In this section, we look closely at how Modern Polaxis’s storyworld unfolds in time and space and how differences in these dimensions create tensions between the worlds. Table 1 summarises the stated times in the work and the places that Polaxis visits at these points in time. A turning point in the story is marked with the heading “RIP Polaxis of the past for this statue is dedicated to the Polaxis of the future” [Campbell 2014a, 18]. This marks the beginning of Polaxis’s travels and a new way of perceiving time and space, and the book’s verbal text states that “a new reality begins”.

Only some events are accurately dated, and there are significant gaps in the story. The dates do not seem to differ much between the book and app, except for once, when the in-flight magazine says 2 July [Campbell 2014a, 26], and the journal entry [Campbell 2014a, AR 26] states 29 June. This would not be strange if the time difference were the other way around, with the date on the magazine being before the date Polaxis wrote about the flight. The fact that time seems to turn backwards represents a gap that might refer to time travel.

The first part [Campbell 2014a, 3–17] tells the story of Polaxis’s past in retrospect and gradually reveals his background up to the point when the story is being told. This is where his connection to Intafrag and the fear of its agents is first established in the AR layer [Campbell 2014a, AR 5–6]. The story about the Polaxis of the future, the Modern Polaxis, is told in the present tense and moves chronologically forward in time from the party in Montreal in February 2009 to Polaxis’s experiences in Peru and the Amazon in June/July 2009 (except for the logical gap between the flight and magazine dates). Then there is a flashback to February 2009, followed by a five-year leap at the end to the mental hospital.

In Table 1, we see how changes in time and place move quickly forward from page to page in some phases, while there are mainly two phases where time seems to come to a halt: one in Polaxis’s past and one in his future. This may be seen as ontological gaps in time that constitute indeterminacies in the fabula. The first appears as a dream triggered by the introduction of the concept of “time binding” [Campbell 2014a, 4]. Here, Polaxis recollects a sensation of burning in the book TPW and being chased by Intafrag agents through dark alleys in the app. In the book layer he refers to the experience as “transcendence. Time splits in two” [Campbell 2014a, 5], “the breakdown of cells into light” [Campbell 2014a, 7], “transmigration” and “Mind + Body transfer” [Campbell 2014a, 8]. As the process accelerates, the AR layer adds no words [Campbell 2014a, AR 7–10] but instead intensifies the experience with swirling movements and scary sounds. These memories from the past explain what happens to the “Polaxis of the future” [Campbell 2014a, 19]. These incidents may represent corresponding ontological gaps in the two TPWs.

Another example of ontological gaps in the TPWs is a corresponding experience of a time in the future when Polaxis travels from Montreal to Lima. The spaces of the airplane and bus seem to overlap [Campbell 2014a, 26–27] and immediately follow the confusing experience of time going backwards (from 2 July to 29 June). Hence, neither time nor space is perceived as stable: “My position...Is not stable…” [Campbell 2014a, 27]. In the AR layer, this experience is presented as a “time fold” (a portal between two overlapping realities) [Campbell 2014a, AR 30]. The following events include Polaxis’s experience in Peru, which has been given a double explanation. He is invited to try Ayahuasca, “a psychoactive homebrew traditionally prepared by Amazonians for the purpose of healing the body of toxins and interfacing with the divine” [Campbell 2014a, 31], and he joins the ceremony led by the shaman Javier in the Pisac sacred valley [Campbell 2014a, 37–45]. On page 46 in the book, the lost journal entry connects back to 7 February in Montreal, and the AR layer connects these two timeless phases with the word “purge”.

These experiences of time coming to a halt represent ontological gaps or indeterminacies in the storyworld across book and app. The main difference concerning the time perception between the analogue and digital layers is that the time gaps in the book seem like “normal” gaps in time. The reader will not perceive the changes in time and place as missing information, but as events that have occurred but are not told. In the digital layer, however, these gaps are explained as actual time travel, occasionally jumping between places. When, in the end, Polaxis is in the mental hospital, he refers to an incident in Montreal five years earlier: “The blow to my head knocked me unconscious. I was out long enough for the plant creatures to time-bind me to this reality” [Campbell 2014a, AR 48]. It is as if those five years never actually transpired. Hence, there is a conflict between accessibility relations and the timeline of the book and the app, respectively. The alternate timeline of the AR layer represents a transposition that may challenge the storyworld’s logical consistency, according to Ryan [Ryan 2019, 72].

The places where Polaxis visits seem to vary more between the analogue and digital layers than the time references. As Løvlie [Løvlie 2009, 19] explained, “the concept of ‘place’ should not only be treated as a physical location in space, but also as a psychological, social and cultural phenomenon (…) ‘places’ are spaces that are valued”. This is relevant to the relations between narrative spaces in the worlds of Modern Polaxis. It seems that the places in the two different layers carry different values, even though the physical locations of both are mostly the same. The colours, sounds and animations of the AR layer reinforce the notion of being in a different place, as do the people inhabiting the two different layers when changing their personalities from the analogue to the digital medium. These changes are ontological gaps, creating uncertainty between the two layers.

As mentioned in the Theory section, relations to storyworlds can be verified in the actual world; they can be possible or impossible. In Modern Polaxis, references to placenames that can be verified in the actual world are overrepresented in the book version. Many of the actions, especially in the book version, are possible, for example, the travels, alcohol and drug abuse and the parties. However, the connection to Intafrag and the Intafrag agents is impossible if delusions are not taken into account. The main level of possible references and real-life references is represented by the book, whereas the impossible is represented largely by the app. Moreover, the illegal actions concerning the actual world, such as drug abuse, are not “hidden” in the journal, which perhaps indicates it is not the police or other authorities that the journal is hidden from; rather, the main character in his paranoia hides it from the representatives of Intafrag.

The question of the distance between the world of the readers and Polaxis’s world is not straightforward. It depends on which world is taken as a point of departure. The idea of the parallel world of Intafrag contributes to the distancing of the entire storyworld from the actual world of the reader. Even so, there is a question of whether the experiences of the TPW in the AR layer, the Intafrag experiences, should be seen as real experiences or as delusions caused by drug abuse. The notion of drug experiences has a much shorter distance from the real world than a parallel universe, even considering that some readers may believe in parallel worlds. Ryan [Ryan 2019, 66] states that “ghost stories could be credible for people who believe in the occult.” However, such beliefs are not mainstream, and because of that, if Intafrag is seen as a result of paranoia and delusions, the distance from the real world is much shorter.

The distance between the PWs of the AR layer and the book can be illustrated by looking for verbal references that occur only in the app, and that may even seem impossible in the TAW. Words that appear only in the app are “Intafrag” (15 times) and “creatures” (23 times). The word “key,” referring to entering Intafrag, is only mentioned in the app. Furthermore, “agent(s)” appears frequently in the app version but is only mentioned three times in the book. These words connect directly to the world of Intafrag and are not compatible with what would be considered the ontological rules of the TAW. Polaxis’s diary, where he expresses his experiences and thoughts in the book layer, is hence closer to the TAW than the AR layer, which is said to be his secret diary.

Visually, certain symbols or objects of symbolic value also serve to establish relationships between the TPWs. For example, a triangle first appears on page four and in the AR layer is emphasised by blinking colours. Later, it reappears on a pendant [Campbell 2014a, 9], which is later described as an anchor point [Campbell 2014a, AR 33]. These objects play an essential role in time binding, which is reminiscent of Korzybski’s theory of how memories may be transferred by using symbols, perhaps indicating a connection between movement in time and space and inner perception (memories).

Polaxis is haunted by the ambivalence of having friends but distrusting them, as he is insecure about whether they are, in fact, friends or disguised Intafrag agents. In the book, many characters seem to be fellow travellers whom Polaxis incidentally meets. However, the AR layer reveals their relations to Intafrag. For instance, on the last page, in the image from the mental hospital, the characters Maki and Hoze appear to be sitting next to Polaxis on a bench. In the AR layer, however, their faces are crossed out while the verbal text states, “This is not Maki or Hoze. They’re Intafrag agents sent here to monitor me” [Campbell 2014a, AR 48]. On the same page, Dr. Affeldt is labelled a “neuropsychiatrist” in both the book and AR layers, while earlier, his name and profession were only revealed in the AR layer. Then he was presented as the founder of time-binding theory who tried to find a “synthesis of the first chemical agent to disrupt Intafrag” [Campbell 2014a, AR 6]. Hence, Polaxis’s early suspicions of being a test subject in the AR layer are explained in the book layer by Dr. Affeldt, asking him to take his schizophrenia medication [Campbell 2014a, 48].

At the house party in Montreal, a drug dealer named Feliz appears, and the verbal text in the book describes him as a “dapper-looking fellow” [Campbell 2014a, 22], whereas in the AR layer, he is revealed as a gatekeeper holding “several ancient keys to enter Intafrag” [Campbell 2014a, AR 22]. Eddie, who is a character that Polaxis meets on his way to Peru, has connections to Intafrag in the app layer, but he is oblivious to his Intafrag experiences, which only Polaxis can see [Campbell 2014a, AR 32]. In the AR layer, normal people attending a shaman ceremony in Peru become strange green creatures from Intafrag and so on. Hence, the people who inhabit the worlds of Modern Polaxis are not easily trusted. These people, even if radically changing their roles in the story, also connect the TPW of the AR layer with the worlds of the book layer. Nevertheless, there are always some relations that remain the same, reminding the reader that the layers are part of the same story.

According to Ryan [Ryan 2019, 76], some fictions create worlds with ontological gaps. Ontological completeness presupposes that “for every contradictory pair of propositions, one must be true and another false in that world” [Ryan 2019, 74]. In Modern Polaxis, the references to Intafrag may, for the reader, represent an ontological gap in the storyworld; however, from the viewpoint of the main character, Intafrag is the only truth maintained throughout this story. Consequently, Polaxis’s ontological doubts are about how people and events in his actual world are related to (or infiltrated by) Intafrag. Perhaps the possible worlds of the book and the AR layers are ontologically different, but they are still two sides of the same storyworld, according to the main character. Still, there is a question of how this affects the TAW. In the case of a parallel universe, it would connect to the TAW on a more profound level than in the case of being a purely mental possible world. The story’s philosophical framing poses the radical question of what is real. If the parallel universe of Intafrag is given priority, this radically changes the understanding of the TAW, altering propositions from true to false.

To explore how different worlds may be perceived by the reader, the next section presents a reader-oriented perspective on the simultaneous experiences of the partly conflicting possible worlds depicted in Modern Polaxis.

Fictional narratives invite interpretive work that caters to the imagination. As Ryan [Ryan 2019, 70] claims, “when a text creates a storyworld, we imagine that there is more to this world than what the text represents.” As mentioned in the Theory section, reading fiction includes a triad of fictionalising acts [Iser 1993]: the fictive, the real and the imaginary brought together by the readers’ interaction with the text. Certain elements in Modern Polaxis expand the possibilities for imagination; for instance, the people whom Polaxis meets are genuinely mysterious, and how he reaches some places in his travels is unclear. This applies to both analogue and digital layers. One might assume that adding information automatically narrows the possibilities for the reader’s imagination. However, Intafrag creates a new space for imaginative deduction and spatial immersion. In this way, Modern Polaxis opens itself up for the reader to create a more complex storyworld based on their imagination, thus providing space for the reader’s uncertainties and ambivalences in line with Polaxis’s experience of being in the world.

Regarding the question of how the interplay between worlds in AR literature may affect the reader’s literary experience, we explore this through Iser’s [Iser 1984] concept of aesthetic response. Iser connects aesthetics with perception and sees the aesthetic effect as a form of realisation stemming from the human senses. This view on aesthetics reflects the etymological meaning of the Greek word, aísthēsis – sensation. When reading AR literature, the physical sensory experience is simultaneously perceived in both analogue and digital layers, which creates the potential for a multitude of connections between what the senses perceive and how this translates to an act of immersion and inner experience.

The two TWPs may be seen in light of the platonic question raised at the beginning of the story. Which world is apprehended as the most real world, the one closest to the TAW, as they are both materialised in the physically touchable book or the alternate, mental one? The world in the book layer is generally less colourful than in the digital layer. The digital layer adds perceivable differences, such as colour, movement, sound and sometimes picture-like elements. The visual impressions in the app layer are perceived as more salient than the book’s visual expressions due to the colourfulness and movement. Adding the digital layer changes the visual style, in this case giving more emphasis to affect [Painter et al. 2013, 32] and hence providing potentials for the readers’ emotional immersion. The liveliness of the AR layer might indicate that this is the most “real” part of the story. To complicate this, however, the analogue layer is touchable and concrete, whereas the digital layer is volatile and intangible.

As an example of this layered reading experience, we will have a closer look at the episode in which Polaxis travels from Montreal to Lima, following the ontological gap where time seems to move backwards, as described in the previous section. Pages 27-28 are part of this travel, describing Polaxis on the bus in Peru [Campbell 2014a, 27] and what he sees as the bus stops [Campbell 2014a, 28].

On page 27, Polaxis is depicted on a bus, stating it could be anywhere. He falls asleep and wakes up “somewhere else”, which turns out to be Peru. Throughout the comic book the background is white and cross ruled, alluding to Polaxis’s diary being jotted down in a notebook. The image is rather detailed, but a line drawing. On this page the verbiage is in white on black background. There are drawings depicting a chaotic mess, including elements resembling tentacles and branches, over and under the outline of Polaxis on the bus. The page can be read as a comics page divided in three panels horizontally, in which the upper and lower panel represent a chaos foreshadowing the monster on the next page.

As the AR layer is projected upon the book page, colours appear in the bus window displaying a photographic image of mountains in motion, to indicate that the bus is driving. When looking closely, green, huge, monster-like creatures with long thin insect-like legs emerge in the mountain landscape. The predominantly green monsters connote the green Martians of past times science fiction, perhaps pointing to the outer worldly of a parallel universe. The sound of a vehicle (the bus) merges with strange sounds, perhaps guttural sounds from the monsters, and sounds of large rocks falling. The sounds create feelings of great unease and may be perceived as scary. This is however an interpretation; it is the reader’s starting point in the principle of minimal departure [Ryan 1991] that makes the reader perceive the engine-like noises and the moving image as the bus moving. The photographic image in the AR layer brings the representation closer to the real world of the reader, hence questioning the ontology of the TAW of the book. The green monsters, however, appear hand drawn, perhaps leading the reader to think that they are a product of Polaxis’s imagination. Projecting the AR layer, the colour of the letters shifts from white to red, making them pop out, which in turn gives them a greater semantic load. Polaxis in the AR layer says he closed his eyes on the plane and ended up on the bus, that his position is not stable and that he sees “strange shapes” in the distance, presumably referring to the monster-like creatures only visible in this layer. It is up to the reader to draw connections between the book and the AR- layer. The indeterminacy lies in which layer to believe in. Are the monsters products of Polaxis’s imagination, as they are not present in the original “hand-written” book? What is the origin of the soundscape? These are fundamental tasks of interpretation for the readers to solve through their imagination. What is specific for comics reading is the interpretative work of closure that happens when the reader draws connections between panels. Adding the AR layer expands this reading space by adding a new kind of “gutter” between book and app.

On the opposite page, the text states Cusco, Peru, July 2nd 2009. Words and image in the book describe a rather mundane situation of the bus stopping in the Andes, and construction workers building new roads and installing a traffic light system, which Polaxis finds strange, as the place is quite rural and he states that there is no traffic. A red, thin handwriting on the left reads: “Every [man][2] wants to see” and this sentence seems to be continued on the right with “the ancient world!”

When the AR layer is projected, a large monster appears, resembling the monsters on the previous page. The animated monster is multi-coloured, but mainly green, and it is not possible to identify its face or body parts. It seems to have tentacles rather than humanlike limbs. The men in the picture who are raising traffic lights in the book version now seem to try to control the monster. The sounds resemble roars, presumably from the monster, along with distant human voices. It is not possible to make out what the voices say, and again it is the principle of minimal departure that makes the reader understand these sounds as human voices from the workers. The red letters stating “every man wants to see” now say “Intafrag”. They turn turquoise with a red background and are surrounded by lots of spinning arrows, as if symbolising confusion or a compass that is not working. This is an example of the explicit Intafrag references in the AR layer. The verbal text on the top of the page reveals that Polaxis does indeed feel confused, wondering whether what he sees is hallucinations, or whether he actually sees Intafrag. There is an evident void between the perceiving of a mundane, but odd situation in a street, and the revealed monster of the AR-layer. How the layers are connected, is a question of interpretation, where the perspective taken by the main character is only one of many options. The soundscapes and visual layers of AR create unease, merging the sounds of humans and engines with undefinable roars; and the colours, movements and landscapes of the actual world with the hand drawings of the monster. The AR layer questions the ontology of the textual worlds of Modern Polaxis because these elements bring the static situation in the notebook to life.

The experience of reading this AR comic represents new ways of viewing the relations between the real and the virtual [Farman 2017]. Touching the book while using the app maintains the physical sense of the book medium, while at the same time sensing the AR layer being projected over your hands. The app is transitory, it is only seen and heard when swiping over a page; as opposed to the physically stable book, which can be moved from one place to another without pictures and verbal text disappearing. The touchable book is held against the stronger visual (i.e., colours, movement, etc.) and audible experiences of the app. These sensory experiences underline and thematise the question of what is real or what we may know about the world rather than providing an answer.

Gaps for the reader to fill in the text occur when text segments are indirectly connected and can break the expected order in the text [Iser 1984, 302]. Indeterminacies require the reader to make individual decisions on textual meanings. Even if there are several connections between the analogue and digital layers, there are also gaps between them. The main gap consists of the lack of explanation regarding the layers’ differences, raising the question of what is real. An interesting aspect of the gaps in time is that, according to traditional storytelling, they are perceived in the book as gaps for the reader to fill, whereas the digital layer insists on explaining the gaps with time travelling. This repeats the question of what is delusional and what is real. In this uncertainty, the reader participates in the main character’s delusions and his struggle to be in two worlds simultaneously. This distance and tension between the two layers may cause the reader to feel a sense of insecurity.

The tension between the layers is a driving force in the story. The reader’s curiosity is driven by revealing the differences between the layers, rather than by being immersed in the actual story, which is not very causally driven. This is a form of indeterminacy that seems related to the interpretative work of closure in comics reading. There is little explanation for why the events occur and the information on characters other than Polaxis is very limited. Polaxis himself has a past that is only vaguely elaborated, for instance, with an ex-girlfriend who appears only in a flash. The mundane, the usual and everyday aspects of life, are not emphasised in the work, nor is the causality between events. Mystery surrounds Polaxis, and the reader gets a first-hand impression of his insecurity, estrangement, existential anxiety and uneasiness. The work renders the impression of having access to someone’s delusional and paranoid mind as if the readers are getting to see something that is not for them to see.

The line of events may not be as interesting as the way the app makes the reader feel. This feeling of estrangement and uneasiness constitutes a common ground for the analogue and digital TPWs. Polaxis does not seem to feel comfortable in any of these worlds. This may be seen in connection to the modern in the Modern Polaxis story. The modernist feeling is that of estrangement, existential anxiety and uneasiness. The threats in the app come from the Intafrag agents, but Polaxis does not seem to find the real world very appealing either. He wishes to travel through time and space, which is what he simultaneously fears. In a way, he is lost in both worlds.

Polaxis is presented as a human in a human world and thereby ontologically like the reader, which is a prerequisite for immersion [Ryan 2019, 74]. However, the potential discrepancy between Polaxis’s and the reader’s views of Intafrag makes Modern Polaxis a work that does not effortlessly provide immersion. This is because Polaxis is not necessarily a character with whom the reader identifies. However, the emotional state of uncertainty and vulnerability, mainly emphasised in the AR layer, may invite identification and emotional immersion. Even if the feeling of estrangement is a general human experience of the modern, it might be said to connect to the story’s psychological dimension. Anxiety and unease are also commonly associated with psychological conditions that sometimes need professional treatment. According to this view, the TPWs constitute both opposites and mutual preconditions for interpretation.

The narrative possibilities for tensions between the worlds in the case of Modern Polaxis counteract the human pull towards everything adding up in the end. The AR layer questions whether the Intafrag notions are only manifestations of the protagonist’s delusions or whether they are, in fact, real. The latter acts against the conclusion implied in the end when Polaxis is in a mental hospital. The aesthetic experience of the work, namely frustration and feelings of alienation and unease, lies in this counteraction. Since the narrative is difficult to follow, it requires the reader’s concentration. Ryan [Ryan 2015, 68] defined concentration as a type of “attention devoted to difficult, non-immersive works”. It is possible, however, to have an experience of the app without understanding the full story. Perhaps the aesthetic experience of unease is even stronger than the actual narration of events.