I get a lot of headaches, and they’ve only gotten worse since I came back from the future. It’s the grief and confusion of it all, I guess.
Okay, I know what you’re thinking – time travel. Yeah, sure. But I’ll come back to that later.
The first thing you need to know is that I’ve come back and he’s not even been born yet, and he won’t be for another 400 years.
I was recruited onto the programme at age eight, because I was living on the streets and no one would miss me. The way it works is after three years of intense training, you’re allocated. There’s different sectors, and I thought it would be cool being a time-traveller, but I didn’t get a say in where and when I travelled. The General signs the papers and off you go for however long is required. They don’t tell you about the effects it would have on your body either.
But I will.
Imagine the worst jetlag you have ever had and multiply that feeling by 1,000. You become an empty shell. You don’t know who you are, or where you are. Call it an out of body experience, if you will, but all you can do is watch yourself suffer.
Let me show you.
***
Sunday, 14/09/2036
As you stumble into the living area of your chambers, yawning, you notice the slight glances of pity being thrown your way.
Ducking your head, you ignore them and carry on your not so merry way. You beeline for the armchair beside the window, as Gar and Ava lounge on the couch in front of the screen. They talk animatedly whilst a cartoon plays in the background. The wooden flooring feels cold against your bare feet, so you tuck them underneath yourself and glance outside. Dark clouds hover above, threatening all who dare to step outside.
A new girl strolls in, carefully clutching a tray filled with a batch of steaming cookies. Chayna follows her with a toothy grin like a proud mother swan. This must be the girl who had taken an “absolute shining” to baking. Together, they spent entire days in the kitchen baking cakes, biscuits, and even fudge to Gar's delight.
Like a frog catching a fly, Gar snatches a treat. You can just feel the tension in the air; hear the pounding in everyone's ears as no one is completely confident that this food is safe to eat.
You don’t care enough to watch, but you do anyway.
After shovelling an entire cookie into his mouth, a loud crunch echoes within the chamber and there's a moment of hesitancy. Slowly, a grin unwinds itself onto Gar's crumb filled face. Eager hands rummage the plate, taking handfuls before the girl smacks his offending hands away.
Everyone breathes.
"Let someone else have one," She says, but her grin only brightens.
Your stomach tightens painfully and you groan quietly, as you feel acid crawl up your throat. Your head begins to throb. Rocking backwards and forwards, you feel something brush against your shoulder blade gently. You look up to see various wide eyes staring at you before everything fades to black.
***
Friday, 07/04/2456
You are in his ‘room’. The throbbing behind your eyes begin to dull as the white fabric of the Tipi stops blurring. The smell of dirty socks vanishes, and slowly your nose begins to tingle with bubble-gum.
Soft lips brush against yours. The bottom lip juts out slightly, teasingly caressing itself against the parting of your own. You gasp quietly, allowing the sweet taste of bubblegum bottles to swirl with your breath and to dance amongst your taste buds. Your eyelids flutter closed.
Eyelashes, soft like butterfly wings, flutter against your cheeks and you relax into the kiss, stroking your hands and strumming your fingers against the sides of a body splayed out on top of you. The weight is pleasant. Rough hands are gripping your cheeks, and so you tighten your hold on the lithe body, almost protectively.
He drops onto the mattress, hooking his lean legs around yours. You simply follow the guiding lips, craning your neck downwards: never breaking contact. You wind your free arm around his waist whilst his hands eagerly sift their way through your dark hair. You trace your fingers down his sides, over his hips to rest against his thigh before he breaks the kiss.
Beneath you, Loukas peers at you through his eyelashes and messy, auburn hair. A bright yet seductive half smile reveals a set of large, wonky front teeth.
***
Monday, 15/09/2036
Sun beams pierce through your curtains, whilst birds screech their morning songs outside. You awake with a jolt, and sweat glistens on your forehead. A sharp pain shoots up your neck, nesting in your forehead in the form of an ache. In a moment of confusion, you sit up and investigate your surroundings.
Whilst hooked up to an IV, you're cocooned into a white, puffy duvet upon a single bed. The warmth settles pleasantly amongst your legs, which is a nice change from the thin sheets you normally sleep with. There's a machine beeping steadily beside your bed.
All you can see is white, and everything smells clean. It’s too clean, and it burns your nostrils. There’s a door ahead of you leading to somewhere mysterious, and another equally intriguing door to your left. A TV balances on a frame against the wall, beside the mystery door. On your right, a TV remote and comics lie on a bedside table.
Your eyes strain against the brightness, and suddenly a coldness washes over you. Everything merges into one. Slowly, you try to level your heavy breathing so you begin to count the chairs lined up against the white wall by the window.
1, 2... Chayna?
You observe the woman calmly slumbering in a white, plastic chair. She's slouched with her arms crossed over her chest, whilst her head lulls onto her right shoulder. Ebony locks of hair shield her face, reaching to her rounded chin. Small puffs of air blow the strands upwards slightly; drifting to lean against her nose before she exhales again. Chayna's arms are tense as you notice the muscles strain against the fabric of her jumper.
"Uh...Chayna?" Your croaky voice sounds thunderous in the sterile room.
No response.
Her eyes suddenly widen and her back stiffens against the chair. She looks around.
“Why am I here?” You ask.
Her dark eyes lock with yours. Chayna puffs out an exasperated sigh and massages her forehead with one hand. “You passed out, and hit your head pretty hard.”
“Oh.”
"Here," Standing up, Chayna mumbles as she removes an envelope from her jeans pocket. You stare at her hand, blankly. She stares at you, blankly. "Please take it, Will."
"What is it?"
Chayna smiles softly. "A letter," The smile doesn’t reach her eyes.
"From who?"
"Take the letter and you'll see," Hesitantly you oblige. She observes you as you twiddle the paper in your hand.
You're staring at the letter intently, feeling uneasiness roll off you in waves. A large, messy scrawl spells out your name in an obnoxious pink ink, with a carefully drawn but still wiggly heart replacing the dot on the 'I'. Your tongue feels too big in your mouth.
Chayna suddenly looks very old. Her lips are turned into an anxious frown, whilst her cheeks are sullen.
You frown and flicker your eyes downwards before slowly narrowing them. "Why have you got a letter addressed to me?"
She shrugs. “It was hanging out of your hand when we found you.”
“What? Found me when?”
Chayna raises her eyebrows. “When you returned from the mission months ago. I didn’t want the General to find it, so I’ve been waiting for the right time to give it to you.”
You look at her, blankly. “Oh. Thanks.”
Chayna smiles softly and walks towards the exit. She stops, but does not turn to face you. “Y’know, he won’t remember you if you go back,” She silently shuffles out of the room.
You avert your eyes away from the doorway and instead drink in the sight of the letter. Frowning at its crumpled and broken state, you slide your index finger under the flap and break the seal. Carefully, you pull a photo out.
The photograph is of yourself and Loukas. You’re stood with your arm hooked around his waist, as he stands on his tiptoes. As he is pulled tightly into your side, he looks nearly transparent against your dark skin. His eyes are closed and a grin stretches across his face, whilst you kiss his cheek. His auburn hair is a mess, as it always was. Four words are scrawled on the back.
Please don’t forget me. 24/06/2456
White spots explode in front of your eyes and you feel dizzy. A throbbing erupts in your head and you double over, heaving and gagging at the meteoric pain.
Then you vomit.
***
Tuesday, 22/02/2456
As the sun radiates down, droplets of sweat trickle down your forehead. They seep into your mouth, and a saltiness bursts onto your tongue. You reach for the bottle that pokes out of Loukas’ backpack and squirt a stream of water into your mouth.
“Why is it so hot?” You say as you grip the front of your shirt and flap it against your chest, relishing in the abrupt gust of air against your face. “It’s never been this hot in February in the past.”
Loukas hushes you and carries on hiking up the mountain he forced you to climb. With each step, tiny dust clouds float up from the dry ground. The land is even thirstier than you are.
In your daze, you collide into Loukas. He rolls his eyes and looks ahead. You smile back.
Squinting, you shield your eyes from the sun and look around. Everything is brown. Instead of grass, pale yellow straw is strewn across the cracked ground, and tree’s wither under the sun: shrivelled and bare. Along the horizon, brown mountains stand tall as they touch their noses to the naked, grey sky.
You turn to Loukas. His eyes are closed, and a slight wind twirls with the wild wisps of his hair. “What happened here? Why is it so bare?”
“It’s always been like this,” he shrugs. He eyes remain closed. “Probably something to do with strengthening the border between the rich and the poor.”
“What do you mean?”
Loukas sighs and opens his eyes before turning to face you. “To our leaders, the poor,” Loukas gestures to himself, “aren’t important. Across the border, it’s probably very different to what you see here.”
“But why?”
“I dunno. I don’t care anyway. I got you and I’m happy,” Loukas shrugs. “But we can visit there one day in the future. You promise?”
“I promise,” When the wonky grin stretches across his face after placing a kiss to your cheek, you struggle to smile back.
***
Wednesday, 01/10/2036
As you drag your heels walking through the office, your stomach churns. The walls are a dull brown, and the carpet is grey. Nothing lines the walls, and no windows relieve the flickering, yellow bulbs dotted along the long corridor. Various eyes from behind desks and screens watch you, and your ears are burning. You mount the steps leading to the General’s office.
Your knuckles rap against the door.
No response.
Closing your eyes, you take a deep breath before knocking once more. When there is no response again, you open the door.
“Please, take a seat,” The General is stood to the right of the room in front of a table filled with glass bottles. He is stirring clear liquid in a glass. He gestures to the chair in front of the desk before shaking the glass, slightly. “Drink?”
You shake your head.
He shrugs his shoulders, and knocks back the drink. His face contorts slightly before he takes a seat in a large chair behind the desk. Built within the desk is a screen, but it suddenly goes black as the General swipes his hand over it.
“What brings you here, William?” The General asks.
“I would like to return to the future,” You say.
The General raises an eyebrow. “You know it doesn’t work like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because you don’t belong there. No one would know who you are, and your absence would cause a tear in our timeline.”
You furrow your eyebrows. “You send everyone off and it messes with their heads. When we come back nothing is the same. The future feels like my only constant.”
The General stands, walks towards the table and mixes himself another drink. “You joined this corporation.”
“Not by choice.”
“Oh? And what was the alternative?” He keeps his back to you.
“Starvation, probably.”
The General turns around and leans against the table. He knocks back the drink. “So, you chose survival.”
“Hardly.”
“It’s more than what others may get.”
“I want to die,” You stare at the General. He locks eyes with you.
“Then you may.”
Two men enter the room. They wear black suits and their eyes are void of any emotion. As you’re escorted out of the office, the General smiles and tips his glass towards you.
***
Sunday, 01/10/2456
It is silent. Your eyes have finally adjusted to the dark, and your bare feet are frozen against the cool metallic flooring. You’re in a whirlpool. Acid sloshes within your stomach, making it churn. Feeling fuzzy, your teeth chatter and your head pulsates in pain. You feel ready to burst into flames.
Feeling like a sardine, you are stood inside a time machine. The dial states 2456, and the sun begins to glare in. Leaning your cheek against the glass, you lazily bump your hand against the exit button and stumble out of the machine. Your knees wobble before you crash against the dirt. Spluttering and coughing, bile claws its way up your throat and out of your mouth. You’re dry heaving and tears are streaming down your fiery cheeks. You try to raise yourself but your arms tremble.
“Fucking time-travel,” you mutter.
“Uh…”
Your head snaps up and it’s him. “Loukas?” His auburn hair is ruffled, and strands are stuck together. Bags underline his gleaming eyes, and his skin looks more pasty than you remember. A large backpack rests against his back, with only one strap hanging onto his shoulder.
His eyes widen, and he steps backwards. “How do you know my name?”
Furrowing your eyebrows, you heave yourself up and limp towards Loukas. He straightens his spine, and puffs out his chest. You tower over him. “It’s me. Will?”
He stares at you blankly.
You grab his shoulders, and shake him slightly. “Loukas, it’s me. It’s Will.”
“I’m sorry…I don’t…” His voice, usually nasally, sounds low and hoarse. You lock eyes. Within their depths, confusion and fear reflect into your own.
“Don’t…you don’t remember me?” Your voice wavers, and your lip quivers.
When he shakes his head, your vision blurs. Gently, he takes your hands from his shoulders. His eyes glimmer, and he raises an eyebrow.
The brown mountains along the horizon merge with the grey sky. You can’t breathe. Coldness zips up your spine, and Loukas’ voice sounds muffled. Grasping outwards, you stumble to the side before your legs crumble.
You vomit before everything fades to black.
***
I get a lot of headaches. They’ve gotten worse since I returned to the future. It’s down to grief and being treated like I’m crazy, I guess.
No one believes me that I belong to the past. I work for a military group, who conduct missions to travel to the future. Well, I think I do. I’m not so sure anymore.
All I know is that the General was right, and that I don’t belong here.
THE END
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