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Dr. David Welling - International Director of the Disco Ball Research and Investigation Society (DBRIS)

Log 1- 1984:

Growing up in Germany during the 80s, I lived a relatively normal life, and by the time I was four years old, I was old enough to learn that my parents were not like the others on our street, they were smart. Really smart. My father, Peter, and mother, Mary, were scientists who were working for the local university before later joining an organization called DBRIS. An organization where I would one day become the International Director. Although, I'm getting ahead of myself. This is before DBRIS.

Log 2: 1986

My father had always come across as distant and cold. I never knew why, and when I brought it up with my mother, she would just say I was imagining things. In 1986, when I was six years old, I found out the truth about why my father was always so distant.

My mother was born with a congenital blood disease. Then she met my father. My father was a professor at the time, and my mother had been the only woman in his class. It was like destiny. She even went on to marry this young assistant professor who warbled endlessly about quantum entanglement and a cat for schrodinger.

Then they had me.

While this was something that made my mother rejoice, her illness started to accelerate due to my birth. This is something I have always felt enormous guilt over, even though, logically, I know it wasn't my fault.

Log 3: 1987

When I was 8, my parents informed me that we were moving to the UK for their work. But I knew the real reason we were leaving Germany. My father was on a mission to save my mother. He would spend hours, days, and weeks reading, searching, and looking for an answer. Sometimes when I caught a glimpse of him late at night, his shoulders drooped, and the bags beneath his eyes, I knew even then that hope was a fool’s game.

Log 4: 1987

We didn't stay long in the UK, and I, for one, was rather grateful. The dreary weather and the unfriendly people were something I had grown a distaste for. I remember the evening when my world changed quite vividly.

I had been sitting on the lumpy sofa my mother had bought from a local charity shop. My father hadn't wanted to waste money on "something we'll hardly use ."He wasn't wrong. Both he and my mother worked long hours, leaving me alone. I'm not complaining. I was used to it and rather enjoyed my own company.

I digress. That night while I was sitting on the sofa, staring mindlessly at the cartoon character on the television while my parents were bent over their books and papers scattered across our table. Our bubble of "suburbia" burst with a loud knock on the door. My father had gone to answer the door and came back minutes later with a strange look on his face.

My parents had sent me up to bed, but being the curious child that I was, I hid halfway up the staircase and listened to my father whisper, "He said DBRIS, and they know about you. They can help Mary!."

I remembered their hopeful excitement the morning when they told me to start packing. We were moving to America.

Log 5: 1988

When I imagined America as a child, it was certainly different from what I actually saw. We moved into a small town in the state of New Mexico, and boy, was I not prepared for the glorious sunshine. That was, however, the only good thing about that town we lived in. There were no other children to play with. It was a town full of white coats and test tubes.

From there, my childhood changed forever. My firetrucks and policemen's toys were quickly replaced by men in lab coats and random lollipops that sheepish scientists would give me as a sign of armistice or peace. My parents and the other scientists would spend their days talking about the "Gate" and at the time I had no idea what this meant.

Log 6: 1989

They were testing the Gate again. I know they were trying to open it, but I didn't know what for or why. In fact, at the time, I imagined that gate to be an old rusty metal one like my grandmother had in her frontyard in the UK.

Log 7: 1989 - Tuesday 18:32

We were having dinner that evening, my last dinner with them. However, I didn't know this at the time. We had a pot roast, something we never had, and my mother had pulled out a bottle of red wine she had stashed away.

My father and mother were in high spirits that night and had spent the entire evening talking about how close they were to opening the Gate. If things went as planned, opening the gate would allow them access to other worlds and another civilization. A civilization that could cure my mother. This of course, I only learnt years later.

That night I had watched them dancing in the living room to the music playing from the radio. They were happy and hopeful, and I was sure change would come to our family.

I was wrong.

Log 8: 1989 - Wednesday 14:05

I had been sitting on the sofa that day, and I remember feeling the ground shake and thinking, "They're testing again." What I didn't know was that they were successful.

It wasn't long after that I heard a knock at the door. The man at the door stood with a serious expression and was dressed in a sharp black suit. To this day, I can't remember the words that he had said, only that my parents were never coming home.

It was at that very moment on a Wednesday afternoon that my world changed for the worse, and I knew that I only had one path to follow. I would follow in my parent's footsteps.

Log 9: 2023

I have come a long way from that young and clueless 9-year-old. In the years after that dark day, I spent my days learning everything that I could about DBRIS and the Disco Ball Theory. I learned why my parents were so excited and hopeful. They thought they could save the world with this new theory.

For every food crisis in sub-Saharan Africa, there was a dimension of endless wheat, grain, and untouched agriculture. For every war fought over a country or international border, there was a universe where that same land was pristinely untouched.

Now I am the International Director of DBRIS, and this is why.

2023 08:00 - Logs 1 - 9 received by DBRIS.

2023 17:00 - Logs 1 - 9 redacted.