rebellions and coup d'états led to the United States dissolving into smaller countries by 1940.

By modern day, the New Confederate Union dominated the Deep South, while Texas/Oklahoma and Florida seceded to become their own separate republics. The Midwest became a constant battlefield between countries eternally fighting over the Great Lakes they bordered. New York State gobbled up New England and the Mid-Atlantic region, but not before enduring regular bombings over the years from communist rebels. Meanwhile, the Great Plains and American Southwest remained anarchy states with cities and towns largely left abandoned due to severe climate change. The lawlessness and extreme weather made these regions almost unbearable to live in without being in nomadic groups. In fact, the way Michael described these former states almost resembled the post-apocalyptic deserts from a Mad Max film. Hawaii became a thriving tourist destination while the Alaskan Territory was gobbled up by Canada. However, the place where dear Michael originated was Southern California--or SoCal, which controlled everything from the Baja California Peninsula all the way to the Golden Gate. They constantly quarreled with Northern California--or NorCal, their sworn enemies.

The voicemail from Michael Hallowes went on to describe other interesting differences about his universe, like Diana Spencer being a popular British actress as opposed to marrying into the royal family, plus Siberia being its own separate country from the Soviet Union, which managed to reach the Moon first due to America no longer existing. The Chinese government abandoned communism, but not authoritarianism, to the point their borders consolidated much of East Asia and Oceania. Brazil quickly replaced the U.S. as a rich superpower in the Western Hemisphere. Oh, and the first city to be nuked wasn't Hiroshima, but Moscow.

"Wanna know the horrifying part? According to history books, it all happened by complete accident," Michael held back a horrified sigh. "It caused chaos in the Union for a while, giving Siberia the chance to split off as its own remote country. Still is, the last time I remembered hearing..."

Michael went on to describe life in SoCal; in many aspects, it resembled real-life California in the modern day, but imagine if most of its extraordinary GDP went to supplying the military. The emotional wolverine described 'San Estrellas' as a megacity surrounded by poorly built homes constantly expanding outward. Those who didn't operate in government jobs or work directly for the SoCal Armed Forces like he did were at risk of never being insured if a devastating earthquake struck. When they did, the destroyed homes would either be demolished or quickly ransacked by desperate folks trying to trade materials for food or security money.

The Internet still existed, but only recently, and computers were purchased only by wealthy citizens, who often used it to smuggle rationed or sanctioned items. Otherwise, most citizens of the Southern Californian Republic entertained themselves by government-funded television or finding said fun on the streets.

"I'm jealous of how many options you lot have, to keep entertained," he mentioned.

Sometimes, it involved graffiti art, running criminal gangs, or operating smuggling operations to make ends meet. As one of millions of orphans, Michael Hallowes felt it was best to do the latter, beginning his criminal career at age sixteen. If he couldn't sell himself on the street to make money, he earned it by supplying illegal drugs to his neighbors, threatening to burn down their homes if protection payments were a day late or a dollar short. Whatever helped the scrawny wolverine get meager food on the table.

One day, the SoCal government Crack down hard on the criminal gangs they previously ignored, with Michael finding himself arrested. His bosses and rivals were sentenced to death, but the tribunal gave him and the other low-level criminals a choice.

"Thirty years of hard labor on the Hellish oil rigs dotting our coast, or serving my country for life," he informed me. "In exchange, my sentence would be commuted. Those who didn't pick either option met a firing squad the...the next morning."

Well, Michael chose to be a patriot. At age nineteen, the desperate wolverine joined the SoCal Forces as Private First-Class. Between occasional skirmishes along the Golden Gate Zone and policing Las Estrellas, he went on to assist in guarding a secret research facility somewhere in the Mojave Desert. Over a year into his latest assignment, the man volunteered as a test subject for one of the unsanctioned projects being conducted. If he survived the process, the SoCal military would give him a bonus over quadruple his annual salary. His new mission? To become the first inter-dimensional traveler between alternate worlds, using a machine that swapped his consciousness with that of his other self in another universe, then easily switch back after an hour. It would only be a test.

"If it succeeded," Michael Hallowes mentioned during his voicemail, "SoCal would've had a window into gaining knowledge to use against NorCal. Hell, if we expand the window into a big enough door, then supply shortages are a thing of the past. My country would become a superpower with limitless worlds to explore...and exploit."

The voicemail started to become more frantic as Michael went into detail about that day; he was instructed to enter an enclosed chamber by the leading scientists, where a coffin-like platform stood connected through millions of wires to a gargantuan machine he could barely comprehend. The scientists, watched closely by SoCal military leaders, gave him instructions on what to do and not to do during his journey. Then, after climbing into the coffin contraption and closing his eyes as they activated the machine, it worked!

Michael Hallowes woke up in a parallel universe--our own universe. He had parents, a family, attended college, and more. At least, his alternate self did.

"Unfortunately...something went wrong," he explained. "When the hour was up, nothing happened. I-I didn't wake up back at the Mojave facility, safe and sound. So, I waited."

For him, another hour passed, then another, then another, and then several more as Michael panicked about his situation. His mission was supposed to be a dimensional scouting mission, but whether it be technical failure or sheer bad luck, he was permanently trapped here. And as far as he knew, the consciousness of my universe's Michael Hallowes was in the same boat, stuck in the body of a parallel version of himself in a world he didn't understand.

In the voicemail, Michael's words suddenly transformed into an audible struggle, followed by loud arguing, static, and an abrupt ending.

Afterwards, I traced the random phone number to a mental health institute in San Amaro, California. Before I could even consider contacting the staff there, a fox psychologist named Dr. Raymond ended up contacting me.

To make a long story short, he wanted to know what my wolverine caller told me. I sent him a copy of the voicemail he left me, asking what it was all about. All that Dr. Raymond could tell me was that Michael was a patient of his at the mental health institute, he learned about the Paranormal Hunters Society by listening to my podcast not long after earning himself computer privileges (now since revoked), and then somehow gained access to a facility phone with the intent to hire me. How he managed to leave a lengthy voicemail without getting caught, the fox doctor wouldn't tell me. When I asked if I could include the voice message on an episode of my podcast, I was instructed to contact Michael Hallowes' family for permission first. To avoid a lawsuit and all that.

Well, when I did, I didn't get that permission. No one else would hear it.

However, I was allowed to ask questions that helped fill in some gaps in the puzzle, and I could mention the incident on the condition I didn't mention any personal names or use any audio clips of the recorded voicemail. I respected the family's wishes, telling them about my own mental health struggles and how I understood their reasonings for secrecy. If not for themselves, then to prevent unwanted attention.

Then, I listened to Michael's parents--Elizabeth and Robert--as they told me the truth about their poor son. It painted a picture of the so-called 'alternate self' my caller described as being mentally separate from him.

Michael grew up in an upper-class family. Despite loving him unconditionally, his parents unknowingly pressured him to achieve financially and professionally like his successful father, who worked as a hedge fund manager. They encouraged him to have perfect grades at the cost of a social life. During his sophomore year of business school, the chronic stress caused by demanding schoolwork and classes likely took a toll on Michael's psyche, triggering a mental illness. Midway through a grueling series of midterm exams, the wolverine's roommate warned his parents about how their son acted differently. None of it seemed natural.

His personality drastically changed overnight, and he talked less like a university student and more like a POW. Upon being confronted by his folks, he described to them a fantastical story about being from a parallel universe unlike their own, and that he wasn't their son at all. Emotional fights and concerned talks occurred throughout the weekend. Days later, a heartbroken Mr. and Mrs. Hallowes were forced to have Michael committed due to their son having a severe psychotic episode following an altercation with a classmate.

By then, he already embraced his psychosis and rejected his own reality, substituting it with his own, a dystopian world separated by different planes of existence.

Or so Mr. and Mrs. Hallowes said. As much as I sympathized with them, given my own experience with sleep paralysis and how it nearly destroyed my life, I tried internalizing their logic at face value. I felt 90% sure that Michael Hallowes truly suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, developing his oddly inventive psychosis to cope from stress.

It made the most logical sense.

To this day though, I sometimes wondered if Michael didn't suffer from a mental illness. Not that I seriously planned to do so, but I imagined traveling to the wolverine's mental health institute in San Amaro to interview him. Not to post about it on my podcast or spread his story on the Internet, but to have him answer my own questions.

What else made his universe different from my own? What did he think caused the technical failure that trapped him in my universe? What did he suppose happened to the other Michael Hallowes that took his place? More importantly, what did SoCal plan to do to my world if their dimensional machine worked properly?

Hopefully, we would never get any straight answers.

Hopefully, we would never need to.