The White Feather- A story of infinite worlds

The Time Paradox

You might be happy knowing that Thomas was going to help the agents in completing the mission and taking out the senator with less difficulty, if not with ease. After all, Thomas was an outstanding agent whose heart rate never crossed 150 bpm. But that’s only because you don’t know s**t about the ‘White Feather Paradox’. And I don’t blame you for not knowing, because it is a top secret.

Now Tony and the others had been in Afghanistan for more than a month now. But in Thomas’ world, not more than two days had passed. I'm not gonna explain how all this time dilation stuff happens because I can't explain and you wouldn't understand it anyway. You get what this means?

I’ll spell it out for you. This means that just the day before yesterday, Thomas had turned into a maniac and killed loads of people in less than an hour. That streak of fury might not seem that extreme from a distance, but if the man who did it has got a conscience, it really f***s with his head. You see, there’s a line in the back of your mind, and you have no idea that it is there until you cross it. It takes some time for people to realize that they have crossed it, but it eventually hits. And when it does, the person is never the same again. Some people just accept it and keep doing the stuff, losing all morality. Other people are pushed into a deep black pit, and unless they have a helping hand, they never learn to live with themselves.

For Thomas, the reality had struck as soon as he got back to this world. He was so busy and pumped up with adrenaline in The Chakra’s universe that he could never just sit alone and think. But now, he was thinking pretty hard.

He was miserably lonely. He wasn’t lonely for the first time, but this time loneliness felt more powerful because he had gotten used to being with Amanda. Yeah, the same Amanda who killed him in cold blood and even dared to joke about it. He loved her and she spoiled him with her fake affection. He was just living in the remnants of the beautiful times he had with his two faced girlfriend. The girlfriend who sliced his throat and who he killed with his bare hands. We can never understand how he felt. But i can say this- he wished that he died when Amanda tried to kill him. My friend, you don’t need to be in love to know how much betrayal hurts. It shakes your core and makes you question yourself.

And now, the icing on the cake. Thomas couldn’t sleep since his return from the....whatever it was. As soon as he laid on the bed after coming back, the faces of all the people who he killed that evening, appeared at once. They seemed to run right at him. They didn’t speak, but their lips were moving nevertheless. When Thomas concentrated, he found out that their lips were moving in the same way as they moved when they were pleading for their life. But Thomas killed them regardless that evening. He even remembered smiling as he did it.

And now their bodies were gone from this world, but they somehow found a place behind Thomas’ eyelids. And so he never closed his eyes, not for a second, no matter how tired he got. Because the thing that awaited him in his sleep was even more terrifying than him going mad from insomnia.

Put together the guilt of killing, centuries of traumas, betrayals, lack of companions, and put them inside one little human head. There’s no way in f*****g hell that a lonely person can push through that.

But it looked like there was a way out. They say that an empty mind is the devil’s playground. So Thomas figured that if he was busy with a mission, he would not think about all that ‘stuff’ and could finally get over it. But what he didn’t understand was that he wasn’t solving the problem, he was just avoiding it, and in turn festering it. It was like trying to put out a fire by pouring gasoline all over it. You don’t get over violence by using violence. But of course he didn't realize it. Anxious people are sure to make mistakes, and Thomas was already set to make one.

There’s a reason that the agency told the agents to spend at least one week in solitary confinement and establish peace with their souls. And then they gave them another six months to just prepare their mind for another mission. Thomas was completing almost seven months therapy in two days. He wasn’t gifted, he was a f*****g i***t. And the funny thing is, he knew that this was all wrong. That's why he didn't tell the superiors that he was going back on the field, and instructed Tony to do the same.

But if Thomas was a perfect human, I wouldn’t have a story to tell and you wouldn’t have a tale to read. So he decided to just f**k it and see what life had in store for him in Afghanistan. And I guarantee you one thing, life didn't have anything pretty in store for him.

"All set for the field trip?" Amanda asked, standing in a corner, wearing the same dress she wore when Thomas killed her. She looked beautiful, but Thomas was busy packing equipment for his journey, so he didn't pay much attention.

"Yes, the kids need me and I need a break." Thomas said while trembling. His hands were shaking, and his watch was beeping wildly. But he carried on regardless.

"Are you sure this is a good idea? You don't look so well to me." Amanda said in a sympathetic voice.

She was a b***h, but she was right. Thomas looked like an old man with dark circles below his eyes and the dark vibe surrounding him. His face was grave and it looked like he had developed wrinkles in only two days. The results of losing sleep were becoming evident now.

"I'll be fine once I get back in the action. I'm just not cut out to sit alone in a room for seven days while the kids need my help." Thomas said and nodded like a maniac.

"Thomas, you have to understand that if you want to help them, you HAVE to stay out of their way. You are not just putting their lives on the line, you are also putting the future of that world in the hands of a terrorist organization. We both know that you WILL die if you go out there." Amanda said.

"And what do you care about the lives of others? You killed me just because you wanted to rule a f*****g piece of worthless land. You broke my heart Amanda, and so you are the last person I'll ever listen to." Thomas said and collapsed on a chair. He felt like crying, but the tears didn't fall down.

"You can say all you want Thomas, but you can not hurt me. And that's because I'm dead, incinerated in one of your agency's funeral parlors like some garbage with no name. I'm not really here Thomas, I'm just in your head. But you have to listen to me." Amanda said in a cold voice.

Thomas' face looked confused and his eyes moved rapidly around the random room. He was talking to himself, scolding and yelling at the walls, thinking that Amanda was standing there, listening to him as he told her what was in his heart. He laughed and cried, looked around terrified, and ultimately, fell down on the ground while holding his chest.

"Wh...What the..." Thomas said as he opened his eyes. Everything was blurry, and he could just see lights getting brighter and dimmer over and over again. He could also hear a resonating sound, and on trying hard, he could finally understand it.

"Don't worry Thomas, it was just a minor attack, we will get you out of here in no time...." Someone was saying.

And now all of a sudden, Thomas remembered. It was like deja vu, everything was happening just like the last time. A few years ago, he was shot and experienced the same blurry vision, rapidly changing hallway lights and the whispers in his ear.

He was in the hospital, and the plan was in s**t. But in all of the chaos, there was one positive thing that happened. Thanks to the tranquilizers, Thomas finally slept contently. And he did not wake up for another twenty hours, which roughly estimates to a week in Afghanistan. Yeah, the time paradox is one crazy motherfucker.