[keri]

Originally Posted by commando

Spoiler:

so everything that happened was "predetermined"? There were two Kyons? One on the bed and one trying to change everything back? So there were two timelines and they merged together in the end?

That's what is under debate and is what is suggested within the story. I think that's what's suggested within the story. It's all a little bit confusing.

But most likely

Spoiler:

there is only one timeline and it's just that reality was shifted for those three or however many days. There was only ever one Kyon. I mean, okay, there are two of him at one point, but that's because one is from the future. And there's like three or something at another point, but that's because of going into the past. The timeline from 17 Dec through 21 Dec, or whatever the days are, that Kyon experiences? he doesn't have another self living the alternate option, because there isn't an alternate option until everybody's memories get tuned to match it.

It's like if you're talking about an image, right? And usually it has 3 alpha channels. But on 17 Dec, for some reason, you only ever see the red channel. You remember seeing all three, red-green-blue, but everyone else only remembers the red, so they don't think it's strange even if you do. But then on 21 Dec, you're suddenly seeing all three again, and no one remembers only seeing red except you. They remember seeing all three channels during that period, but you have to piece together what the blue and green channels were from what you're told, because you don't have those memories. Reality has shifted and you are able to see and remember the shift, but everyone else only remembers the reality that they're currently experiencing. Or something like that.

I'm not saying this is definitely what happened, because we can probably debate it for a while, but it makes the most sense to me, especially since we haven't been introduced to sliders yet in the timeline.