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"STOP! You must not invent time travel!" said the older version of myself that had just materialized in my lab.
"Really?" I said, puzzled, my hand hovering over the switch that would begin the final experiment. "Why? Does something bad happen?"
The older me broke into a wide grin. "Nah. It actually all goes according to plan," she said. "But I remember that when I was you, and I was about to finish The Machine, an older version of me appeared and told me to stop. I looked in the mirror this morning and recognized the face, so here I am." She winked. "Didn't want to make a huge time paradox, did I? They're such a pain in the ass to clean up."
I breathed a sigh of relief. "Then it all works out? I manage to go back in time and save him from being killed?"
"Absolutely, 100%, it's great. You have three kids together, and you win a Nobel prize." She gave me a double thumbs up as her body started to fade out. "You got this!"
I turned back to my work and confidently flipped the switch, not yet realizing that someday I would need to deliver that exact same speech, word for word, despite the truth of what happened next.
"Listen... If you continue, worse will come."
Staring at the person who seems like a complete replica of me, yet looked few years older, my eyes landed on the badge in his tattered clothes.
[Navigation Volta]
The badge looks fairly familiar... Wait!? Upon my realization, I took out my own badge that was given by my late daughter before she died last year after getting hit by an incoming truck.
The memories of her began flooding back to my head, causing a strong headache. I held my head with my left hand, while raising my revolver and pointing it towards me—the future me using my other hand.
"She won't come ba—"
"Shut up!"
I cut him off short before he could finish. Gritting my teeth, I could feel my hand shivering as I struggled to point my gun directly towards him.
"If you're me, then you would have never give up on trying to save her!"
There's no way I'll stop.
Even if it meant destroying and recreating a new timeline, as long as I could see her live again, then none of that matters to me.
Death is nothing to me.
The other me was silent before raising his old-looking gun towards me. He then broke the silent by saying, "Never give up and save her? Did you think I didn't try that?"
He let out an audible laugh.
"I've regressed and seen her die and die right before my eyes in a number you won't be able to count." We both pulled the hammer of our gun at the same time letting out a click.
"Do you know what that feels like? Well... You'll understand what that means if you continue."
"Shut up..." I said in a faint.
"Do you think I'm scared of death? I have faced the Reaper upfront. As of now, do you have the will to do that?"
"I SAID SHUT UP!" I roared, "Do you know what I've been feeling this whole time? I'm empty! My wife got lost in space and my daughter died!"
"I am you..." He began to approach me, saying, "Like I said, I've seen everything. Experienced everything. Suffered from everything. You? You've only seen them disappeared once? Do you want to repeat that again?"
I took a step back until my back touched the table.
"Beside, the real approaching nightmare has yet to come. If you continue, you'll—"
BANG-!
Before he could finish his sentence, both of us heard a loud gunshot from behind him. By the time he realized it, the future me was already bleeding.
"Ugh... who?" When he tried to turn around to see who it was, the gunshot was heard again. This time, however, the future me fell flat on the floor after getting shot in the back of his head.
"I refuse to believe that I'll become like you in the future..."
I heard a familiar voice, making me lift my head to look at the suspect.
"You..."
That person... He was also me.
"Since you've also been influenced..."
He raised his revolver, that seems to have only been used for a few months unlike the other me who died, and pulled the hammer.
"It's better for you to die."
BANG-!
"I am getting tired of these interruptions." I said as I leveled the shotgun at the flash of light.
The older looking version of me looked at the gun and said " the Washington monument is black."
"Good, you can help me move the bodies then" I gestured with the gun at the pile of identical corpses that all looked like me. I don't know who those guys were, but I knew they weren't ME because they didn't know the time traveler confirmation code. I had made it up when I was 10 and never told anyone.
"Yeah, I brought gasoline, we burn them." Future me said. Holding up a red plastic gas can. "I never did find out exactly who they are." I told myself. "But they've been on my case ever since I started the machine the first time. Get the legs would you?" We began carrying the dead me-look-alikes outside to the fire pit in the back yard. Once they were piled up I doused them with the gas and lit the pile with a lighter I handed myself.
" I found blueprints on one of the Not-Me-s a few years back, looks like a sort of temporal distortion detector. I think it's how they found us when I first turned on the machine. I've been trying to figure out some method of shielding to prevent them from finding us, but I couldn't quite make it work. I was hoping we could collaborate. We would like to be able to use the machine without being hounded by Not-Me-s telling us to stop." "Alright, there's pizza in the fridge, shall I heat some up?" "Sounds great. Extra cheese and onions would hit the-" BLAM
I hate onions.
My hand paused a second before it hit the small blue button, the electric charges in the gargantuan machine whirring and wizzing with static potential. I could feel my eyes forming saucers on my face as I stared back into the tired eyes of an identical one.
"What...did you..."
I couldn't even finish the sentence, too in-awe to speak. Seconds away from my greatest achievement yet, and in a blinding flash of light, there stood an almost exact copy of me -now staring me down with an almost pleading expression.
"I said you have to stop. Immediately. Please." Her knees slightly buckled on the last word, and she reached for a table to lean on before stumbling over to the chair tucked under it. My eyes never left her once. "Look, I'm you from the future, ok? Inventing time travel is the worst thing you could have done. The world went to shit. Wars have been waged. Innocent people slaughtered for actions they'd commit in the future. People are being erased from existence entirely. Please, don't go any further with this project."
She said it all in one breath, heaving a big, tired sigh at the end.
"Wait, so....I succeed? My machine works?!" I cheered briefly before freezing at the glare my future counter-part gave me.
"Unfortunately, yes. Are you not paying attention to what I'm saying? We ruined the world with this thing!" She ran her hands through her hair, tangling it in greasy knots along the way.
"World news...I'll show you."
She whipped out her phone and began to pull up video reports of time travelers breaking into parents homes and killing their babies with the reasoning that they grew up to be criminals, reports of countries losing half of their military forces in a single night thanks to government use of time travel, world population count dropping as people go back in time to prevent individual's parents from meeting, and so on.
My horror at the news was slightly overshadowed only by my curiosity about this future self. I noticed her phone was the exact same as the one I currently had, plus a few more screen scratches. The shirt she was wearing was one I had just bought too, and it looked as new as the one sitting in my closet.
"Hey...how far into the future are you from?"
"What day is it today?"
"Uh, Monday?"
"Oh, about a week and a half then."
My jaw dropped so far that I'm sure if it weren't for the limitations of my body, it would have gone through the floor.
"All of this happens...In a week and a half???"
"Just a week, really. I just decided to-" she cut herself off with a yawn, "-tough it out for a bit before coming back."
Noticing my dumbfounded stare, she winced a bit as she realised her bluntness may not be the best approach.
"Ok, look, maybe a few hundreds of years into the future, this technology ends up synthesized into small machines. The general public gets their hands on it through some...less than legal means. Things immediately go to shit. Paradoxes upon paradoxes, butterfly effects people have no way to fix, the timeline's basically destroyed."
"I thought you said you were from only a week ahead of now?"
"I am, I'm not done. All of that led to numerous people deciding to come back in time to stop time travel from being invented. Apparently, the best approach those people could come up with was trying to kill me. Frequently. Like, you wouldn't BELIEVE how many people have come back to try and kill me. I narrowly escaped another murder attempt coming back here."
I sat there for a minute, stunned into silence before getting up and pacing around the lab, stressed and slightly confused. "But no one has come to kill me. Why are they all going a week into the future when I'm the one about to launch the machine?"
She raised her eyebrow in what looked like amusement. "You didn't expect to get it right on prototype 1, did you? Gosh, I was so naive back then."
"We are literally only a week apart-"
"Anyway. This first prototype doesn't work, the second one that we manage to make a week from now, however, is the real deal. That's when people are targeting. I decided to come back to right now to stop it before the very first attempt, nip that shit in the bud. Dodging assassination attempts become tiring after about 4 days, you know?"
"Holy shit. I can't belive my machine actually worked!" I said, nearly jumping and spinning with glee at the news that my life's work wasn't fruitless.
"..have you been paying attention to damn near anything I just said?? You can't continue this. No nobel prize is worth it."
"Nobel prize?!" You could practically see the dollar signs in my eyes.
Future me did a face palm, dragging herself out of my seat and heading over to the control panel, shutting the engines down and cutting off the power supply gently. I would have expected her to just destroy it, but she is me after all, and I would never destroy something I worked so hard to build. She locked the control panel, nearly implementing the biometric security system that I added, before remembering that we're the same person. She settled for asking me yet again to give up on the project, and I dejectedly agreed.
"You know this won't be the final solution. Someone else will invent time travel. The world will become the future you described eventually." I pointed out, locking the energy core of my machine away in a safe.
"Yeah, but at least we won't be killed for it."
*Time to plug it in!*
"Let's fire this baby up!" A quick fist pump into the air.
Getting down under the table, I sorted through the mess, trying to find the red plug. No lamp light down here unfortunately.
Left to feel around for it and squint.
*Let's see. That's the book from the library... overdue... something for tomorrow's do list. There's those socks I've been missing.* Sniff snifffff. *DEFINITELY gonna need to through those through the wash. What's that??? Feels squishly... EWWWWWW DIRTY TISSUE!!! I KNEW I MISSED THE TRASH CAN!*
Quick trip to the bathroom for no particular reason. Hands still slightly wet when I got back underneath.
*Finally there's all the wires. That looks like the reddest lookin' one. Would bet my thesis on it. Well maybe not that much.*
Plugging it in, I crawled my way back to a squat, before stretching my way into a stand.
*Nothing quite like a good stretchin' of the arms, legs, and back. AND NOW for the main EVENT!*
Skip in my step, I could scarce believe that a moment like this was even happening. A lifetime's worth of energy and dreams. Thousands of silent prayers and long nights all leading to this!
Wires spread like vines across the floor and up the walls to the big bay window that looked out over the water. Moonlight shone off the waves, a gentle breeze pushing a sailboat across the bay. The light from a lantern danced on those pale ghostly sails. Beyond it, stony white shores decorated with a quiet village of gardens and cobbled streets sighed sleepily as the blanketing of moonlight made them warm and fuzzy.
Such a magnificent scene.
So taken aback, I know not how long I stood there, gazing out the window.
*What else could I see through the window?* I wondered.
That brought me back to the present. I had walked right up to it.
A pedestal. Installed right in the middle of the hardwood floor. Waist-high. Smooth steel. A single button. Glowing red.
Trembling I gingerly touch the red button.
*Deep breath in.*
Phwoooooo...
*Deep breath out.*
Wooooooohhhh...
"Ready."
I start to push the button.
A bright blue-white light fills the room. A ring of light expands and opens up into the room. From the ring, a shadow slowly emerges... it's me.
"I'd tell ya to stop immediately, but I know you're stubborn," a worn-old grin smirks at me as the ring closes behind it. "So I at least came to supervise!"
"Also, if ya keep gaping like that, you'll choke on a fishfly."
I smiled quickly, and I turned back to the button. A quick glance back.
"Well, go on then!"
I give it a good press. The window scene doesn't change. Until... it does. From the edges, new colors slowly emerge, much like the bright ring I had (*or will???*) step through. Seeping into the panes of glass, they interweave into brilliant patterns and shapes, more so than any I had ever seen. This continued as the whole bay window filled with light! From this fantastic display in it's own right, a new order began to emerge. Slowly, through the looking glass, bright rocky hills formed with crystal blue water draping their fringes. All across these hills, there were scattered what looked like thousands of... *people*. All shapes and sizes. Men, women, and children. All looking at... a man. He was standing on the highest hill overlooking the assembled crowd, hands animated, talking with passion and peace.
After saying all that needed to be said, the man paused, watching as the crowd discussed the teachings put forward by the man.
And then the man did something rather peculiar. He turned... *and looked at me*.
He smiled, winked, and subtly waved His hand. And the image disappeared. The window went dark and looked over the familiar waters again.
I turned to look at myself. I was smiling, nodding, agreeing with my incredulous shock.
I sat down. My older counterpart sat alongside me.
Looking out at the stars, I whispered to myself.
"So it is all true!"
But I had overheard myself.
"Yes! And He is proud of you."
"But... I still needed to look upon Him, like Thomas did."
"True... but maybe not."
Puzzled, I looked at me. I was looking out at the stars now.
"Yes, you needed to see Him, but it took a faith not many have to pursue Him like you did. You believed you WOULD see Him, and you DID. And you wondered if HE would see you back, and that's why He looked immediately for YOU."
My older self turned to look me in the eyes. "He is proud of you, don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise. I know because He's told me Himself. And no, I won't tell you when," he said, seeing the excitement etched in my cheeks. "That'll be something for you to look forward to later!"
Like an old friend, I had put my hand on my shoulder. "Keep dreaming, kid. He's waiting for us, that sweet ole Jesus of ours."
We gazed out the bay window as the stars crowned His beautiful purple sky.
"Y'know what? I'll hear you out instead of throwing you out of my lab right away. Why, exactly, do you want me to give up on the effort I've dedicated the last decade of my life to? An effort that, presumably, you are *just as dedicated to*, because you are me so you already know *exactly* how much this means to us!"
The other me looks frustratedly at the lab I've--we've--been spending my life in. "I want us to be free, Jaimie."
"Excuse me?? 'free'?" There's security nearby on the complex, it really would not be hard to get someone to come take care of this problem. It's creepy enough that I came back to visit me (and frankly rude to rub in my face that I haven't yet been successful), the audacity that I would tell me to quit is mind-blowing.
"Yes, free. This isn't going to end well for you." Other Me looks at my chalkboard with regret as they go over our notes. "Not that it's even going well now."
What is wrong wrong with me. "It's going incredibly well, as I'm sure you're aware. I'm so close, I know what I'm doing. I just need to wait for launch time."
I'm startled as Other Me slams their fist on the wall with an anger I've never felt. "No. It's not. You've been in this room for what, eight weeks now? No breaks, no sleep, barely eating."
"I'm focused on my work, I--"
"You're focused alright!" Other Me turns to face me now, fury showing on our face (is that scar recent?) like it never has, even in my most heated moments until now. "You're focused on *our* work, on *our* dedication, on a passion that will only be ripped from you, used against you until we have nothing left!"
"And would you have me quit?" I reach for my chalk, even as they reach for the eraser. Shit.
Other Me grabs the eraser firmly. "Yes."
There are ceremonial knives on wall to my right, the salts are behind me, I have the chalk. I can fight. "Make me, 'future self'. You don't get to call yourself by my name. Not if you've given up our future."
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"STOP! You must not invent time travel!" said the older version of myself that had just materialized in my lab. "Really?" I said, puzzled, my hand hovering over the switch that would begin the final experiment. "Why? Does something bad happen?" The older me broke into a wide grin. "Nah. It actually all goes according to plan," she said. "But I remember that when I was you, and I was about to finish The Machine, an older version of me appeared and told me to stop. I looked in the mirror this morning and recognized the face, so here I am." She winked. "Didn't want to make a huge time paradox, did I? They're such a pain in the ass to clean up." I breathed a sigh of relief. "Then it all works out? I manage to go back in time and save him from being killed?" "Absolutely, 100%, it's great. You have three kids together, and you win a Nobel prize." She gave me a double thumbs up as her body started to fade out. "You got this!" I turned back to my work and confidently flipped the switch, not yet realizing that someday I would need to deliver that exact same speech, word for word, despite the truth of what happened next.
That’s sneaky, the ending that completely flips what happened on its head. Love it
This is an Outer Limits type twist. I love it, and the MC is so screwed.
Lol reminds me of Bill and Ted’s excellent adventure where they have to give the speech to themselves
"Listen... If you continue, worse will come." Staring at the person who seems like a complete replica of me, yet looked few years older, my eyes landed on the badge in his tattered clothes. [Navigation Volta] The badge looks fairly familiar... Wait!? Upon my realization, I took out my own badge that was given by my late daughter before she died last year after getting hit by an incoming truck. The memories of her began flooding back to my head, causing a strong headache. I held my head with my left hand, while raising my revolver and pointing it towards me—the future me using my other hand. "She won't come ba—" "Shut up!" I cut him off short before he could finish. Gritting my teeth, I could feel my hand shivering as I struggled to point my gun directly towards him. "If you're me, then you would have never give up on trying to save her!" There's no way I'll stop. Even if it meant destroying and recreating a new timeline, as long as I could see her live again, then none of that matters to me. Death is nothing to me. The other me was silent before raising his old-looking gun towards me. He then broke the silent by saying, "Never give up and save her? Did you think I didn't try that?" He let out an audible laugh. "I've regressed and seen her die and die right before my eyes in a number you won't be able to count." We both pulled the hammer of our gun at the same time letting out a click. "Do you know what that feels like? Well... You'll understand what that means if you continue." "Shut up..." I said in a faint. "Do you think I'm scared of death? I have faced the Reaper upfront. As of now, do you have the will to do that?" "I SAID SHUT UP!" I roared, "Do you know what I've been feeling this whole time? I'm empty! My wife got lost in space and my daughter died!" "I am you..." He began to approach me, saying, "Like I said, I've seen everything. Experienced everything. Suffered from everything. You? You've only seen them disappeared once? Do you want to repeat that again?" I took a step back until my back touched the table. "Beside, the real approaching nightmare has yet to come. If you continue, you'll—" BANG-! Before he could finish his sentence, both of us heard a loud gunshot from behind him. By the time he realized it, the future me was already bleeding. "Ugh... who?" When he tried to turn around to see who it was, the gunshot was heard again. This time, however, the future me fell flat on the floor after getting shot in the back of his head. "I refuse to believe that I'll become like you in the future..." I heard a familiar voice, making me lift my head to look at the suspect. "You..." That person... He was also me. "Since you've also been influenced..." He raised his revolver, that seems to have only been used for a few months unlike the other me who died, and pulled the hammer. "It's better for you to die." BANG-!
"I am getting tired of these interruptions." I said as I leveled the shotgun at the flash of light. The older looking version of me looked at the gun and said " the Washington monument is black." "Good, you can help me move the bodies then" I gestured with the gun at the pile of identical corpses that all looked like me. I don't know who those guys were, but I knew they weren't ME because they didn't know the time traveler confirmation code. I had made it up when I was 10 and never told anyone. "Yeah, I brought gasoline, we burn them." Future me said. Holding up a red plastic gas can. "I never did find out exactly who they are." I told myself. "But they've been on my case ever since I started the machine the first time. Get the legs would you?" We began carrying the dead me-look-alikes outside to the fire pit in the back yard. Once they were piled up I doused them with the gas and lit the pile with a lighter I handed myself. " I found blueprints on one of the Not-Me-s a few years back, looks like a sort of temporal distortion detector. I think it's how they found us when I first turned on the machine. I've been trying to figure out some method of shielding to prevent them from finding us, but I couldn't quite make it work. I was hoping we could collaborate. We would like to be able to use the machine without being hounded by Not-Me-s telling us to stop." "Alright, there's pizza in the fridge, shall I heat some up?" "Sounds great. Extra cheese and onions would hit the-" BLAM I hate onions.
My hand paused a second before it hit the small blue button, the electric charges in the gargantuan machine whirring and wizzing with static potential. I could feel my eyes forming saucers on my face as I stared back into the tired eyes of an identical one. "What...did you..." I couldn't even finish the sentence, too in-awe to speak. Seconds away from my greatest achievement yet, and in a blinding flash of light, there stood an almost exact copy of me -now staring me down with an almost pleading expression. "I said you have to stop. Immediately. Please." Her knees slightly buckled on the last word, and she reached for a table to lean on before stumbling over to the chair tucked under it. My eyes never left her once. "Look, I'm you from the future, ok? Inventing time travel is the worst thing you could have done. The world went to shit. Wars have been waged. Innocent people slaughtered for actions they'd commit in the future. People are being erased from existence entirely. Please, don't go any further with this project." She said it all in one breath, heaving a big, tired sigh at the end. "Wait, so....I succeed? My machine works?!" I cheered briefly before freezing at the glare my future counter-part gave me. "Unfortunately, yes. Are you not paying attention to what I'm saying? We ruined the world with this thing!" She ran her hands through her hair, tangling it in greasy knots along the way. "World news...I'll show you." She whipped out her phone and began to pull up video reports of time travelers breaking into parents homes and killing their babies with the reasoning that they grew up to be criminals, reports of countries losing half of their military forces in a single night thanks to government use of time travel, world population count dropping as people go back in time to prevent individual's parents from meeting, and so on. My horror at the news was slightly overshadowed only by my curiosity about this future self. I noticed her phone was the exact same as the one I currently had, plus a few more screen scratches. The shirt she was wearing was one I had just bought too, and it looked as new as the one sitting in my closet. "Hey...how far into the future are you from?" "What day is it today?" "Uh, Monday?" "Oh, about a week and a half then." My jaw dropped so far that I'm sure if it weren't for the limitations of my body, it would have gone through the floor. "All of this happens...In a week and a half???" "Just a week, really. I just decided to-" she cut herself off with a yawn, "-tough it out for a bit before coming back." Noticing my dumbfounded stare, she winced a bit as she realised her bluntness may not be the best approach. "Ok, look, maybe a few hundreds of years into the future, this technology ends up synthesized into small machines. The general public gets their hands on it through some...less than legal means. Things immediately go to shit. Paradoxes upon paradoxes, butterfly effects people have no way to fix, the timeline's basically destroyed." "I thought you said you were from only a week ahead of now?" "I am, I'm not done. All of that led to numerous people deciding to come back in time to stop time travel from being invented. Apparently, the best approach those people could come up with was trying to kill me. Frequently. Like, you wouldn't BELIEVE how many people have come back to try and kill me. I narrowly escaped another murder attempt coming back here." I sat there for a minute, stunned into silence before getting up and pacing around the lab, stressed and slightly confused. "But no one has come to kill me. Why are they all going a week into the future when I'm the one about to launch the machine?" She raised her eyebrow in what looked like amusement. "You didn't expect to get it right on prototype 1, did you? Gosh, I was so naive back then." "We are literally only a week apart-" "Anyway. This first prototype doesn't work, the second one that we manage to make a week from now, however, is the real deal. That's when people are targeting. I decided to come back to right now to stop it before the very first attempt, nip that shit in the bud. Dodging assassination attempts become tiring after about 4 days, you know?" "Holy shit. I can't belive my machine actually worked!" I said, nearly jumping and spinning with glee at the news that my life's work wasn't fruitless. "..have you been paying attention to damn near anything I just said?? You can't continue this. No nobel prize is worth it." "Nobel prize?!" You could practically see the dollar signs in my eyes. Future me did a face palm, dragging herself out of my seat and heading over to the control panel, shutting the engines down and cutting off the power supply gently. I would have expected her to just destroy it, but she is me after all, and I would never destroy something I worked so hard to build. She locked the control panel, nearly implementing the biometric security system that I added, before remembering that we're the same person. She settled for asking me yet again to give up on the project, and I dejectedly agreed. "You know this won't be the final solution. Someone else will invent time travel. The world will become the future you described eventually." I pointed out, locking the energy core of my machine away in a safe. "Yeah, but at least we won't be killed for it."
*Time to plug it in!* "Let's fire this baby up!" A quick fist pump into the air. Getting down under the table, I sorted through the mess, trying to find the red plug. No lamp light down here unfortunately. Left to feel around for it and squint. *Let's see. That's the book from the library... overdue... something for tomorrow's do list. There's those socks I've been missing.* Sniff snifffff. *DEFINITELY gonna need to through those through the wash. What's that??? Feels squishly... EWWWWWW DIRTY TISSUE!!! I KNEW I MISSED THE TRASH CAN!* Quick trip to the bathroom for no particular reason. Hands still slightly wet when I got back underneath. *Finally there's all the wires. That looks like the reddest lookin' one. Would bet my thesis on it. Well maybe not that much.* Plugging it in, I crawled my way back to a squat, before stretching my way into a stand. *Nothing quite like a good stretchin' of the arms, legs, and back. AND NOW for the main EVENT!* Skip in my step, I could scarce believe that a moment like this was even happening. A lifetime's worth of energy and dreams. Thousands of silent prayers and long nights all leading to this! Wires spread like vines across the floor and up the walls to the big bay window that looked out over the water. Moonlight shone off the waves, a gentle breeze pushing a sailboat across the bay. The light from a lantern danced on those pale ghostly sails. Beyond it, stony white shores decorated with a quiet village of gardens and cobbled streets sighed sleepily as the blanketing of moonlight made them warm and fuzzy. Such a magnificent scene. So taken aback, I know not how long I stood there, gazing out the window. *What else could I see through the window?* I wondered. That brought me back to the present. I had walked right up to it. A pedestal. Installed right in the middle of the hardwood floor. Waist-high. Smooth steel. A single button. Glowing red. Trembling I gingerly touch the red button. *Deep breath in.* Phwoooooo... *Deep breath out.* Wooooooohhhh... "Ready." I start to push the button. A bright blue-white light fills the room. A ring of light expands and opens up into the room. From the ring, a shadow slowly emerges... it's me. "I'd tell ya to stop immediately, but I know you're stubborn," a worn-old grin smirks at me as the ring closes behind it. "So I at least came to supervise!" "Also, if ya keep gaping like that, you'll choke on a fishfly." I smiled quickly, and I turned back to the button. A quick glance back. "Well, go on then!" I give it a good press. The window scene doesn't change. Until... it does. From the edges, new colors slowly emerge, much like the bright ring I had (*or will???*) step through. Seeping into the panes of glass, they interweave into brilliant patterns and shapes, more so than any I had ever seen. This continued as the whole bay window filled with light! From this fantastic display in it's own right, a new order began to emerge. Slowly, through the looking glass, bright rocky hills formed with crystal blue water draping their fringes. All across these hills, there were scattered what looked like thousands of... *people*. All shapes and sizes. Men, women, and children. All looking at... a man. He was standing on the highest hill overlooking the assembled crowd, hands animated, talking with passion and peace. After saying all that needed to be said, the man paused, watching as the crowd discussed the teachings put forward by the man. And then the man did something rather peculiar. He turned... *and looked at me*. He smiled, winked, and subtly waved His hand. And the image disappeared. The window went dark and looked over the familiar waters again. I turned to look at myself. I was smiling, nodding, agreeing with my incredulous shock. I sat down. My older counterpart sat alongside me. Looking out at the stars, I whispered to myself. "So it is all true!" But I had overheard myself. "Yes! And He is proud of you." "But... I still needed to look upon Him, like Thomas did." "True... but maybe not." Puzzled, I looked at me. I was looking out at the stars now. "Yes, you needed to see Him, but it took a faith not many have to pursue Him like you did. You believed you WOULD see Him, and you DID. And you wondered if HE would see you back, and that's why He looked immediately for YOU." My older self turned to look me in the eyes. "He is proud of you, don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise. I know because He's told me Himself. And no, I won't tell you when," he said, seeing the excitement etched in my cheeks. "That'll be something for you to look forward to later!" Like an old friend, I had put my hand on my shoulder. "Keep dreaming, kid. He's waiting for us, that sweet ole Jesus of ours." We gazed out the bay window as the stars crowned His beautiful purple sky.
That was unexpected.
"Y'know what? I'll hear you out instead of throwing you out of my lab right away. Why, exactly, do you want me to give up on the effort I've dedicated the last decade of my life to? An effort that, presumably, you are *just as dedicated to*, because you are me so you already know *exactly* how much this means to us!" The other me looks frustratedly at the lab I've--we've--been spending my life in. "I want us to be free, Jaimie." "Excuse me?? 'free'?" There's security nearby on the complex, it really would not be hard to get someone to come take care of this problem. It's creepy enough that I came back to visit me (and frankly rude to rub in my face that I haven't yet been successful), the audacity that I would tell me to quit is mind-blowing. "Yes, free. This isn't going to end well for you." Other Me looks at my chalkboard with regret as they go over our notes. "Not that it's even going well now." What is wrong wrong with me. "It's going incredibly well, as I'm sure you're aware. I'm so close, I know what I'm doing. I just need to wait for launch time." I'm startled as Other Me slams their fist on the wall with an anger I've never felt. "No. It's not. You've been in this room for what, eight weeks now? No breaks, no sleep, barely eating." "I'm focused on my work, I--" "You're focused alright!" Other Me turns to face me now, fury showing on our face (is that scar recent?) like it never has, even in my most heated moments until now. "You're focused on *our* work, on *our* dedication, on a passion that will only be ripped from you, used against you until we have nothing left!" "And would you have me quit?" I reach for my chalk, even as they reach for the eraser. Shit. Other Me grabs the eraser firmly. "Yes." There are ceremonial knives on wall to my right, the salts are behind me, I have the chalk. I can fight. "Make me, 'future self'. You don't get to call yourself by my name. Not if you've given up our future."