The Trick Of Time

Devon Holland.12 The Tricks of Time

The moment came all too fast. The moment the blade went through my chest, the world darkened, but it was soon light

again.

It wasn’t Heaven, but it sure as hell wasn’t Hell either. I was back where I had been ten days ago. At a meeting with my club. I looked and saw all the friends I had lost in the next few days. I saw the people I never thought I’d see again. When I started to cry, I knew I must have confused my friends. As I walked to the home that I had lived in for most of my life, I realized something had changed. My home wasn’t there. A hand tapped my shoulder, and I turned around to see my close friend Maria. She looked so pure, clean of the blood-stained future. I was about to speak when she did. “Where are you going, Alex? We have to go the other way to get home!” “What do you mean we have to go the other way?” I ask. “Well, to our home, of course. You’re my brother after all!” Maria said. I swallowed, and I followed her to our home. We are greeted by the man who was my father in the other timeline and the woman who was Maria’s mom in that same world. It’s strange to see these two people together, as they were unhappy single people in the other world, but now, they were beaming with life. As we ate dinner later that night, we talked about our days, though I couldn’t say much. Maria, on the other hand, did.“Alex started crying in the middle of a meeting. Micah was talking about ways to raise funds because our club could get closed down, and he just started tearing up!”

“Really? I thought I raised a proper man out of you, Alex!” Dad said jokingly, and he ruffled my hair. I complained by saying I was too old for that, but he just chuckleed again, unlike in the other world, where he would have snapped at me. Maria’s mom, or my mom, I guess, was different too. She was slimmer, and not slightly overweight . She wasn’t depressed. She was radiant and happy, with an aura of an eccentric and ecstatic woman. This must be what she had been like before her original husband, Mr. Havels, died in an accident three years ago. I began to wonder if this was going to be any different. But a feeling in my gut punched me back to reality. Even if this wasa different reality, it was possible it will get fucked up in some new way.

I was right. I watched as an atomic bomb dropped from the sky, with the symbol of the Doctor, a halo with wings, painted on its side. I felt the aura, and as the world was desecrated, my skin was ripped apart. I screamed, and I heard the screams of my “family” fill the air as millions of others followed. The world was dark yet again, and then the light came back after a few moments. This time, I woke up in a small apartment, similar to the one me and my dad lived in when I first lived, but this time, it was cleaner, and looked like it did before Mom died. Another thing that hit hard was that there was a tabletop shrine of my Mom and Dad with me, and I realized I was alone in the world. I pulled out my phone and looked through the contacts.