Time's Ticking

The Courtesy Call

Dear future people who find this log:

I’m pretty much fucked.

I'm here hiding in the universe equivalent of an alleyway known as a superposition to escape the angry nanny who wants to murder me, also known as the Timekeeper. I could regale you with tales of my adventure through the seven parallel dimensional worlds with multiverse time travel but I’m not kidding when I say this: I could die and disappear out of existence at any moment. If I’m found, that is. So I’ll start with how I met Time.

What is time? “Time is a continuous sequence of events that occurs in irreversible succession. From the past, through the present, and to the future.” It’s logical this way, but the superstitious, like my parents, think of time as a being, an entity, to keep the perfect system running that is our universe.

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But what happens if someone breaks time? What happens when someone beats the system? Some may call it luck, and others call it karma.

My aunt was always superstitious about time. During our family reunion, when I told her about needing to get new batteries for my watch, which had died yesterday, she mentioned while beginning to pray, “People die when they run out of time, my boy.”

A child came up to me holding a messily half-eaten muffin. “Did you know that Peter Henlein made the first watch in 1505?” Ugh, that's Alexander; that child knows more than the Library of Congress. I love him, but he can be so annoying.

The smell of turkey with cheap store bought gravy hung in the air. I hate family reunions. Don’t get me wrong, the food part is great. I just don’t like the hugs part and all the formalities.

My reckless dad tried deep-frying the turkey this year and almost burned down our house as a result, but hey, at least it’s juicy.

I don’t know why I thought about the watch that night, and if I hadn't thought about it that night, maybe I wouldn’t have dreamed about it that night. Was this the butterfly effect? I was supposed to learn about shit like this in school, but honestly, I don't care. Anyway, maybe if I ignored my aunt, the Timekeeper would have passed over me like a shark looking for fatter fish to eat. Maybe.

That night I had a weird dream. Not weird as in I was uncomfortable, but weird as I never had one so vivid and detailed. The first thing I saw was a bus station. It was pitch black outside. Not even one star hung in the sky. This was my morning route to work.

I was never one to be late, so I checked my watch 5:20; the next bus was the 5:30 service, and it would be here any moment. After waiting for what felt like an eternity, I was in the safety and warmth of the bus.

Rechecking the time, I ideally wanted to be early for work so I could finish earlier. 5:20, my watch read.

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Making a face, I shook it a couple of times to see if I could get it restarted, but no cigar. I sighed and opted to stare out into nothing except the endless rain. Two blinding lights suddenly cut through the impenetrable darkness. I threw my hands up just in time to brace my head for the impact.

A blow followed so hard it caused my head to go numb. My hands scoured my head, looking for a wound that I desperately hoped wouldn't be there. Upside down, pinned and bleeding out, the last thing I remember was tetanus ringing in my ear and the voices of screaming people.

My eyes snap open and I bolt up in a cold sweat, my body shaking, heart pounding. It was still pitch black outside. 5 AM. Yay. I thought naively; I'm not dead. But for some reason, this dream seemed off to me. It felt real, and I remember it perfectly. My alarm went off, and my head nearly went through the ceiling as I jumped to the sudden sharp, angry chirping. Brushing away the thoughts, I got prepared for my work. Shower. Overalls. Boots.

***

Through all of it, I just couldn't shake that sinking feeling. Walking to the bus station, I could hear my superstitious angel aunt on my shoulder, insisting that I walk. So I did. I would be late, but I was too rattled to be near people anyway.

My day continued pretty much as usual after that. A couple of my coworkers tried to talk to me, and there was a small kerfuffle in the dining area, but the same old monotony continued as usual. I walked home that afternoon.

When I flipped on the tv, my heart dropped, sweat started dripping down my face, and I changed the channel again and again. … 12 dead in a massive highway pileup. The reports are still coming in, but they have closed the I-35 for now. Residents will have to use the streets to bypass the closed-off- I turned off the tv in panic and sat down.

Had I just dodged death? Calling my aunt, it rang seven times and went to voicemail. Goddammit. I started pacing.

***

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My watch helpfully informed me it was 6:15 PM. How long had it been since I got home? Fuck. I need food and rest. I’m not thinking clearly.

I stumbled to the kitchen to drink as much water as I could stomach before slumping into bed like a slug. The sweet release of sleep settled in as the busy world drowned out around me. *2:37 AM* I should really leave my phone outside my bedroom.

When my phone rang,
I didn't know why I picked it up. Unknown Caller. But my mind became curious, and I picked up my phone. “Hey Allan, It's an emergency. I'm outside your room right now. Can you let me in? I'm you.”
“Hold up, who are you?” I groaned while throwing on my clothes.

Running on autopilot, I walked over to the door and peeked out the viewport. There was me. I was covered in blood with a gun in my hand.

I idiotically opened the door, and before I could close it, other-me bodied the door open and slammed it shut. I watched blankly as he pushed my nightstand over the door and jammed it against the wall. I’ve gone fucking insane. Other-me said, “You’re not going insane. You’re me, and I’m you. I know what you are thinking right now. This morning, you caused a gitch in time by not getting on the bus, and now the Timekeeper is coming after us. We are an anomaly. We shouldn't exist, so it's coming to destroy us.” Once the shock settled in, I regained the mental capacity to look at mirrored me, and I saw he was bleeding from under his shirt. I went to get my first aid kit and some QuickClot, but me stopped me. “What are you doing?” I hissed.
“I’m saving your life - my life. It's going come to kill me instead of you. Take my watch. Find Rogue. You gotta move fast if you want to survive.” The world again blurred as adrenaline took over, and I climbed into my car putting my foot on the floor. Then I saw it. An uncanny black being with infinite extremities rose over houses until it swarmed closer and closer and enveloped the place where I grew up. The screams of other-me still ring in my ears as I speed down the highway.

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Supernatural

Everything feels slow when you are trying to outrun a paradigm of the universe. When it made eye contact with me, I could feel the hatred behind the million eyes that protruded. Frustrated, I stopped on the pedal to go faster, but the Prius stubbornly had other plans. Switching on the radio, I expected to hear every new station reporting on the massive alien creature that plowed through East LA, but it was the same tedious nonsense reporting. Once the adrenaline wore off, I started thinking back to that night at the dinner and my aunt's words. Was this what destiny was? One sentence, and my life ends up in chaos.

My car made a noise that sounded vaguely like Chewbacca and came to a crawl on the highway. Not good. I hear a low warble, followed closely by the sharp sting of ozone in my nose. A flash followed that was brighter than the sun. Fear took root. I only had a 3 minute head start on this thing and checked my watch. It’s broken again. Even though every instinct and a million years of evolution screamed at me to run, I could hear my analytical devil dad on my shoulder telling me to stay calm and evaluate. I turned around to look in the backseat of the car.

Nothing but the watch other-me gave me. It looked like an 80s radio toy with a big antenna sticking out the front. The world outside of my car went dark like an eclipse. The Timekeeper had found me. Grabbing the only thing I could, the watch, I powered it on. It had a list of addresses you could swipe forward and backward through.

The Timekeeper was faceless. It looked like a 2-year-old had scribbled on an etch-a-sketch comprising of uncanny lines and extremities. It ripped the doors off my car.

“TRY TO ESCAPE. I AM INVETEABLE,” came a garbled voice from within the massive being.

Was it toying with me? I looked back at the watch. On the back, it had a sticky note. You can’t escape the Keeper in its backyard, only across dimensions. Having no idea what that meant and quickly running out of time, I selected the destination at the top of the list, “KOWN UNIV-2295,” and pressed Jump.

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The Long Fall

Jumping through time is only best described as being stretched 17 ways at once followed by a fall. Oh god did I ever mention I hate falling? I could have traversed it like an intrepid space explorer and finished with a 3-point superhero landing, but instead, I tumbled helplessly as the portal spat me out the other end on my face. And as quickly as it opened, the portal winked out of existence. I landed in the front yard of a suburban house—a kid inside was looking out the window at the man who had just materialized out of nowhere. Quickly getting up, I looked around helplessly. “Took you long enough,” said the unidentified woman. I stared blankly.
“Oh right, we haven’t met yet. Ermm, well we have met, but like just not you y- you get the point. I’m Rogue” I didn't, but I humored her anyway. She continued, “We are in Universe 2295. Otherwise known as the one where Hitler won World War II. Therefore, I suggest we don't stay long.” A red van pulled nearby, and two armored people got out. “You are in violation of section 135 part 2 policy 15.3. Unidentified persons, you are under arrest for the unlawful ownership of third-party non-government issue timekeeping devices,” I heard rogue mumble. “Good going Al, let's get out of here. This place creeps me out.”

My heart was racing. How were we going to get out of this one? “Hold on to my jumper”
Oh, so that's what they're called. I felt an intense heat blow over my back and a force sucking me into the portal, falling, spinning forever like a fish being flushed down a toilet. Initially, I thought the time jump failed because we popped back out on the street, but the fact that the trees changed color and there were skid marks on the road told me we traveled through time. Timekeeper had also looked for us here. This was the future!

Rogue said, “The Timekeeper was assigned the role of keeping the universe in order, so when you skipped the bus on that day to work, it killed all the parallel versions of you. Yo- you were my friend. For the past five years, this has been my life, trying to beat the Timekeeper and save my best friend. You’re the last one.” She was getting emotional. I didn't know what to say, so I stared like an idiot. Rogue explained the plan: She had already set up a distraction in the past to keep the keeper busy as we set up the trap. We will lure Timekeeper into a MegaJumper powered by a nuclear reactor to make it see itself in the past.

This causes an anomaly that forces it to destroy itself. Rogue’s watch started beeping furiously, “Shit, the Timekeeper found us again. My jumper is still charging. Use yours and jump us to Universe U21BG 10/21/2015” All hell broke loose. A piece of reality warped until the terrifyingly familiar portal shape appeared. The air around us felt hot enough to melt steel. “Yeah. I never either liked this place anyway.” I said while finishing typing and pressed Jump.

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You never get used to the feeling when you literally get pulled through the fabric of space. You become nothing, then everything. We had to go slow so as not to alert the Timekeeper of our movement. Right now, it should be busy looking for us, thinking we were hiding out in the 1950s. In reality, we programmed our bands to take us to the early 2000s, buying us around about an hour until the Timekeeper catches on. Every single time mid-jump, no matter how hard I try, I scream like a little kid. As instantly as it started, it ended. I landed awkwardly on Rogue at a diner next to a desert road. Rogue explained that 5 miles north was Area 55 and the 22-megawatt reactor that powered it.