Testing how posting a story would look - Time and Retime by me (MajorParadox)
A bright light illuminated my workshop suddenly, causing me to drop my tools on the table. A figure appeared at the opposite side of the small office, encased within a surreal shadow in the middle...
A bright light illuminated my workshop suddenly, causing me to drop my tools on the table. A figure appeared at the opposite side of the small office, encased within a surreal shadow in the middle of the blinding light. Slowly the light faded, as I made out the visitor. I was looking at myself.
"Wh-what are you- what am I...?" I stumbled, unsure if I could even blink anymore.
"I'm you from the future," the other me said. He appeared slightly older than I remembered from my mirror that morning.
"So it works?" I asked, wondering how else I would be there.
"Yes, it works," he answered, obviously wondering why I would ask such a thing.
"But why are you here?" I asked, just noticing I wasn't as happy as one would expect from meeting themselves. Not me, I was dazed but ecstatic. The other me seemed like he had been crying. "Are you ok?" I asked myself.
His eyes widened, but then quickly relaxed. "It's fine, but I just came to the wrong time."
"You didn't mean to meet me here?"
"No, this is too late." His voice became cold. "My work can still be recovered if I do it here."
"Do what here?" I asked, not sure I wanted to know the answer.
The other me stared, as he pulled out a handheld device, much smaller than my phone. After pressing some buttons on the screen, the bright light returned, enveloping him again until he quickly disappeared from the room. I'm not sure why, but I ran into the area of his departure before the light faded. I panicked when I realized I didn’t know where or when I was going, but my thoughts were interrupted when the light faded and everything went black.
I came to what seemed like hours later to find myself in my office, but I wasn't alone. The other me- or some other other me was lying on the ground by the table, gasping for air.
"What happened?" I asked running to my counterpart’s side frantically. "Did... I do this to you?"
"It's all wrong," he said, clutching his chest. Blood trailed around him, seeping through his closed fist. "None of this makes sense."
Before I could speak again, I noticed something odd. He didn't look younger than me. He was older. "You're the me that I just met, aren't you?"
"Yes," he started, spitting up some blood. "I pulled out my knife, but he grabbed it out of my hand and stabbed me before I could get to him."
"But why?" I yelled, desperate to understand why I would attempt to kill myself.
"You try to fix one thing," he trailed off, his eyes losing focus. He became still and my mind turned into override.
I had watched myself die. I ended up going back in time to kill myself, but my past self killed me instead. That was my future. Why would I do that? Was I still going to do it, knowing what I knew? If I didn’t, how was I in still in the past?
"Don't even try it," a voice called behind me. "I don't know why you guys came back, but I'm not letting you kill me."
I turned around to see a younger version of myself standing in the doorway, wielding a bloody knife in one hand and the handheld device in the other. Before I could respond, he pushed a button and light filled the room once again. A few moments later, I was alone.
It was a time before I had even started working on time travel. My only way back disappeared with my past self, which didn’t even seem to make sense. How could he become me if he wasn’t even there anymore? Would I become me? My head hurt.
“Hello,” another voice called into the room. It was female, so I immediately knew it wasn’t me again. I turned toward the door to find the solution to one of my lingering questions.
“Gwen,” I answered, walking toward her with my hand extended. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“How did you know my name?” she asked, shaking my hand with a confused look on her face.
Smooth move. I didn’t know her name the first time this happened. But at least it revealed the date. This was the day I met the best and worst thing that ever happened to me. “I saw your name on the sign-in sheet,” I answered. “You must be the new girl. I’m Chris. Chris Michael.”
I began to lead her into my office. “Let me show you around. This is my off-”
What was I doing? There was a dead body on the floor by my worktable. Not just any dead body, my dead body.
“On second thought, my office is a mess,” I sputtered. I turned Gwen toward the hall. “Why don’t you head over to the break room around the corner and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee? Just give me a few minutes.”
“Sure,” she smiled. She began walking away, but stopped momentarily and shot me a wink. “You’re an interesting guy, Chris.”
As Gwen walked down the hall, I darted back into the room. My future death was still where I left it. Police weren’t an option, what would I tell them? An older version of me was killed by a younger version of me? The only option was to dispose of the evidence. Trying to think back to old gangster movies, I heard footsteps by the door.
“Uh, don’t come in here!” I yelled. “There’s a, uh-” I couldn’t believe my eyes. Two men stood in the doorway. I was looking at two identical versions of myself.
“Hey, Chris,” the one on the left said. “Sorry about earlier. I didn’t know you weren’t here to kill me too.”
“So you’re the me from this time, right?” I asked Lefty. “Who is this then?”
“Hi Chris,” the one on the right said. “I’m him, but after he stopped me from saving our future self there“
“But you didn’t-” I turned to the left. “You killed him.”
“I did,” said Lefty. “Pay attention, because this will get even more complicated. After killing future us, I had to know why he came back, so I went to the future. You know what I found? Future you. Stranded, you had taken my place, fell in love with Gwen, and never invented time travel.”
My head hurt again.
“There was no way to know what happened,” interjected Righty, “because time was overwritten. So the original timeline had to be restored.”
“How?” I asked no one in particular.
“I went back to before our future self met me.” I’m not sure who said that, I was too busy clutching my head. “I took care of him and then sent you back to your proper time before you woke up. Everything continued normally and I followed the timeline to figure out what originally happened.”
“Oh, I can’t wait to hear this part,” I said.
“It’s all about Gwen,” said Lefty. “As you know, she eventually broke up with you because you were too dedicated to your work. Apparently you fixed that mistake when you had another chance back here.”
“Gwen,” I whispered. “She’s waiting for me in the break room.”
“We know,” said Righty.
“So where did you come from then?” I asked Righty.
“I had to undo what I did,” answered Lefty. “With you back in your time, you finish inventing time travel, but things don’t end well with Gwen.”
“I already know that,” I sighed. “She broke up with me before. This is old news to me.”
“But,” started Lefty, “with the addition of time travel, you become obsessed with fixing things. It gets a little more complicated here. You basically go back in time and try to make it work with her over and over, but it never ends well. Eventually, you decide you have to go back to the beginning and… start all over.”
“By killing you and taking your place?”
“Exactly. My place.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Lefty, who was giving me an unnerving stare.
“What about me?” I asked “And Righty?”
“Righty…? Oh, because I’m standing on your right. He wants us to leave.”
“You two take the time machine,” said Lefty. “Go live with the dinosaurs for all I care, just stay away.”
Righty patted me on the back and raised his eyebrows in an approving nod. Lefty handed him the handheld device, which looked different. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but there seemed to be more buttons or something. Righty pushed one of them, but something was wrong. The expected light was there, but it was red. As Righty began to fade, a screeching sound emanated from the epicenter as he let out a horrendous scream.
“What did you do?” I yelled jumping into the hallway where Lefty had previously moved. His eyes widened as he pulled a familiar knife from his pocket.
“I can’t have you coming back and messing with my life!” he shrieked, swinging the knife in my direction. “I’ve already killed two of you, there’s no way you’re getting away!”
I jumped back into the room as the red light cleared, leaving behind a charred mark on the floor. Lefty followed me, still swinging. “Hey, what’s that?” I yelled, pointing behind him. He turned his head to find nothing, but before he could turn back, my fist met his chin. After pulling the knife from his hand I quickly buried it into his chest. As he fell to the ground, I could hear footsteps coming down the hall.
“Chris?” Gwen called.
I ran out of the room and slammed the door behind me to find Gwen holding two cups of coffee. “Hi, Gwen,” I said hysterically. She gave an odd look but then laughed, handing me one of the cups.
“I figured since you were so busy, I’d buy you the coffee this time. Would you like show me your office now?”
I looked at my closed door and then back at Gwen. “No, I still have some more cleaning to do. I have a new research project I need to prepare. But for now, how about we go enjoy these coffees in the break room?”
