They’ve finally done it! The awe and pure joy of every adult sweeps across the earth with the speed of light in a vacuum. Social media platforms crash, phones cease functioning because of the immediate reaction to the news: Scientists have finally discovered the oft-sought after elixir of eternal life wrapped in a candy-coating of eternal youth. No one will grow old and die again. (You still have to exercise and eat right. They said live not live lazy.) And, of course, if you are already old, well, you will live eternally with the wisdom granted you. If you are presently sick, you’ll just stay sick forever. If you have cancer, the cancer will continue to live along with you. And, if you are dead, you’re out of luck. This is not an elixir of resurrection. Scientists are not God, for goodness sake.

The only catch, of course, is that you can’t just take it once. It’s like a vitamin: two tablets a day. Forever. (The lucky patent holder has visions of wealth for the rest of his eternal life.) Buyers are cautioned to only take the pills if they have reached at least the age of 21 and are in good health. That ensures, according to the developers, that your body has finished its growth and you are at the peak of your physical development. Perfect eternal life partnered with eternal youth. (Seriously, who would want to be eternally a child or an adolescent anyway?) Store owners have been quietly warned that they must only sell to adults 21 and over and that they should check IDs vigilantly. No exceptions. Parents are advised to keep the pills out of reach of their children under 21. Results may not be as desired for those under 21.

Quickly, stores are overrun with customers. The pills are available at the nearest Walmart (worldwide) and several local vitamin supply stores. More remote locations aren’t quite as lucky; but, most of them have not heard the news either. Or, they ignore it as another one of those good-for-nothing schemes thought up by the likes of the inventor of pet rocks and invisible dogs or snake oil salesmen. Fools, they say as they spit in the dirt or kickback to watch another Survivor marathon.

The pills are not available online, so, within a few days, there are riots breaking out in various places because supplies are severely limited. People fight over the last few bottles on shelves. Others begin to drive – bike or run – long distances to find more and hoard what they find. (Not realizing, at first, that each bottle has a short life-span – 30 days.) Some with more means attempt to fly to different worldwide locations to stock up, but are discouraged with the warning that different geographic areas require varying ingredients to be effective. Something to do with the water…

The manufacturers have ensured that selectlocations receive more supplies than others. Moreover, these same stores are replenished quickly and efficiently, unlike in certain, let us say, less desirable locales. I mean, c’mon, they murmur across the board table, do we really want everyone to live forever? Eye brows raise, condescending sniff and silent albeit vigorous shakes of the head. Certainly not.

Within weeks, there is a limit of one bottle per customer and a black market arises for the pills. There are some arrests, but the evidence always disappears and the culprits are released. There is soon a swift and steady business in the prisons…except among the lifers. They may be dangerous, but they’re not stupid. I mean really, why extend life imprisonment longer than the expected 70 or 80 years?

Suddenly, every Monday – the global date of delivery – shelves are emptied almost before customers enter stores because a few well-placed individuals offer exorbitant amounts to store owners and even the consortium of pharmaceutical companies to get first access. They supply long lists of friends and relatives who will each only receive one bottle. Of course. In reality, they sell some on the black market; some they give to their family and friends. But, ask yourself, aren’t these the types we want living forever? Ambitious sorts, the fittest of Darwin’s survivors who’ve already demonstrated the ability to come out on top?

Within months, what was previously a mere socioeconomic gap separating the wealthy 10% from the rest, is now also characterized by those who have the greatest access to the miracle pill. Those in the ‘less desirable’ locations deal mostly on the black market and find the pills they can get are generally already outdated. They take them anyway in the hopes they will have some effect.

Within a year, the world population decreases by more than half. It appears that the outdated pills actually have a reverse effect, aging those who take them with such speed they leave home one day a certain age, and if they make it home, they arrive looking like a walking cadaver. Within weeks, if that long, they are shriveled lifeless corpses. The streets come to stink with death as the dead outnumber the living. Eventually, whole towns and cities are bombed or set afire in order to, well, bury the dead.

As for those lucky few with the “good pills,” when they take them without knowing there is an illness inside of them, they are doomed to live with it eternally. As time passes, it is discovered that the illness follows its natural course but does not lead to death. Simply horrifying results. The number of suicides sky-rockets. On the other hand, if they stop taking the pills, they continue aging, but whatever illness they have living within them defies all medical treatment. And thus, death comes knocking a little sooner than expected.

As the number of deaths increase, birth rates fall dramatically, for on the bottle label it states that pregnant women should not take the pill. They should have whatever children they desire, have their tubes tied, and then begin their eternal life at that time. There is no explanation as to why. However, the reason is soon evident. Women who take the pills when pregnant have a particularly disastrous outcome: They don’t age, but neither does the fetus within them. They either stay pregnant forever or have the fetus removed – which will lead to felony charges. If they stop taking the pill upon discovering the problem, the fetus grows at an unnatural rate, often bursting forth from the mother’s belly within hours (if not sooner), the size of a three-year-old, killing the mother due to blood loss (or catastrophic fear. I mean, a baby claws its way out of your stomach and you live?) Once they breathe oxygen, any observers have drawn back in horror as they watch the newborn fast forward through the phases of life before expiring, an ancient-looking mass of wrinkled flesh, lying in the blood of the young mother.

Within 5 years, the only ones who have not passed on to the eternal life they sought to avoid, are those who lived in remote locations without access to the miracle pill. Gradually, they send out emissaries to the nearest cities, countries, big islands, to ascertain what happened to their television programming.

Climate change, political tension, and other world problems bringing you down? Wish you didn't live in such a nerve-racking and generally concerning time and place?

Well, if you're like the already 73% of the population that has already gotten tickets, Ethar is the planet for you!

In case you've been living under a rock recently, quantum mechanics over at the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) beneath the France-Switzerland border have successfully opened up a stable black hole that leads to Dimension AKDSJ-189, a direct parallel of our Earth.

So what's so great about this Rabbit Hole? Well, unlike the current state of our world, Ethar (the opposite of our world) is quite the Wonderland!

Having already created colonizations on Arsm (their version of Mars) and Ulan (their Moon), Ethar holds a steady population of over 10 billion Anti-Humans, and still has room for us! They've prevented all forms of climate change by using only renewable energy and recycling all waste, secured world peace between all of their nations, demonstrated perfect examples of every governmental system (including Communism!) and have shown a history of being, well, a Utopia.

Anti-Human citizens look just like us, save for their unusually sharp teeth. But don't be scared off by this! Scientists presume that this is because of how, logically speaking, most of their world is the direct opposite of ours. In fact, the Antis actually have entirely vegetarian diets and do not own any animals, having coexisted with the natural world instead of dominated it. Along with this, it should be noted that they speak in languages that are anagrams (mixed-up versions) of our own, which might take some time to learn for us Earth-dwellers. On Ethar, ever day is opposite day!

Still not convinced? It's a lot to take in, we know. But prices for a one-way move to Ethar are extremely cheap and going fast, so decide quickly! The tickets won't cover housing in the other side of the portal, but, due to lack of inflation, Earth currency has been found to be worth hundreds of times more in Ethar cash!

For more information and special family and financial coverage deals, please contact your local Anti-Human ambassador and buy tickets off of CERN's website or at the LHC.

Tickets will cover one individual's plane trip to Geneva and one Interdimensional Transportation suit. Short term side effects of IDT may include: nausea, vomiting, disorientation, seizures, whiplash, and possibly death. Please talk to your doctor or those at the LHC if you suffer from epilepsy, heart attacks, or other medical conditions before scheduling your trip.

Advertisements such at the one above were broadcasted in fifty different languages, across over 150 countries. Within a few weeks, 95% of the eight billion Earth citizens had planned out a permanant move to this new dimension, greeted by their Anti counterparts with open arms. The less than 5% of the world, mostly the criminals or the dirt-poor untouchables of society, were left alone as every governmental leader and person in a position of power would also leave.

It turned out that staying would have been the best option.

I was lucky to have escaped.

At first, all was well.

The Anti-Humans, surprisingly calm and collected about their population nearly doubling, moved us into their own tree-based homes and taught us their ways.

However, some people just couldn't let go of their old lives on Earth: Humans elected into the government soon became corrupt, terrorist attacks happened, corporations began abusing their power over the people and nature, chaos ensued.

The Antis didn't stop us.

Things began reflecting the worst of Earth again: Cultural genocides, mass economic depressions and poverty, war.

Still, they sat back and watched their own people die.

Maybe they were just like us in that way.

I decided it was time to move out when the United States of Aceamir went into a civil war, divided over (you guessed it) the right to own Antis as slaves.

Just a few days before the move, as I took a plane to Evenag (Anti-Geneva), they finally snapped.

A broadcast went out in a hundred different languages, across over 150 tense nations. It called all eighteen billions citizens, Human and Anti, to New Kyor (specifically, the government leaders to the UN meeting room, but 95% of the population showed up anyway).

In hindsight, being the 5% this time was one of the best decisions I've ever made while in Ethar (and not dating an Anti, but that reason would've been the same after what happened).

I watched the livestream of the meeting from a waiting room at the HCL.

They spoke for hours about Ethar's new issues because of us, but I only paid attention to the last part:

"We gave all eight billion of your people homes, food, hospitality... and this is how you repay us?" The Anti-POTUS spoke evenly, but his needle-point teeth were bared. "It's truly a shame that, even if you had treated us well, we would have still done the Feast."

"The Feast?" A Human ambassador asked. Several other representatives from our side murmured nervously.

The Anti-Queen of Ganlend laughed. "Why do you all think we have these sharp teeth, and have been so successful as a species?" Her own ancient snappers glinted. "Unfortunately, we can't let any of you leave. As Queen, I now give my authority to begin the Feast!"

Several other Anti-Leaders added in their commencements, and the Human leaders started going for the doors. They were locked, of course.

The livestream was cut off when an Anti-ambassador sank his teeth into the cameraman's leg, after the POTUS was devoured whole and several dictators were diced.

I had to blink a few times to remind myself that that hadn't been a horror movie I was watching. And that there were some Antis still in the same building as me.

"The Feast! The Feast!" They chanted, moving in on the line to the portal.

I looked down at my small baggage, knowing that I was just some college student who had nothing to fight with and turn off the portal before they got to it.

Nothing to win, yet nothing to lose.

I looked around. The other folks in the waiting room had panicked and ran out the door, but I knew that they wouldn't get far. The portal was behind thick, glass walls as to prevent people without IDT suits from contacting radiation, but the Antis were attacking those who had been suiting up to enter. A control room was to the left of it, right across from the waiting room I was in.

I could kill two birds with one stone.

As the Anti-guards were finishing the last of their meal, I ran to the controls. They didn't even realize I was there until I had tried about twenty different buttons, finally finding the one that would close the black hole.

"Warning, black hole destabillizing." Flashing yellow lights went up around the building.

Only one Anti (the others maybe checking other parts of the building for Humans) barged in and caught sight of me.

"Oops." I shrugged. "Could you... help me undo this?"

I would later learn that the Antis wouldn't know how to open the black hole back up once it closed, only waiting for other Dimensional inhabitants to open up to them. (I guess that's the only thing we got right as a species.)

He decided that keeping the portal open was more important than eating me (a smarter choice for him), quickly stumbling to the controls and clicking at random buttons.

I went back to where the suits were hanging up, grabbing one with the least bodily fluids on it that fit me. About two minutes of stressfully zipping and velcroing later, and the portal still wasn't quite stable, but I didn't want to take my chances with the Anti. At that moment, I would have rather been transported to a completely new Dimension than deal with this.

I was one of the few people who had experienced IDT twice: colors blending into sounds, rollercoaster-like vertigo, the whole shebang.

Luckily, I didn't need to use the suit's built-in barf bag. Even more luckily, I landed in the right reality, just as the portal was being closed on Earth's end.

The CERN workers (or, people who took their places), a hardy group in bloodied lab coats, carrying various improvised weapons, immediately took my helmet off to check my dental hygiene.

"Human," one of them called to another band of maybe-scientists.

"Is it completely closed?" I asked once my tunnel vision went away.

"Sure hope it is," another, an older woman in an orange jumpsuit, said.

"And... no other Antis got through?"

"Jaws? Nope. Only you."

"So... what now?"

"We've gotta rebuild, obviously, and remember Dimension whatever-189 as an off-limits area, if we try IDT again... it's already cost so many lives..."

Another voice cut in. "And that's why you don't trust travel scams to meet your evil twin!"