Sunday, January 21, 2018

Time is Fixed

Time is fixed, he had always said; even if a person could go back in time and tried to change the variables of a specific event in the past, the outcome would always end up being the same.

And even if you did manage to change the outcome of a specific event in time, resulting in a change in the history of events, the future version of the time traveller would then have no need to change events leading up to the event, thus the trip back in time would never have happened to change anything and the outcome would then of course, end up being the same.

He had always said that, that is until the day he had stepped out of the time portal and into past; trying to change the outcome.

All he had to do was to stop himself from leaving the house that day and everything would be fixed. None of the terrible things he had gone through after that day would have to happen and the world would not have to suffer from his mistakes.

It had taken so many years to pinpoint exactly when and where things had gone wrong, obsessively back-tracking events through the timeline until finally, he was certain that this one day, one ordinary moment, would set in motion the chain reaction that would bring about the destruction of the entire world as we know it.

Then there was only the impossible task of creating the ability to open the rift in time and space to be able to go back and undo all that he had done to contribute to the world's end.

Yet, he had done it, almost stumbling upon it, he had uncovered the way to shift the fabric of space-time and open a portal to the past.

Now, after so many lost decades, he was through and standing in front of his old home; looking just as he had remembered it, an unassuming house on the wooded street of an exclusive neighbour in western end of the city.

At that moment, he knew the past version of himself was just making his way down the stairs to the kitchen to make himself breakfast before heading to work at the lab only a few short minutes away down the road.

However, this time, he would make sure he never did.

Looking like a gaunt and ghostly version of himself, he gripped the handle of the pistol tightly to make sure it was still there and started to make his way to end things before they ever began.

As he went to step away from the shimmering portal, a hand grasped his arm from behind and he jerked around to see who had grabbed him. A familiar looking arm was protruding out from the portal and he looked up from it in shock to see a cleaned-shaven and healthier version of himself staring back at him through the portal.

"I'm sorry about this." His other version said in a sincerely apologetic voice just before he heard the squealing of car tires to his right.

He was barely able to comprehend that the driver of the car was also him, though an even more dishevelled and crazed version then himself, before the car struck him and he flew into the air like a ragdoll.

Screaming like a madman as he swerved the car wildly, he watched as his other self landed with a sickening thud, his neck twisted and broken, onto the pavement in his rear-view mirror.

Looking back ahead, he saw another version of himself standing in the dead center of the road and he yanked hard on the steering wheel to swerved and avoid hitting himself on instinct. The tires skidded out of control on the wet road from the previous night's rain, and the car careened off the road and crashed headlong into an old, unyielding oak tree.

The other version of himself stood calmly in the center of the road and watched the car crumple and explode with the impact, then turned to see the past version of himself coming out of his house to see what all the commotion was about.

As he rushed out of the house in his housecoat, he saw the flames of the wreck in the trees just to the east of his front yard and then scanned back along the road to see himself standing there looking back at him from the middle of the road.

He nodded at himself just as he faded out of existence, as did the other him laying prone on the pavement a few steps away from the first. The noise of the fiery wreck suddenly stopped and looking over at where it had been, he saw only the tall trees standing undisturbed as the birds chirped their morning songs to each other.

Stunned, he went back inside and sat down on one of the kitchen bar stools. After a long while just sitting, thinking about what he had just seen, the toaster on the counter dinged and popped out two well-done pieces of bread, startling him from his thoughts.


What had he been thinking of? He could almost remember, but it slipped away from him. Oh well, he was going to be late for work at the lab if he sat around too long. No time to waste! 

Wednesday, January 17, 2018

Village Dreams

Down in the sleepy village the sun's light was melting away into the western sky as the shade of the mountain branched out along the land to take its place.

Night would soon be upon the little village at the foot of the mountain and its inhabitants were finishing their daily tasks and making their way home to their modest thatched-roof cottages.

They were a good, hard-working folk that helped one another out whenever they could and they led happy, peaceable lives, with their families gathered together in their cozy homes, made warm by the flames alight in the cooking hearths, their lives were fulfilled.

Now that the evening light had faded completely, night had arrived and the villagers readied themselves for bed; for early the next day, the preparations for the winter festival would begin.

Midnight came and all were asleep, slumbering serenely in their warm, straw-laden beds, when a slinking shadow made its way through the empty village street, moving unnaturally against the moon's pale light.

Growing long, the shadow slithered like a serpent and seeped into the window of one of the cottages, where a young child lay sleeping in his bed on the second level loft.

The young boy had no siblings so he enjoyed the privacy of the upper loft to himself as his parents slept soundly on the main floor below.

He had never suffered from bad dreams before, but as the shadow cast its gloom over him, dark and foreboding visions came to him.

Visions of a skewed version of the world he knew; instead of clear blue, the blood red skies of his dream world were the backdrop to high-reaching towers of steel that crowded in on each other and loomed down on tortured figured that toiled and languished in the dirtied and polluted lands below.

None of what the boy saw in his dreams made sense to him, yet the images horrified him beyond anything he had ever witnessed; each more horrifying than the last, until a startling figure came into view above the nightmarish landscape, taking up the entirety of the skies.

The menacing gaze of a black-eyed man with a severe and gaunt face glared down at him within the dream. Yet, those pools of blackness seemed to somehow see through the dream, and gaze at him truly where he lay whimpering in his bed, still asleep.

A sneer slid across the man's face to reveal a mouth full of glinting, razor-sharp teeth that sent a wave of fresh terror through the boy, and then the truly terrifying revelation came to the slumbering child.

Somehow, the loathsome visage staring down at him through his dream was his own grown self; a twisted and blasphemous version of the man he would become.

With a jolt the boy awoke and cried out for his parent; the slinking shadow shrinking back out the window before they arrived to comfort their weeping son.

Back down the village street and out into the darkness of the surrounding forest trees, the shadow shrunk back until it became the hunched figure of a cloaked individual, hiding from sight amongst the old oaks.

Their task complete, the figure turned to shamble away further into the wood so that they were totally hidden by the darkness of the cover of the tall trees.

A strange sound came from within the darkness and then dissipated; leaving the sleepy village that lay nestled between the vast forest and the curving river alone and at peace once again.


From high up on the mountain top, a slight rumble sounded the beginning of what was to come.

Sunday, January 7, 2018

Beginning

High up on a mountain top, the night wind blows and a portal opens in the air just above the stony ledge with a strange sound.

Out of the portal a dark figure steps down onto the snow-swept stone, and the razor-thin slice in the air closes with another odd sound; leaving the figure alone in the dim moonlight.

The figure lets their cloak loose to flutter in the whipping wind behind them like a cape, revealing their long, slender face in the pale light. The severe looking man seems unaffected by the harsh winds and freezing temperatures as he scans the area with dark eyes, which come to rest upon a small cave bore into the mountain side.

Striding purposefully to the cave, he ducks under the low hanging entrance to stand just inside; sliding into the shadows, just out of sight.

Once again the mountain top seems deserted.

Moments later, a new portal appears near the cave entrance with its distinctive sound and another figure steps out from its void.

The new cloaked figure stoops and twitches like a wary animal, awaiting the pounce of a predator, as they edge their way against the mountain side. Their portal dissipates and leaves them too close to the cliff edge for their liking.

Sliding over to the cave opening, the figure moves to slip inside when the taller hidden figure reveals himself out of the shadows of the opening.

“Have you done as I have asked, retch?” he asks in a harsh, commanding voice as he brings himself up to full height, looming over the cowering and hunched figure, who scrambles back away to a safe distance.

“Oh!” they exclaim with choked terror. “ Y..yes, Master Luvoa! Yes, of course! Hasn’t Grunder always done as you’ve asked?” Grunder grovels as their cowl drops to reveal their disfigured face and sickly yellow eyes. “Grunder only wants to please you, Master Luvoa. For Master Luvoa revealed to Grunder the mysteries of Magi...”

Luvoa moves in on Grunder with a dominate step, “Quit your grovelling!” he growls, his black eyes shining fiercely in the moonlight. “I detest your snivelling voice! I only allow you to work the tiniest of Magics; enough to do my bidding. Otherwise, I would crush you like the insect you are!”

Grunder shields themselves from the threatening raised hand of their master, but Luvoa softens slightly and smirks as he pets Grunder’s head.

“But since you have done as I have asked,” Luvoa soothes, “there will be no need for that; at the moment. Now, come. Let us look upon what we have done.”

The tall man leads the still wary Grunder over to the edge of the maintain ledge, and they peer down at the sleepy lands below.

Luvoa puts a hand on Grunder’s back and the servant flinches as though anticipating being thrown off the mountain top as Luvoa laughs malevolently at his servant’s terror.

“See, my friend?” he invites as he sweeps his other hand over the lands laying far below. “As the land sleeps we have set in motion events that will give us everything we want; everything I deserve!”

Still with terror in their eyes, Grunder gazes down at the tiny village that lies at the foot of the mountain; nestled between the curving river and the snow-tipped trees of the vast forest that stretches into the horizon.

White smoke, barely visible from their high vantage point, puffs out of the chimneys of the thatched roofed cottages as the villagers slumber peacefully in their beds.

It had seemed only a small thing Grunder had done, it had changed nothing that they could see.

“But Grunder doesn’t understand, master.” they stammer timidly. “We only gave that young one a simple dream, how can...”

“Shh.” Luvoa puts his long, slender finger to his tight lips. “Dreams are the most powerful of all Magics. They are the seeds of thoughts. And do you know what thoughts do, my friend?”

Looking up at Luvoa, Grunder shakes their head, dumbfounded.

“Thoughts,” Luvoa continues, “lead to ideas. And ideas lead to actions. And actions lead to the future. And the future leads to me!”

A cracking boom shakes the mountain top and Luvoa looks around with wonder as Grunder cowers.

“You see?” he exclaims in excitedly hushed tones. “It’s happening!”

“What is, Master?” Grunder asks in terror.

Luvoa looks down at Grunder with a terrifyingly gleeful glimmer in his black eyes; sharp, pointed teeth showing as his lips pull back into a wide, malicious smile.

“Why, the Beginning, of course!”

The End