War, Love and Timetravel

Well-off Sai

Helen pulled me aside, “what the hell just happened Francis?” she said trying to understand the situation but I didn’t understand it as well; despite the puzzling nature of this occurrence; it was quite clear what had happened, “um, with the look of things, it seems like we’ve traveled ten years into the past Helen” I said more muddled than she was, and paused to think about it for a moment then remembered the watch I was wearing which had those exact dates on it, alongside the time we arrived. “Somehow this watch might be responsible” I said to Helen showing her the watch on my wrist; so she quickly took a look at it, “are you crazy, you’re trying to tell me this watch brought us back to 2021?” she asked flustering slightly, “I know it sounds crazy but someone gave me this watch on this exact day, so yeah I strongly believe this watch is responsible” I uttered taking off the watch to have a quick look at the item, “we have to find the person who made it” I suggested. “Why?” Helen asked curiously, “Helen, take a look at us, were literally in the past, and not only that, were a day before the apocalypse, until this moment I didn’t believe time travel was possible, now that we know it actually is, we can use this power to prevent the apocalypse from happening, but we have to figure out how the watch works first” I replied, “okay? So how do you propose we do that?” Helen kept questioning, “relax, give me some time to think” I replied walking over to have a seat on the bench next to us, I carefully took my time to observe the watch this time, Helen came over and sat down beside me, I checked for minutes but found no clues so I gave up briefly. Raising my eyes to the road I saw a yellow sports car approaching quickly at its full speed drifting to a stop just in front of us and when it suddenly stopped, the car’s windows came rolling down, “are you the time traveller?” a man asked from inside the vehicle with a deep masculine voice. Helen and I both looked at each other with perplexity then looked back at the strange man and nodded our heads yes, “Get in” he instructed, and seeing that we had no option we immediately got into the vehicle, for a moment things were quiet inside, the man was huge and muscular wearing a black suit and black sunglasses, “where are you taking us?” I asked him curiously as he drove. “That isn’t my place to say young man, I’m just following orders here” he replied with a voice that sounded even deeper now that we were closer to him. The trip was brief; plus the man never slowed down for even a second, we arrived at a huge mansion with an enormous compound guarded with both digital security and men all suited up exactly like the one that drove us, a man wearing a blue robe, holding a glass of wine walked out the front door of the mansion to welcome us. “You must be the time traveller, oh my; am I glad to finally see you” he said examining my watch from a distance as we came out of the car, but seeing Helen sparked a concerned expression on his face, “who is she?” he asked curiously, “we both travelled back Mr……” I hesitated, trying to get his name, “oh so the watch took more than one person at a time?” he asked with composure, “Yes apparently” I replied, “oh where are my manners? please do come in” he offered us inside the mansion, “I’m Isaiah but in my scientific community they often call me Sai, that is Sai for scientist of course but you could call me Sai the scientist if you want, or just Mr. Sai” he said, “okay Mr. Sai, I’m Francis and this is Helen” I muttered while we all had our seats on the comfy sofa, Sai looked rather old, his skin was wrinkled and parts of his hair was grey, plus he had an incredibly large stomach, I assumed from drinking lots of alcohol, “can I offer you guys something to drink or eat?” he asked kindly, and I simply couldn’t resist. We had just literally come from a time where food was extremely hard to find, “yes indeed, we would like both” I confessed without shame, then Sai snapped his fingers and the next thing that followed after were kitchen chefs walking in with plates of all kinds of food, which was served to our side of the table. I and Helen ate it all to our satisfaction, “so tell me Francis, from when have you come from?” Sai asked curiously, “um about that, it’s not exactly what you would expect to hear but we’ve been living in an apocalyptic world for ten years” I said coming to the complete realization that the apocalypse was supposed to happen tomorrow, Sai looked concerned but he wasn’t in doubt, “how do you mean?” he asked paying close attention to what I had to say, “there was an outbreak or there will be an outbreak tomorrow, we still don’t know exactly what caused it till now” Helen said, “you need to help us Sai, I’m guessing you’re the one that created the watch, if you can maybe tell us what to do, we may be able to stop it from happening” I said desperately, Sai paused and sneered a little then brought out another watch from the left pocket of his robe exactly the same type I had on, “you mean watches” he said and took us by surprise, “I created three watches, the math worked and so did the physics but I never knew what kind of fuel would be needed to get them working, two of the watches were later stolen, right now at this point in time I have no idea who has the third one” he said placing the watch he had on the table, “anti-matter” I muttered, “come again” he instructed, “we got pushed into anti-matter, that must be the fuel you’ve been trying to figure out all this time” I said to him, and his eyes widened as though he had just been hit with inspiration, “my God, why didn’t that occur to me, anti-matter is exactly what could give it enough energy to open up a warm hole” he said pulling out a pen and paper from his other pocket to write down a few calculations, “one question Sai, how did you find us?” Helen asked. Without looking up from the paper he said, “do you see those weird looking numbers on the watch?” so I picked up the second watch from the table to take a look, neglecting the one on my wrist, and we both had a good look at it, “those numbers are coordinates, the very moment you guys arrived; it alerted me on my watch displaying the time, date and coordinates you jumped into, all three watches are synced, anywhere one goes, it alerts the other two” he said still focused on whatever he was calculating, “this apocalypse you speak about, I think I know what caused it” he said and sparked up my curiosity, “what?” I asked impatiently, “it’s a drug called Hypoxyl which was created in 2015 and approved in 2017, I’m certain this drug may have caused the mutation because I was part of the research team” he said regretfully, “I was suspicious of the side effects but I wasn’t sure how long it would take them to manifest or how bad it’ll be, now you both have come back to give me the answer” he said and I quickly did the sums in my head, an experimental drug was approved but they didn’t know when the side effects would subsist but later learned the hard way that it took five years to manifest. “Believe me, I tried to stop the drug from being approved but no one would listen, somehow I knew deep down it would cause a disaster so I began creating a time machine” Mr. Sai said calling unto one of his guards and whispering something into his ears, the guard left for a minute or two and came back with a picture, “This man was the man responsible for approving the drug” Sai said showing us the picture, “his name is Gavin Brown. So to prevent the outbreak you must go back to 2017 and take him out” he said handing the picture over to us, “you mean kill him?” I asked anxiously, “yes kill him, now come with me” he said getting up from his seat and walking out of the living room, we obediently followed him and he took us to his science lab, “anti-matter is not easy to come by but I could try to make enough for just two trips, one to go to 2017 and get the job done, while the second one’s for coming back to 2022” he said as we took a stroll down the massive lab, “to make this anti-matter I would have to accelerate electrons with a sufficiently high temperature, a few nips here and there would produce just enough fuel for the two jumps you need to make” he added, “now go have some rest while I work on this fuel, I’ll send for you when it’s ready” he concluded, taking us out of the lab. Helen and I were tired and we both got separate rooms, I looked in my pocket and I still had Sai’s second watch. I was going back to return it when I stumbled onto the mirror in my guest room and realized I was the one who gave the watch to my younger self on this day of December 31st 2021 to travel back from the future to this very day so I could prevent the apocalypse that’ll happen, I looked in the mirror for the first time in a really long time and recognized the man I saw first at the theme park bleeding out then at my home starring into our window, and that man was me.

I had to give the second watch to my younger self now, I knew if I tried to leave through the front gate, the guards wouldn’t let me so I used the back door which was unguarded and climbed over the fence out of the compound then stole a car which was parked up ahead by breaking the glass and opening the front door to hard wire it since it didn’t have the car keys, then I drove out quickly unto the road and by the time I arrived at my family’s house it was dark. The night of New Year’s Eve was here again; it was lively, and most people were out celebrating.

My house came into view from a distance and I parked a few miles away from it, walking the rest of the way. Slowly I moved over to the window to see what was happening inside, and when I did, I broke down in tears to see my entire family once again. That was the night we all shared the things we were grateful for throughout the year, I saw mum, dad, Mary and even myself, they were all so happy, I stood there wishing I could tell them how much I missed them, and that I loved them, but they wouldn’t know who I was, also I couldn’t confront my younger self to give him the watch directly so I had to go through Sophie who was sound asleep in her room, I walked over to her room window, peeped in to see that she was fast asleep on her bed then slowly opened the window, “Sophie” I whispered but she didn’t wake up as my voice was too low, I picked up a stick on the floor and tapped her with it, “hey Sophie” I whispered again and she finally woke up, she looked puzzled because to her I was a stranger, but I on the other hand was so happy to see her again after all these years, “who are you?” she asked me, “I missed you Sophie” I said, “and I want you to know that I’m sorry, I’m sorry for everything, for mum, dad, Mary and even you Sophie” I muttered shedding a tear, “I don’t know what you’re talking about mister” she replied, so I wiped the tears from my eyes bringing out the second watch from my pocket, “here take this watch, I want you to give it to Francis, promise me you’ll give this watch to Francis Sophie” I said handing her the watch and she slowly nodded her head yes while she took it, “What?! you crazy bastard, get away from my sister!” my younger self spotted me in that moment and I began running into the woods whilst he pursued me and eventually caught up to me pushing me unto the ground, “who are you? What do you want from me and my family?” he asked filled with anger, laying there I realized that I was stronger and older than him so I pushed him off me and continued running, then he yelled from a distance, “hey what happened to your scars? How did you do it?” he asked, and though I remembered clearly what he chattered about, but that hadn’t happened to me yet. So I stopped running immediately and walked back over to him and the first thing that popped into my head was, “what scars?” I said before I spotted dad running towards us and took off immediately, making my way back to the car and driving straight back to the scientist’s mansion, I sneaked back in without being noticed until I was eventually spotted by Sai coming out of his lab, “Francis there you are, I was just coming to see you” he said walking over to me, “it appears to me that there are certain elements that are required in anti-matter to create this fuel. Can you recall anything that would be of help?” he asked, so I closed my eyes trying to recall what I saw when I looked down at the sign, I did see some other sub elements, but I didn’t take note of them, my memory of it was a bit shady but I kept on trying, “caesium” I spoke out as it popped into my head, “francium and asta.…” I said trying to remember the full name of the last element, “Astatine” Mr. Sai concluded, “yes that, those were the three elements” I replied, “good job kid, now you’re supposed to be in your guest room why are you outside anyway, go have some rest, tomorrow’s a big day because once I’m done making this fuel you’re both going back in time” he instructed, so I was about leaving when he called me back and asked, “does Helen really have to go with you?, I mean she could be an interference” he asked seeming concerned. “Well believe it or not Mr. Sai, that’s one tough lady right there, if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have survived the apocalypse for as long as I did” I replied then turned back and headed into my guest room, now feeling relieved that he didn’t ask for his watch, I slept peacefully.

Waking up the next morning I moved into the lab to find that Helen was already up before me and she wore some sort of polythene material, “that looks funny” I said to her, “well, your face looks funnier” she replied, “Mr. Sai thought this material would protect our skin from the radiation. Didn’t you notice the wrinkle on your skin after the first jump?” she asked, and carefully I observed my skin. Indeed she was right, my skin was more wrinkled than before. Mr. Sai walked in at that moment from his private chambers and into the lab holding an elastic pack of the fuel he made so I presumed, “you’re to wear this on your arm just below your shoulder” he said wrapping the pack around the upper section of my arm then inserted the long thin tube that stuck out of the watch into the pack of fuel, “so that’s what this is for?” I said feeling stupid that it didn’t occur to me the whole time, “and you Helen” he said turning his attention over to Helen, “I have made for you a special device that links you to the watch Francis is wearing, whatever time he jumps to, you will immediately follow without having to make direct contact with him” he said handing her the device which Helen wore on her wrist afterwards, he then led us into a wide empty room enclosed with transparent glass. I began setting the date and time, which was set to 1st January 2017 but left the time at 10:37am then set the coordinates to a more discreet and remote location so no one would see us arrive, we were all set and ready to go, Mr. Sai walked over to me, “hold down this button when you’re ready to jump” he said pointing to a button beside the watch, and remember, the man you’re going to kill is Gavin Brown, the minister of health that approved the drug Hypoxyl” he said walking out of the room “when you’re ready” he finally said then I looked over to Helen, “are you set?” I asked feeling a little nervous, “I’m really starting to think I should be the one wearing that watch since I’m older than you” she replied, “just shut up Helen, well here goes nothing, 3, 2, 1” I said and held down on the button, I literally experienced time slow down outside the glass, the air in the glass began flowing at an alarming rate, a tiny black hole opened just above the surface of the watch and we both got sucked into it, our bodies travelled faster than the speed of light through the warm hole for a split second everything was dark then came the light afterwards, and we found ourselves submerged in water.