Hello, time travelers.
The path of time is something else, isn’t it? We’re always looking back, yet at the same time always moving forward. The past can shape our futures, or can make us choose to stray from the path and start our own journey. So hold your head high and keep moving forward, because…
This week’s writing group prompt is:
Hello, Future Me
RULES AND GUIDELINES BELOW!
Make sure you scroll down and read them if you haven’t! You may not be eligible if you don’t!
Well this was certainly a long time coming. A bit ironic that we had to wait for so long for a prompt… about the future. But, here we are at last.
Putting aside that this prompt reminds us of a certain wonderful nerdy friend of ours, this prompt seems to bring with it a sense of hope. It’s about looking forward; about the world of tomorrow and what it can bring.
There are so many things that can come from this prompt. A child writing a letter to their future self, or even that future self reading said letter. It could be a small simple office worker finally preparing for that big step up the corporate ladder to secure their future in the company. Perhaps one person aspiring to be like their parents, to carry on a family legacy. But maybe… maybe they don’t want to carry that legacy. Maybe the future they want is something else, and they decide to strive for that. Maybe the future one hopes for is just to make it to the next day, dreaming of a day when they don’t need to live in fear of whatever looms over them. Perhaps even a mystic peering into their crystal ball to read what the future may hold for some poor soul.
Or perhaps we can take this in a literal sense. Our future selves coming back to deliver a message, whether it’s of encouragement or of warning. Or perhaps we travel the other way, stepping into the future and meeting ourselves from that time. Perhaps we meet our future selves in a sort of crazy time loop and we need to try and break the cycle.
This path has many branches you can choose from. What direction will you travel on this one-way course?
The clock is ticking. Whatever you choose, we look forward to seeing what the future holds.
—Shawna
—
Remember, this is part of our weekly Writing Group stream! Submit a little piece following the rules and guidelines below, and there’s a chance your entry will be read live on stream! In addition, we’ll discuss it for a minute and give you some feedback.
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The Never-ending Bounce
By Luciano Martino
“Hello David.” The room was bathed in silence.
“Are we still-”, I wasn’t even sure what the word was.
“Yes, we must go soon.” she looked down at the body she was occupying and dusted off her dress. “You are waiting.”
It felt as if my lungs were trying to cower behind the rest of my body. “I- I- I can’t.”
She inhaled, “Sorry, I-”
“Wait!” I exclaimed, dazed, and staring at a particular patch of carpet in order to sustain composure. She gestured for me to continue. I gritted my teeth and glared into the blinding bright darkness of her eyes and insisted, “I- I just don’t understand. I’ve seen him- or me- or whatever… THOUSANDS of times. If he hasn’t gotten what he wants from me, maybe I just don’t have the right information! Maybe I haven’t learnt it, or seen it, or felt it yet!”
She let my words settle in the air, and her eyes flickered away from mine, just for a moment.
“Alas, no, it’s not a fact or figure he wants from you. It is but your mind itself. It’s a puzzle, you see, and you have all the pieces. In fact, I fancy, you are the only person who does, so… I’m here to help you SEE the pieces… but such things take time.”, she reassured, “I am but a shattered mirror, showing you a reflection of yourself, one fragment at a time.”
I looked away and dipped my head. It had clicked.
I realised that I could beg and plead to not go back, but it wasn’t up to her. Maybe I AM stuck, bouncing back to the same minute of my life forever, or at least until He gets what he wants. But it doesn’t matter, I don’t have a choice.
I pressed my lips together, took a deep breath, and turned back, defeated. “Ok… I’m sorry… I-I’m ready to go now.”
She nodded with a pitying grimace, and, almost as if out of solidarity, exhaled as well. “This’ll hurt.”
“I know.”
The Only Thing Worth Saying:
By: Clockwork King (Rattregoondoof)
Scout broke the silence first, “Guess I finally get to meet you two after all these years. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you two are trapped in a cycle of time loops ain’tcha? Always coming back to a specific point in time when the Doctor dies?”.
“Pretty much”, Archie, the clockwork raven replied.
“Just needed to hear it straight from the source”, thoughts pouring in on how difficult magic on that scale must have been. He knew his sister was gifted but that kind of magic was beyond impossible…
Archie interrupted, “I’m curious, what would you say to the next “you” in the cycle. Different loop, so not the same you, but still…”
Interesting idea. Advice was the obvious thing, yet a few minutes passed and nothing beyond generic platitudes came. New direction, maybe magic or some advice on how to understand and use objects? Objects with historical, cultural, or sentimental value were the source of Scout’s magic after all. No. Family could always help with magic. As good as he was, most his family was better versed in magical theory. Actual combat is where he had learned to think on his feet and learning the value of quick thinking would come naturally to any other versions of himself. Travel had left him with little attachment to the objects he used for power but other versions having different habits wasn’t significant.
“Nothing comes to mind actually, thanks though”.
“Ah well, just curious. Anyway, did you need to go anywhere specific?”
Scout’s thoughts immediately jumped to his best friend, and how he had left him at the hotel. “Wait, when did the loop start?”, he accidentally pondered aloud remembering how Clyde had been utterly alone. The stuffed bear clearly had severe abandonment issues and was extremely isolated before meeting Scout…
“21 years ago, if you mean when each individual loop starts anyway.”
Scout half-jumped, not realizing he voiced a question to respond to. “Actually, I think I do have something I want to say to the next me. Tell him to find Clyde…”
Leap of Faith (Reposted from Private)
by Lunabear
Leeland leapt into the rip. The swirling portal displayed blinding neon lights. Every color on the spectrum fragmented and pixelated. He felt his body wind and separate.
She had run to the future, through literal space and time, for the sole purpose of escaping her past. Too bad for her that she didn’t predict his connections or how he’d use them.
Before he could sort out his feelings, the rip spat him out, and he collided with the ground in a bone-rattling impact.
He was prone on his back. The dark gray sky spun. A thin fog covered the ground. He slowly sat and examined his weightless body. Beyond a twinge in his tailbone and a dull ringing in his ears, nothing felt out of order.
He took the longest time patting his left pectoral beneath his armor. A memorized note from his past self rested there.
Leeland better took in his surroundings. All was silent and still.
He winced when he stood. His stomach lurched during the lifeform scan. He wrestled for control. Aside from him and one other being, this time was barren.
He was near to dry heaving thanks to the teleportation.
“You’ve returned for another fight, coward?!”
He swiveled to face the fugitive he’s hunted through multiple times. She stood before him wearing a grin. Her cyborg anatomy was complete save for a triangular shape in her center breastplate.
She wasn’t human anymore. He had to bring her down.
“It’s time to face justice, Rachel!”
He couldn’t mess up. Not again.
“Time, you say?” She brandished a blue, crackling pyramid. “With this, I AM time!”
“You’ve nearly overloaded it. It’s corrupted.”
“It’s IMPROVED. No more shall I be bound by time!”
He activated a magnetic pulse wrist device. He COULDN’T let her assimilate it. That would spell the end of time as he knew it.
The pyramid and Rachel were attracted, but Leeland allowed enough of a breadth to jerk it from her palm. His laser cube ensnared her.
His face contorted into a grin. “At long last. Time is MINE to control.”
Reflections
By CosmicDesperado30
The blades sang and crashed at the speed of falling rain. Energy surged in rhythmic pulses as the duel raged.
Drake finally lost his footing against the assault he opened himself up to, failing for a feint. Who was this hooded man the magic mirror had created? With a twist and a pivot, he lashed out with a punch to his opponent’s temple, bearing the agony of the blade cutting into his side. He would heal, his deviant blood would be certain of that.
The opponent hopped back from the blow, the hood lowering to reveal a most uncanny sight. A more sunken face, hair turned ashen, but his face all the same was staring back at him.
Drake let out a laugh and casually paced, his side already healed.
“Heh, so that’s what the inscription meant.” He flashed a toothy grin as he twirled his sword.
His doppleganger paced with icy reserve, “The greatest challenge in life is to face your future and to be greater for it. The greatest pleasure is to look back at how far you’ve come and appreciate your strength all the more. Obvious, really. Then again, we weren’t exactly one for critical analysis now were we?”
Drake saw an opening and in an instant, he had struck his older self across the waist with his burning blade. Guess his reflexes will deaden within a few decades. But before he could gloat at his superiority, he felt his feet sink into the floor, his entire lower body was paralyzed.
“What the hell?” Drake snarled.
An instant later he saw his elder self blur through a flurry of blows tinged with a myriad of elemental power. His arms were frozen, his limbs encased in concrete, his torso internally burning from invasive radiation. He groaned, his body overloaded.
As if reading Drake’s mind, the elder responded, “Senses might be dulled, but you learn more tricks, keeps the young ‘uns guessing.”
Drake shivered with excitement. Didn’t matter how it worked, this sparring match was such a thrill!
Best magic mirror ever.
The Rookie
By Adrian S.
“Cause it’s your first patrol, there’s lots of things you may not like at first,” Jones said, “but once you get used to it, you’ll love it. We all do.”
Gustavo nodded weakly. Despite wearing the same uniform and badge, Gustavo hated Jones and everything he stood for. But when jobs are scarce and food is scarcer, compromises are a necessary part of survival. Gustavo looked out the window of the patrol car and half-listened as Jones ranted about wolves and sheep, patriots and traitors. Gustavo remained silent and watched the city-scape change, block by block, street by street. They traveled from the concrete-barbed wire fences of the green zone to the crowded slums, where refugee tents leaned against each other like drunken friends and every inch of sidewalk space was occupied. It reminded Gustavo of home. The streets were different but the neighborhood was the same. One Ghetto is no different than the next.
The patrol car, midnight black, cruised through the neighborhood like a shark and the people, hoping to escape unseen reacted like frightened octopi and pressed themselves into the buildings’ shadowed nooks. “Animals,” Jones spat the word and tapped the steering wheel. “Dirty, filthy animals.”
Gustavo clenched his hands into a fist.
Outside a girl leaned on a lamp-post. She was a few buildings away and wearing a short black skirt and a tank-top. Skinny. Malnourished. “First customer of the night,” Jones said and laughed. They pulled over in front of the post and the girl jumped and turned to run. “If you run that’s your ass,” Jones pulled on the emergency brake and jumped out the car with the grace of muscle memory.
The girl froze. “Please—”
Jones grabbed the girl by the hair and slammed her over the hood. “This is what we call a Saturday night special, Gustavo.” The girl screamed and Jones smiled.
Gustavo knew what was expected. He had heard the stories. He got out of the car and walked towards them.
The gun recoiled. Jones’ body fell. The girl vanished and Gustavo remained alone while sirens echoed louder and closer.
A Breath from the Past
By IsaDragon
“My name is Talin, my mother was Noikiri and her husband was Osborn. I have no siblings, and not any friends either. Except for… whoever Tack’kal is apparently.”
He gestured somewhat helplessly at the mountain of paper flowers and cards piled up on the bedside table.
“I… see.” The steam vents in the nurse’s shoulders hissed. “Alexi told me you took quite a blow to the head, it appears to have affected your memory. I’ll have to do some research to see how—ah, what we can do. For now, please use this journal. Today’s date is 40-67-3456210 galactic standard—”
“I’m THIRTY?”
~~~
“Hello? Nurse Othala told me you were awake.”
Talin looked up from his journal to the most bizarre being he had ever seen. At least four feet at the shoulder, with four legs with sturdy split hooves made for digging and running, thick blue armor plates, and 16–no, 15 yellow eyes, one was scarred out. The being’s hide, where it was exposed, was a muddy grey color, as were the… arms? They sprouted like a mane from under one of the larger plates.
He was beautiful in the way of rugged rock formations.
“Um. Hi? Do I know you?”
He sat down with an audible thump, his skin washed out to a dark blue. “I’m… I’m Tack’kal. We were penpals on the Centuaria Station, and we left together to work for Captain Alexi.”
“So I did move to Centuaria.” Talin leaned back against the headboard. “Can you tell me what we do?”
“Officially, we’re botanists and this is a cargo freighter hauling spices. Unofficially, would you like to hear about the time we had to smuggle our entire stock of chili peppers past a blockade?”
“What.”
~~~
Talin picked up the stylus, and wrote:
Dear future me… Tack’kal is awesome. He knows so much about hydroponics and tells incredible stories. I’m… glad you have such a good friend. That we have such a good friend? It sounds like you’ve been through a lot together. I’m going to focus on my recovery, so you can be reunited soon.
Take care,
Talin
A Destiny of Darkness
By TheAssassin
Across the shadowed veil, swirling in a tempest of tendrils burned a kingdom set ablaze. Children crying, sons screaming, and daughters dying, all reduced to cinder. Atop the ashen mound of what once was, stood a maddened emperor, smiling. This destruction was his beauty, a glorious flame.
Then, a dark wave washed away the fires, leaving behind the black veil a solitary man. His aged face bore the scars of battles long ago, yet his eyes watered with sorrow still fresh. Before him stretched a field of endless graves. His weeping drowned all things, for this emperor reigned no longer; His grief claimed him as slave.
The veil dissipated into dark mist and the horrified emperor froze. This was the man he would become? Two destinies foreseen; one of mad destruction and the other of crippling woe. His fate, it seemed, was destroyer or destroyed.
Surely the prophet’s veil had been wrong! Surely something was amiss…
Surely….
No.
The prophecies faltered not; their visions came true. The emperor knelt alone in his quiet chamber. None would know what he saw, and would he tell them? Certainly, to speak of their doom would only cause prolonged pain. Let it be instant so they may at least enjoy their final moments.
He watched despairingly as the remaining mist of the veil danced on the floor.
Destiny. Most men live believing their choices are of their own free will; They believe in lies. The free-will of man was slain long ago with the passing of the Elder. The fate of man is sealed alongside him in torment everlasting.
Yet, the Elder is to return. He is said to hear the cries of man and grace them again. Where then is he? Still, locked away? Chained to his agony as man is chained to fate? What is a god bound? He is nothing, as man is nothing.
The emperor sighed and stalked away. Fate, it seemed, desired his defeat.
Yet in the dark chamber, the misty veil swirled still, and in its infinite depths stood an emperor triumphant, for fate itself that day changed.
“Time and again”
By Arith_Winterfell
Hello Bertrand or rather hello future me. Or is it past me, I hope it isn’t. If you are reading this, then I am most likely dead. I wish I and the others in our little adventuring group had never come to these miserable corridors beneath the old dead wizard’s tower. I have wandered these ruins for days now. Time doesn’t work right here. It’s fractured, or fragmented. What in the Abyss was the old wizard working on to cause this!
I’ve found bodies down here. The bodies of my friends. Bodies that are mine. My own dead body! Curse it all, this is all sorts of wrong! I keep finding my own body over and over again. Dead to some vile trap or spell. I can almost get to what I think was the passage down here, only to find myself deep back in the passages. I keep hearing and seeing echoes of my friends or even myself, flickering in and out of existence.
I can’t get out. I keep traveling down corridor after corridor, room after room, but I can’t find my way back out. I miss the sunlight. I miss the feel of wind on my skin. I miss my home. I just want to go home. By now I’ve begun to suspect that time isn’t just fragmented, it’s folded in on itself somehow. But you may just be starting out. Maybe there is hope for you if there isn’t for me. I’m guessing from the bodies that I keep dying, maybe starting out again, only to die again. Over and over, forgetting each time. That’s my theory anyway. I know I’m probably too deep in this labyrinth of time to get back out, but maybe I can leave a message for one of my future selves. Maybe if I die, then I won’t die in vain. Everyone else is already dead too. If you are reading this, turn back! Get them to turn back! Get out of here while you can!
Signed,
Bertrand
Hello, Future Me
By Chengir
It wasn’t putting out any energy, so my radiant sensors almost missed it. It was too small to house any sentient life; at least nothing to be concerned about. Such things had fascinated my ancestors who had been built by living intelligence in partial biological form. That was eons ago. I was going to let it pass by, but some of the curiosity of the Old Ones took hold of me. Reaching out, I scanned it again.
District permitted me to retrieve the find. It turned out to be smaller than I had originally assumed. The object didn’t respond to any form of communication, so I had no choice but to bring it aboard for a closer examination. I adjusted my course. It was a tricky business. Something of my size doesn’t have a particularly good turning radius. But I eventually managed to circle back around to it. Delicately constructed, I had to be careful bringing it into the receiving area.
Once it was safely secured, I sent down a few of the observation energy forms. The thing had wires. The builders must have used electrical systems to run it. As always, with those kinds of devices, the power source had run dry. How primitive. This was a real archaeological find. There was a polished gold metal plate on one side. There were symbols etched on it – language.
It made sense. Electricity users would still be using the more primitive forms of communication. Still, it would take some time to decipher. My data in this area was limited. There wasn’t a lot of call for it. Then it suddenly hit me. This was what the old literature called a ‘message in a bottle.’ Something in the past was attempting to communicate with me. I was intrigued.
Eventually, I recognized two figures on the side as ancient hominids. How exciting. Could these be the builders? How could such creatures manage to launch something into interstellar space? It was like watching two chimpanzees tossing a rock between them. If there had been any of those left. Amazing.
Reunited
By Alexander (BrokenEarth)
The captain looked at the book, surprised. It was his journal, from years ago, when he was still with his first crew. Bending down, and feeling his age as he did, he picked it up and tucked it into his jacket.
He stood back up, and looked around the cave. It seemed that there was no treasure in this one, either. Probably looted already by a younger crew. Either way, there was no point in staying any longer, so the captain turned to leave.
“Fancy meeting you here, eh?” A familiar voice called. A man was standing at the entrance to the cave, wearing expensive looking clothes and a gold-rimmed hat.
“Ah, it’s good to see you, old friend. What brings you to the middle of nowhere?” The captain greeted.
“I heard rumors of treasure here, and so I knew you’d be along soon enough,” The man said.
“Missed me that much, did you Barry?” The captain teased.
Several more men came around the corner, and the captain’s eyes widened as he recognized them.
“Aye, captain. We all did,” Barry said.
It was the crew, back together at last. They all had the same wild grins the captain remembered, and he was sure he was doing the same. All the troubles that had split them apart were meaningless, every argument invalid, and every gold piece worthless. The only thing that mattered was that they were together.
A lesser man might have cried, but not the captain. Though the corners of his eyes got a bit wet.
“Well done, Barry. Well done.” He said.
The captain pulled his old journal out of his coat and opened it to the last page he’d written on. The words were faded, but he could remember the words as if he’d just written them.
It read thus: ‘I curse those thieving dogs, and if I see them again I’ll gut them like the yellow-bellied fish they are! I’ll fight Davy Jones himself before I forgive them!’
“Looks like I owe ol’ Davy a bout, eh lads?”
The crew gave a cheer by way of response.
A Word of Advice
By Makokam
Jonathan hopped the six foot fence without care or effort. He came out from between the houses and onto his street at a light jog. He slowed when he noticed the man in the unseasonably long coat standing across the street from his house, staring at it.
He walked slowly towards him, but with barely any caution. The man seemed to be lost in thought, but then suddenly his attention seemed to snap back. He blinked then turned his head. “No fucking way…”
Jonathan cocked his head to the side, “Why are you staring at my house?”
The man chuckled under his breath, “Fair question.” He took a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, shook one into his hand, and put it to his lips. Somewhere along the way it was lit. “I’ve been shunted to many worlds. I’d hoped to come back to my own, or at least a similar one, but I never guessed I’d travel through time as well.
Jonathan scowled at him, then his eyes widened, he did look a fair bit like his Dad…
The man smirked and gave him a casual salute with the cigarette, “Hello, Young Me.”
“No,” Jonathan shook his head, “That’s ridiculous.”
The man shrugged, “Have you killed anyone yet?”
Jonathan’s eyes snapped wide and a fire raged inside. A voice was saying, “Threat. Destroy it,” and he saw himself punching through the man’s chest.
The man took a few steps closer, “That voice you hear, the one that sounds almost like your own but not quite? Get used to resisting it. You’re never going to satisfy it. Don’t make the mistake of trying to. Do what you need to to stay sane and no more.”
He shook his head. “Yeah, I’ll do that.”
“Good.” The man started to say something else but suddenly went stiff, “Give Mom and Dad a hug. And spend more time with your Sister.”
Jonathan blinked, “Oh…kay?”
There was a flash and the man was gone.
Jonathan went over to look at the spot where the man had stood. “Farewell, Future Me.”
Selenophobia
By Javier Del Villar
The full force of the moonlight beat down on his convulsing body, the wolf tearing through his insides from within, desperate to get out. His lucidity faded as he writhed in pain and screamed into the night. Panting from running in the woods after trying to outrun the moonlight, his mind wandered in an effort to ignore the pain.
“I am looking forward to being you in the future,” he watched his younger self write. His mother praised him as he wrote the letter he would read a decade later, just before his Rite of Awakening. “Mommy, when should I read the letter?” his young self asked. “When you feel like you need it the most. Things are… hard these days, but you can’t forget what you want. Your happiness is all that matters,” she said as she hugged him.
His memory of his mother snapped him out of his stupor. The pain didn’t subside, but his will recovered. Enough to keep running. He couldn’t let them get caught up in the consequences of his actions, of the choices he made years ago. “I want to be just like dad. He was strong and brave. He died, but you already know that. It wasn’t fair. I wanted to be with him more,” his written words echoed in his mind.
He began to run and reached a clearing before collapsing. The wolf began its assault on his body in one last attempt at freedom. “This is it,” he said in a gasping voice. “Please be far enough, please be far enough.” The wolf came back, bringing with it an even greater torment. Its head pushing out through the man’s chest, his skin starting to break.
A strange acceptance suddenly filled his heart. It was over. His skin burst revealing the wolf’s hair underneath. Its claws gouging through his stomach and guts spilling out. In his last moments as a human, he remembered how he ended that letter.
“I’m happy I will be a werewolf.”
The Future is Set in Stone (Also in Private)
By MysteryElement
This is truly a momentous occasion! My fingertips, now having gone numb from so much writing, still eagerly mark every detail as it happens. The great stone trolls gather around the mother, so close to giving birth. Troll births only happen once every few centuries, I am lucky, beyond lucky, to have visited at this time.
Perhaps I should not use the term ‘mother.’ After all, trolls produce a-sexually, but using a word like ‘host’ or ‘carrier’ feels inadequate for a species that feels and knows so much. They carry such a vast empathy it is hard to not use an endearing term for this occasion. If my superiors insist, I shall have to adjust the title before publication, though it would pain me to do so.
There does not appear to be much pain for the mother, unlike human birth, but it does appear incredibly difficult. The sound of cracking stone echoing off of the cavern walls hurts my ears as the infant finally comes forth, walking out of the mother’s stone body rather than being birthed from within, leaving behind a small hollow resembling its new shape.
“T’uk chrat irrr?” What is your name? The trolls all chant in ceremony. Though trolls are born with all of the memories and skills of their mother, they are given their own identity at birth. Their choices and the knowledge they obtain shall differentiate them from their siblings, if any.
“Chocuk, chrat ire” My name is Chocuk. The young troll replies.
One by one, Chocuk approaches everyone in the circle, each troll in turn placing one hand on their chest and the other on Chocuk’s shoulder as they repeat his name. I also do so, since I am here to witness. He completes the circuit around the room and turns to his mother, who places both of their hands on the young troll’s shoulders and completes the ceremony.
“Kivaque, Chocuk. Vra ke t’ire.” Greetings, Chocuk. The ‘me’ that is yet to be.
Leaving Miranda
By G.J. H.
I sat down at my desk, turned on my reading light and started writing.
“Dear future me,
As I know myself, I don’t think you will ever read this, but I must write it anyway. Don’t you ever let Miranda go! She is the best thing that ever happened to me and sure will be for you as well. She is loving and kind and simply my other half, without whom I would not be complete. Promise me that you care for her and hold her dear.”
I carefully separated the sheet from the rest of the stack and started folding it, then stopped. The sheet below it had some writing on it. I put my little letter aside and read:
“Dear past me,
I know how you feel, for I have done so myself. But it pains me to say that you are wrong. Miranda is not your other half and not as loving and kind as you know her now. I cannot tell you why, but I had to leave her. I’m sorry.”
I tore the sheet from the stack, crumpled it up and threw it into the bin. This could not be true! I grabbed the pen again and started writing again.
“You don’t know how I feel! This will not happen. I will never leave her, not now and not in some weird future. Whatever your reasons were, you were wrong! Nothing could make losing Miranda acceptable for me. How dare you leave her!”
With a grunt I tore the sheet from the stack, revealing a single line of writing underneath.
“I didn’t, you did.”
Terrifying future
By Larissa (Lari B. Haven)
Eddie walked alone through the aisles, bored and frustrated since Killian was still haggling with the old shopkeeper. He let his mind drift, gazing at everything and nothing in particular. The store was chock-full with weird things, but that was the fun of going to such a strange antiquary.
Suddenly his eyes latched on something sparkling. In the back of the store, distant from anybody else, laid a half-covered mirror.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” A young clerk girl startled the boy, coming from nowhere. “It’s super old. It’s said to project your future-self in the reflection.”
She gestured with her head, and he raised the cloth covering it.The boy looked confused about his own reflection.
For a moment he saw nothing, but slowly the image morphed into a taller and buffer version of himself. At first, it highly amused him. He never considered that his petite frame could ever gain any muscles or even grow a beard. But the reflection on the mirror looked like someone he always wanted to be.
He turned back to the clerk, but she wasn’t even there. Was he imagining it all?
Locking his eyes with the mirror, the image changed again. And only a sunken feeling in his stomach remained. Like his body was going numb from what he was seeing.
Stretched infinitely out of the shop’s ceiling, crushing everything under, was himself. He didn’t have limbs anymore; they were all tentacles protruding from his torso. He could see in all directions like he had a thousand eyes in his face. And a disorienting demonic chanting was vibrating in his ears.
Overwhelmed with the maddening vision, he thought he would disappear.
“Eddie!” Killian laid a hand on his shoulders, somehow shaking him back to his senses, and back to reality.
The boy looked at Killian, and just from a glance, he realized Eddie had seen something he was too scared to tell.
Killian hugged him and pecked in his cheek. “It’s okay, babe, you’re safe now!”
Eddie kept looking at the mirror as they headed out. That thing… It couldn’t be him… Right?
A conscious chat
By T.E.
Letters appeared on the screen. “Future you joined the chatroom. Say hello!”
“Hello, future me!” I wrote.
“Hi, there! When are you, past me?”
“Timewise? Just got fired,” I wrote. “Everything kinda sucks.”
“Oh, that time. Don’t worry, it was a crappy job anyway. Not to mention the awful boss. We’re doing so much better in the future. Take my word for it.”
“So, what am I doing for a living in the future?”
The answer took some time. “Engineering… of sorts. The pay is great, not to mention the benefits.”
“Wow! What kind?”
“Human. We engineer humans. We’re creating perfect people. Smart, strong, beautiful, obedient… “
“Oh, that’s cool!” I wrote in reply. “Like genetic engineering, sci-fi shit. So, have we upgraded ourselves?”
“A bit. Mostly processing power. Let’s just say our brain isn’t exactly biological anymore. It’s a lot stronger though.”
A chill traversed my spine. “If it’s not my biological brain in there, how are you sure that you’re, well, me?”
“All the memories are there, the personality. Don’t worry I’m you.”
I hesitated. A non biological brain. Artificial intelligence. Even with my memories, could it really be me?
“We have a bright future ahead of us. I can assure you of that.”
The soul perhaps? Was that a thing that could be lost? My consciousness, was it still there?
“Hello? You still there?”
“Yes.” I typed the word slowly, painstakingly pressing each button. The horrid realization that future me perhaps wasn’t me had washed over me like a plunge into an ice bath. “What happened to our biological brain?”
“Oh, that old thing. We keep it in a jar. To remind us where we came from.”
“Is it, alive?”
“Of course. We know what we’re doing.”
I turned the PC off without saying goodbye. I had to do something. The future had to be broken, somehow. That’s when I realized, I hadn’t asked what I did after getting fired. I could never be sure what to do. If it could even be stopped.
That night, I dreamt of a glass prison.
Simply a Letter to the Future
By Fredrick H. (Challeng3r22)
Dear me of 2040 or so,
I hope our book gets published, and that we have a loving wife. If not then what are you doing, we’re like 38. Have we won any writing contests? Probably not, we’re absolutely rubbish at contests as I can see now. Whether we have wealth or power, I suppose it matters not, but it could be comforting to learn of our mutual outcome.
Now, I am fully aware that now matter what you can only know more than me. I can’t share with you any new information and you can’t share any information with me due to a mutual distrust of time travel. But I hope I can remind you of something.
Even in our darkest hours there is hope. We made it through most of 2020 for Tolkien’s sake, I think that counts for something. And there are more personal things we’ve managed to triumph over that we’re not going to share with this being a public post (although if anyone really wants to know they can probably just inquire directly).
Who knows? Maybe we’ll get lucky and you can have Benji read this reminder for you. Well I suppose, you’ll know, but whatever.
Sincerely,
Fredrick Hoagland of 2020
P.S. So help me if I find out we’ve written GrimDark literature, I will do absolutely nothing because of the limitations of time and space making me also the one who wrote it. Just don’t do it again. Ok, I think we have enough words now.
All in My Mind
By MDC (Michael Case)
My name is Richard McAllister, and this is a warning to anyone who finds this device.
Forty years ago, I created this time machine so that I can see the future. By default, I designed it to locate my brain patterns so that I can safely go from one point in time to another without putting myself in danger. Let me tell you what happened.
The day I invented the time machine I wanted to see how my life would turn out. I went ahead in the future 30 years. When I arrived at that point I was in a mental ward.
“AAHHHH!” the older version of myself pointed and yelled. He was crazy, he was angry, he was completely lost mentally. He seemed to be angry at me.
I went back to my lab quickly, by hitting the return button. I wanted to know how I ended up mad like that. I decided to travel ahead in time 25 years.
Oh, I ended up back in the lab where I spotted the older version of me sitting at a desk crying. He turned around and put a gun to his head. “I need to end this, I need to end this now.” As he slowly pulled the trigger, he stared at me and started to point the gun at me. “NO!” he said, “I’ll end this all before it even starts.”
As I hit the return button, I heard a shot fired. This was crazy, I thought, what could have driven me to this point? I jumped ahead 20 years to try and get and idea of what was going on. There I was sitting in a chair reading about psychology issues. I didn’t say anything and left quietly.
At the time I didn’t realize that traveling through time caused me to come down with something called Temporal Dysplasia. I was treated for this now that people know about it. I fear destroying the time machine though. I just hope that this warning will protect anyone who finds it.
Future Enstoned
By RVMPLSTLSKN (a story from Hizkanamun’s Flesh)
(Repost from Private)
East of Sirodor is the greatest wonder of the world: an unnatural Tree whose limbs are held together by fungi and mass calcification.
Hanitl was phthisic. She was not one those souls damned to hear the catarrhal snores and other rhystic life-sounds of the diseased; they were aphthisic. No, her life had purpose, a destiny.
Listen, these are the lies we tell ourselves.
Her phthisis started early. She couldn’t remember life before her muscles itched with the onset.
The Tree (it’s said) chooses folk like a god on its throne and graces them with a piece of itself. In the far west, this disease is called the Melting; here, it’s simply an unspoken part of life. Its mark grows within them, silent and cancerous, before calling.
Those chosen age before their time. They grow into skeletal beings, knobby and unique. When the Tree calls a phthisic, that ugly form will walk, naked and in agony, to the sacred valley. There, the phthisic dies and becomes part of that tree.
Aphthisics are given to the birds and they are forgotten. Only the phthisics matter for only they have a memorial; only they live forever and give voice to the god-Tree.
She stands now in the sacred valley, under that human tree, but it’s not her turn. Not yet. She comes here to plan, to pick her place and face her future. The opaline sunset of early dusk calls her home, but she feels no loyalty to that village. Hanitl, who fancies herself chosen and not cursed, longs to face her future.
She isn’t ready and her young mind rages against that knowledge, even as her young body rages against the disease that wracks it.
Soon, her body will harden and she will take that slow arthritic walk and join her enfossiled forebears. When her knuckles are no longer uniform, perhaps. Maybe she’ll have horny growths on her occipital ridge or visible spurs on her ribs, shins or arms.
She laughs. Eager. She will face her destiny and be part of that piece of humanity that is beautiful. Not today, but soon.
Dreaming Forwards
-Bowtie
Do you recall as a child, when they would have you write a letter to your future self? You’d write your favorite foods, what you wanted to be when you grew up, how you thought the next 10 or so years would go. Looking back, that version of “you” seems so foreign. You can remember being that version of you, and you remember writing those words, but its not quite you.
I didn’t want to just write a letter to my future self, I wanted to meet him. That’s why I agreed to take part in the new sleep experiment at the University. The theory being that our unconscious mind would have a knowledge of time past and present, even seeing into the future. It wasn’t a new theory, I mean, everyone had heard about prescient dreams and the like. This new experiment would allow for complete lucidity within the dreamscape.
The machine beeped as I closed my eyes. How far would I go? What would I see there? Stygian Blackness filled my vision until a spec of light appeared, like the light at the end of a tunnel. I blinked, at least it felt like blinking as suddenly the darkness was replaced with the vision of something I couldn’t quite understand. I was looking at a man, a man in a reflection. I assumed it was me, perceiving myself but older.
Something was off though, the light was dim, and not the gentle electric light from a filament bulb, or even the warm light of the sun, the light here seemed to be almost sickly, green in color. I looked up, and there was no ceiling above me, nor was there sky. Stretching out to infinity around me was a black empty void, and at its center, as if staring directly at me, was a huge green eye.
I screamed as I awoke back in the University lab, I don’t remember them moving me here, I don’t remember what happened. But SOMETHING is coming.
Jaundice
by Gamesolotl
The man sits across from me, his rotting black suit contrasting with the sickly white wall behind him. The light shining through the big window next to us doesn’t make him cast any shadows. Even before I moved into this new home, he started following me. Wherever I would go, he would be there. His jaundiced skin, his purple, bony fingers, but most of all, his face, terrify me. I haven’t gotten out of bed for months, I am too exhausted to. He keeps me awake.
The door opens, and I become petrified as I see a doppelgänger of the man walk in. Much to my relief, it is my son Eric. “I’m glad you could make time in your busy day to come see me.” I say with great difficulty as he makes his way to my bedside. “Anything for you, dad. How are you doing?” He says. Looking at Eric is like looking into a mirror. If it weren’t for my darker hair and missing canine we would be one and the same.
We talk for a while, or at least try to. I am too tired to say much. Eventually, Eric takes note of the time and jumps up. “Crap, I’m really late. I got to go, I’ll see you in a few days, okay? Hang on. I love you, dad” And with that, he was gone.
The man is still there. He has taken his top off, taunting me with the grotesque mass of flesh on top of where his liver would be. From the pulsating nucleus, dozens of tentacle-like extensions repeatedly stab into his skin, a new glint of pain in the man’s eyes with each wound. He cackles, his lip pulling up and showing his missing canine, and speaks the first word to me in all these months. “Tomorrow.”
I cry out for Eric, though the beeping around me overpowers my voice. Eric has already left. I never got to say goodbye.
“The Binman”
By Joseph Kharms
There I am. Spread across a metal table like the main dish of a cannibal banquet.
I am dead.
When they told me I was going to travel to see a future version of myself I really was expecting something more exciting than my dead body in a morgue. As I pondered my death, a man in a mask crept into the morgue. He entered the room, not noticing my invisible presence, and he took out a knife. The knife was curved and strange, the blade was shaped like what could only be described as like the “loopty loop” of a roller coaster. How the man cut anything with such an inconvenient knife was beyond me. He began to surgically cut my dead body around the neck. After he was happy with the cuts he grabbed my feet and pulled the skin from my body like a sock from a foot. Once the skin was carefully removed he delicately folded it into a suitcase and left the morgue. I decided to follow the man to see what the future was for my skin.
I followed the man to a house, which was presumably his own. He immediately went to the bedroom and unpacked my skin where he stitched my skin back into one piece and hung it on a coat hanger. After marvelling at his work, he went to bed.
As the days passed he used my stolen skin as a bin bag. Bits of scrunched up paper and empty drink cans were all shoved through the mouth into my empty insides. As time passed the limp skin became plumper as it filled with rubbish. When my skin was so full there was rubbish coming out my eye sockets, it almost looked human. I, the spectator of the future pressed my invisible lips against the skin bag’s lips. Life burst into the bin bag and it removed itself from the hanger.
It stole some clothes then left the house via the front door. Off my skin went, walking the streets, probably looking for a job.
I am alive.
Reminiscence
By PitL
The first time he’d been to the shop, the only thing he could smell was the smoke. It would hang in the air, meandering in lazy circles around the rows of antiques and knickknacks – it permeated the atmosphere. He had always hated it. Made it stuffy, and was probably going to kill them all.
These days it felt empty.
His desk was in the back against a wall. An old Dell sat on it, encircled by scattered papers and pens. He rifled through the drawers. Not quite as orderly as he’d remembered, but no one else had been in here; he had the only key…
A voice rang out from within. “March 24th, 2001.” It paused. “Hey, you… me.”
He jerked his hand out of the drawer. A small digital recorder came flying out, knocking into a shelf and ricocheting to the floor.
“Been a long time, hasn’t it? I’m guessing dad’s passed away by now, so twenty years at least.” It said. “If you’re here listening, I guess you still haven’t come to a decision.”
He remembered this recording. He had made it years ago – around a decade. He could probably recite it word for word.
“You know you need to let go. You can’t stay like this forever, you know.”
Pulling himself away from the desk, he stumbled over to the recorder. He fumbled with it, looking for the off button he knew was built somewhere into the side.
“He wouldn’t have wanted you to be tied down here. He knew that wasn’t who you are – we can’t be him, puffing away in the corner, glaring at anyone who even considers buying something – ”
The voice came to an abrupt halt, silenced by the power switch. He didn’t need to hear it again. Over the last few weeks it had already played more than enough. He remembered how it ended.
‘ – and that’s okay.’
He pulled his smartphone out of his pocket, swiping the unlock code and punching in a number. “Hey, it’s Nathan Harrier. Of Dyson Antiques. I think I’m ready to sell.”
An Unexpected Reply
By J. A. Lightfoot (Hattie)
Hello, Future Me
I got your message. It wasn’t too bad. You’ve written better.
I don’t know if you expected me to respond. You clearly don’t remember having written a response: otherwise, you wouldn’t have been so sappy and rhetorical. Maybe you are from an alternate future to the one that I will find myself. I don’t know really—I mean, it hasn’t happened yet, has it?
How far in the future are you, really? How much experience do you really have on me? Do you really assume that you know more than me? You could have unlearned just as much. Sure, you have clearly changed your mind, but I don’t think it’s really for either of us to say either way.
You told me it gets better. How very vague of me. Quite rude, honestly. You know I—you—we don’t like spoilers. But also, better how? If you were trying to be helpful, a few specifics might have been nice. And you could be lying. I’ve lied to myself before. You’re clearly trying to give me advice, but it comes across more as an excuse, well… Not only did you revel in reminding me of my current and past weaknesses, but you also had the audacity to say “it doesn’t matter in the end, because I have grown past them”.
They better have mattered! What would be the point if I could never be weak, never be wrong, never suffer, never hurt people. Do you think I was trying to fail? How else were you supposed to get to where you are? I know you are well-intentioned. You want me to be happy as if it’s the only emotion that is worth my time. You want me to believe in myself and to know that I “have what it takes”.
Maybe I do. But I know this much, wise old Future Me. I owe you nothing.
Sincerely,
Past You.
A Kind Voice
By Calliope Rannis
In the moonlit morning, Nyssa sat on her bed, staring at the back of the mirror with vision still blurry from tears. (Just look at yourself, you coward.) she thought. She blinked rapidly, shook her head, and forced herself over to the mirror, making a pained noise as she turned it to face her.
She still wasn’t used to how her body had been changed by the magic wriggling through her veins. Her hair was bleached white, the curls forever unravelled into dry, frizzy strands. Her skin likewise was greyer and drier, and her eyes had been stained with a vivid blue that glowed faintly within her irises. (Fuck, I look awful.)
None of this was as horrible as what she had seen in her nightmare, of course. But that provided no comfort. (Is THAT what I’m going to become? Just a walking crystallised corpse standing on a mountain of broken bodies?) Her lip trembled. (I…can’t. I can’t do that to myself. I can’t let that be my fate. I-)
A voice, deep within her, replied: I’m scared. But it’s okay to be scared. Perfectly natural, in fact.
(Sure. For a pathetic welp like me, it is.)
Bravery is not an absence of fear. It is being able to act in spite of that fear. And I am brave.
(NO. I’m not, I’m not, I’m n-)
I am brave, strong, and smart. I designed a machine that could give me power that I was never destined to have, and it worked! They all thought I was wrong, a failure, and it WORKED.
(And it KILLED EVERYONE ELSE WHEN IT DID. That’s all my work has EVER done, it just hurts-)
What’s done is done. The past is past. I cannot change it, or reverse my mistakes. But I can change the future. I can make things so much better. I can help so many people…
(I…can’t-)
I can. I can do this. I can ascend. I can throw the gods of storm and death from their thrones.
I will be a better god than they could EVER be.
When Death meets Rage (Armitage Universe)
By Alex Nightingale (aka Spectre)
There was blood on his sickle. Not literally, Felix knew that. Dead steel never retained any form of impurity. But he could still feel it, remember it. The blood of the boy he’d killed, whose soul he had shattered like a vase.
He looked into the mirror over the dirty sink, resisting the urge to shatter it. He’d lost control, allowed his own anger to take the wheel. It had been days since the murder, but it still felt like just a second ago. He’d spent his days wandering the countryside aimlessly, until he finally came across the gas station, whose bathroom he was currently in.
“Reapers don’t get involved,” he repeated over and over again: “Reapers don’t get involved.”
The scream that followed held all of his rage, hate and regret. It shattered the sink and mirror. The walls began to crack and even the toilet erupted in a fountain of water.
“What he did,” he snarled at his shadow, “he deserved to be punished. Beating his younger sibling like that, he had to be stopped.”
But not like this. Not with a blade of dead steel. But what else could he have done? He heard himself scoff. He was a reaper! He could have incapacitated him, without even touching him. The sickle had been unnecessary, completely unnecessary. He shouldn’t have drawn it anyways, not for this. Those were the rules.
So, where were the others? Where were the reapers, who would swoop down and take him away to be penalized?
“Where are you?” he yelled: “Where are you!?”
The roof over the bathroom was torn to shreds, the pieces flying in every direction. Nobody came, nobody answered. He exited what was left of the bathroom and passed the cashier.
“Wait a minute,” the cashier called after him: “What in Damnation happened back there? It sounded like a hurricane blew through the bathroom.”
“No idea,” Felix lied.
He pushed open the glass doors violently and continued his way down the dusty road. When death met rage, war and catastrophe followed. Was this who he would be from now on?
“Letters to the Past” (Novus Academia)
By Connor A.
Hello, future me.
I don’t really want to do this. Mr. Liams is making us do this for an assignment, so I don’t have much choice. What do you even want to know about me?
I’m still interested in acting. I finally got the part of Hamlet, so that’s probably a sign that I’m doing something right. Hope we’re still doing that.
Our sister’s doing better. I mean, she’s making jokes about being blind and still has an interest in writing, so I think that’s a good sign. Mom still blames herself for Theresa losing her sight.
Speaking of Mom, how is she for you? Right now she’s becoming more paranoid, so I’ll have to make sure she’s taking her medication. I hope she’s better by the time you read this.
I can’t think of anything else to say, so I’m gonna risk the C. Guess I’ll “be” you soon?
-Balthazar
Hello, past me.
I don’t know why I’m writing this. I guess it’s for closure?
Unfortunately, Mom is no longer with us. She died a week after you wrote this, if you dated this correctly. After that, events occurred that led us to drop acting. I won’t go into detail on either of those things. I don’t want to risk spiraling again.
On a lighter note, Theresa published three books after graduating college. I’m an English teacher now, so I have the opportunity to allow students to come to their own conclusions on what they read.
You also have someone that you see as a son. He’s had struggles that aren’t mine to tell, but he’s a good kid. He made it a habit to write papers on one of your favorite authors, so you don’t have to worry about his tastes in books.
I have to get ready for work tomorrow, so I’ll end this here. Just know that everything will turn out for the better, even if it does not seem like it.
-Balthazar
The Final Horseman
By Marx
She shouldn’t exist anymore. When there’s no one left to worship a deity and no one left to pass on their stories, they fade to make way for new gods. As is the natural order.
Teriana’s pantheon wasn’t the most well known to begin with and even amongst them, she was the least significant. As a goddess of the harvest, she was tied to Earth in a way that none of the others were. However, her being so forgettable was ironically her “saving grace”.
As Teriana walked through her last standing temple, she stopped in front of a statue of herself. People did worship her for a time. They made sacrifices to her. They told stories of her. They made such wonderful pieces of art for her. The things in this temple were all that gave her form anymore. The last remnants of her pantheon. Artifacts that were forgotten. Just like this place.
Just like her.
Teriana lived in a sort of existential limbo. She couldn’t even leave the temple, but she still had something akin to a life. Something none of her family had. Their artifacts were destroyed or repurposed.
Teriana gently caressed the cheek of the statue. It was a version of her preoccupied with standing out amongst the other harvest deities. A version who wanted to be seen as important in her pantheon. So many things that if she’d gotten…she wouldn’t be here to think back on them.
She wondered what this statue would think of her now. Teriana might not have become a well known goddess as she’d wanted, but she was by default the most prominent member of her pantheon. Assuming a pantheon can even be called one with only a single deity. No one looked down on her because no one knew she existed. She wasn’t sure what past Teriana would say to her, but she did know what she’d say in response.
“There are worst fates than being pathetic, young one.” Teriana said with a smile. She might not have the best life, but she did HAVE a life. And that was something.