The Other

**The Other** (also known as the **Unreal**, the **Other Side,** the **Otherworld**, and the **Otherspace**) is a term that is used to refer to a multitude of collective and individual mirror realities, called spaces, that exist beyond the confines and logic of true reality, as confirmed by human visitation (whether voluntary or otherwise). Unlike perireality, which refers to observing the real world through the edited gaze of psychedelics or other psychoactive methods (and therefore detecting the cryptids lurking within the real world), the realms of the Other are truly separate dimensions from the real world in both space and time as a result of their metatopographies and metachronographies. Thus, they are normally inaccessible from true reality, save from portals.

Some portions of the Other seem to span infinitely in size, while other portions of the Other may be as small as a single room. Access to these spaces is most often induced due to the deliberate activity of an anomalous cryptid, but can be reached through passing inconspicuous but extremely rare portals that lie in nature. Examples of this include spaces that lie between tree branches that span over nature trails or paths.

Human survival within the Other varies, but is considered exceedingly low due to various factors. The lack of food items and water in many environs contribute to a low chance of survival, unless the subject human's metabolism has been paused by the Other's aberrant effects. The existence of malevolent cryptids in some realities also contribute to the danger, and have subsequently stopped any unarmed scientific exploration of the Other.

## Public knowledge

The general public across the world have been kept ignorant of the existence of the Other for as long as it had been first scientifically confirmed; specifically having started in America in 1906 under the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt after the 1906 Yosemite Disappearances and the start of domestic subversion operations against such knowledge.

## Exploration and private knowledge

All private knowledge known to world governments have been collected by two avenues: direct exploration and research by government or corporate bodies, and the discovery or rescue of persons stuck in the Other (or, alternatively, the information that they leave behind in books and other multimedia within the spaces).

In the United States, exploration of the Other has been accomplished by cooperation between the civilian Clausewitz Association, the QuantaReal corporation, and the Anomalous Research and Intelligence Office (ARIO) of the Department of Defense. This has been done through a mixture of robotic and human exploration with stringent safety protocols; to date, the "team of four" has officially documented three thousand individual spaces over four clusters of related metatopography, with farther and distant spaces exhibiting increasingly exotic and abnormal qualities such as cryptids of undecipherable natures and mind-shattering organization of time and reality.

Although other governments know of the existence of the Other, the United States seems to be the only cryptid that has formally established any sort of presence in any space within; however, this may be simply a result of never finding another nation's outpost due to the labyrinthian nature of the realm. No current plans exist to "exploit" the Other due to its high danger to human beings through environmental and cryptid-related factors.

## Spaces

The Other is subdivided into **spaces**, or individual realities within the Other, each with their own distinct individual properties. Most, but not all, of these spaces are interconnected by specific ways of passage and translation of the body and the mind. These most often occur as interspace portals.

It has been noted that many people that are transported to spaces (but not all) arrive and travel the Other in a sequential and consecutive manner, passing between these spaces in a roughly linear order. However, some enter the Other in entirely random places, and can even enter spaces that have no connection to any other known space. The importance of this roughly sequential order is entirely unknown, but has been used by exploratory agencies to keep track of operations throughout the Other.

Another unique phenomenon of spaces are that many bear a resemblance to the technological era to which true reality persists within; for example, explorations in the 1960s noted the presence of various aesthetics present in the past with technology from the present, whereas explorations in more recent times have now found the existence of computers and aesthetics of the 1960s and 1980s reflected in new, undiscovered spaces and previously discovered spaces alike. It is theorized that, through unknown means, the Other is attempting to mimic true reality, although some spaces do not possess any technology or man-made items whatsoever, such as Space 3.

The most notable spaces are listed below, with a full list of all known spaces and their clusters available here.

### Notable spaces

#### Spaces 0 - 10; "the beginning eleven"

The first eleven known spaces are also called the "beginning eleven" among researchers, and are some of the most well-explored spaces in the Other. Only Space 0 maintains a permanent manned station in the Other, belonging to the ARIO and designated as the Forward Anomalous Research Outpost (FARO); all other Spaces have no permanent known human habitation. Some spaces are stated to officially contain caches left by previous research groups, but no caches have ever been found.

These spaces are not the "original eleven", nor the ones before the last set; at random intervals, the Other seems to change the commonality to what spaces humans enter from true reality through portals. The first outpost ever made in the Other, the original FARO, lost contact with Earth-based research groups in 1964. Operation *Long Haul* was launched in 1973 to find the outpost and its crew; neither the structure nor the personnel have ever been found. The set below was confirmed to be persistent since 1973.

* Space 0 — The Entrance
* Space 1 — The Lobby
* Space 2 — The Backrooms
* Space 3 — Yawning Forest
* Space 4 — Darkness
* Space 5 — Beachfront
* Space 6 — Drowning
* Space 7 — Of Memories Past
* Space 8 — A Road Unending
* Space 9 — Rest Stop
* Space 10 — The Basement
* Space 11 — Maintenance Tunnels

#### Disconnected spaces

Disconnected, or "insular" spaces, are those thought to not be connected to any other space, and thus can only be accessed either from true reality or from a space with no return route. They are often given a "D" designation indicative of their belonging to the faux-cluster of "disconnected" spaces.

* Space D-Cedar — Silent Cedarcrest (inadvertently accessed by James Rodney Felton)