CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
He went over the final calculations, yet again. His final check. His final final check. His final final final...he had checked them a lot. He was killing time. The one thing he'd always told himself he'd never do, yet here he was, wasting hours, burning them away, hours he'd never get back, on today at all days. He managed to laugh at the irony. He wasn't too far gone for that, he was relieved to find. But his body ached. It ached so bad. He hoped more than anything that he'd leave that ache behind, that horrible, destructive fatigue, when he went back. Surely he would. He wouldn't be in the same body anymore, after all. He'd be in one a year younger.
He stared at the clock. Still ten minutes to go. He'd always pictured himself jumping back at exactly one minute to midnight. Why, he couldn't remember, but that was how it was going to be. He'd been imagining it so clearly and for so long, that to do it any other way was unthinkable. It caused him actual physical pain to even think, TO EVEN THINK, of doing it now, ten minutes early. That's how bad he had gotten.
He took his eyes off the clock and stared into the time crystal instead. He saw himself refeclted back. No, not him, the alien! It was looking back at him. For a fleeting second he thought it had returned now, to take the crystal away, to end his impssoble dream, to dash it all so cruelly. He almost felt relief at that thought, then he felt angry at himself. This was the last year of his lief! He had to do it. A year was a terrible thing to waste. He looked deeper into the crystal and the alien was gone. Only he looked back out at himself. He tried to smile, but couldn't.
Five minutes to go.
He went over the meeting with the alien in his mind again. He used to go over it a lot, but the work had been so intense in the last year that he had put it out of his mind. But he could still bring it back, and so vividly, the most vivid memory he could bring himself to recall. Far more vivid than even the most vivid memory of her. Maybe it was the time crystal. Maybe it amplified his memory. He had never been able to find out how the time crystal worked...he felt the sudden terror he felt when he reminded himself that he didn't know if it WOULD work. No, it would, of course it would...the alien had promised.
He'd been sitting here, in his lab, waiting for the new year. Waiting for...change? Ha. She was gone. Nothing mattered. A new year wasn't going to change anything. It wouldn't change the emptiness inside him. Wouldn't make him a person again. He would continue to fade, continue to waste his life. All his work had been put aside. Even the machine. The time machine. He laughed as he thought about it. A time machine! How could he even have thought such a thing was possible?
Then the alien had came. It was the same heigh as him. But its skin was so white to almost be translucent and its face...it wasn't a human face. He had stared in awe, unable to move, unabel to comprehend what was happening. Then it had spoke, in a voice that was strangely familiar and, above all, sympathetic. It had told him it had been watching his planet for years. Mostly watching him. It told him how brilliant his time machine was. How he shouldn't give up hope. There was just one thing missing, it had said. The crystal. It handed the crystal to him. It smiled then. It was strange, seeing a smile on such an inhuman face. Sad, definitely sad. Then it was gone. Just like that. The clock clicked over into the new year and the alien was gone. It was amazing, incredible, unbelievable...but it had happened. He knew it had happened because he had the crystal to prove it.
Then he'd went to work.
At first he tried to figure out where the crystal would possibly fit into his machine. It did not seem to have any use. He had examined the crystal and found nothing. He had been frustrated, but he didn't want to give up. This was his purpose now, his reason for being. He devoted every moment he had to working on the machine. He did not see anyone all year. He stopped only to eat and sleep, and even then he would go over equations as he ate and dream of the machine as he slept. He had put the crystal aside and continued to work on the machine along the old path he'd been working before the alien had come.
After three months of working, he suddenly knew exactly what the crystal was for. He had eoncountered a problem. An energy source was needed. Something...the cyrstal. It had just come to him. He inserted the crystal in the space he'd left in his machine for the unknown energy source and it fitted perfectly. He could not believe it.
There was a lot more to do before then. But he worked out that he'd be able to finish by the end of the year, if he worked every day, every hour. He'd finish literally just within a year. It seemed fitting.
So here he was. His time machine built, ready. Ready to take his consciousness back in time a year and take over his own body. Then he would have a whole year of his life back. For he had figured out that the machine could only take him back to a time in which the crystal existed. But that didn't matter. Going back a year would be proof, to himself, that the machine worked. He'd go back and know exactly how to build the machine without having to do all the work again. He could then work on making it so that he would be able to travel back even further into the past, into times before the crystal had come to him. If he didn't manage it first time around....he could just travel back in time again after a year. Again and again, each time the machine would grow more powerful. Eventually, he could use it to...well, he didn't know exactly. Change the world. Yes, definitely to change the world.
It was one minute to midnight. He breathed in deeply...and started up the machine. He felt the whole thing spinning around him. He saw the cyrstal light up, as it too span. He felt himself leave his own body. It felt like a dream. He had become a being of pure consciousness, floating around the chamber.
Then, suddenly, he had a body again.
"It worked," he thought to himself.
"It worked," he heard someone else think. The alien!? No, not the alien...it was him. He was in his own body...but his old consciousness was still there. The one from a year earlier. He hadn't been expecting that.
"I...I wasn't expecting you to be here," he thought.
"What, thought you'd have my body all to yourself?" his younger self said, out loud.
"Well...yeah."
"I can't believe this. A few minutes ago, an alien visits me, hands me a crystal...and then I feel another consciousness in my body. And it's MY consciousness. From a year in the future! I'm absolutely sure of that."
"Yes. I recognised you, recognise the way it feels to be you, and I expect you recognise a lot of yourself in me."
"You...you spent a whole year working on this?"
"Yes."
"A whole year...just so you could go back and do the year again! Why?"
"You know why."
"Yes, I do. I have all your memories. This is...this is crazy."
"You have my memories. You have my knowledge. Let me have your body now. Let me take over. And I will build the machine and build it better."
"Then what? What if it's not good enough, what if it still can't do anything but this...you'll go back again, won't you?"
"You know I will."
"How many times?"
"However many it will take."
"But...how does this work. You don't remember this happening, do you? Even though it's a year ago for you."
"No, I don't. I've changed history."
"So every time you go back...who's to say you're not really travelling to another dimension?"
"Does it really matter? I'm pretty sure this is my dimension, you feel the same as you did a year ago...but if it isn't, so what? All that matters is that consciousness is maintained."
"Not for me! I'll never become you now."
"But whent he machine is built, you can go back with me."
"Go back with you to what? A version of me...of you...of us...with the two of us already in it! Back to this moment, the two of us! Think of that! There would be four then, four consciousnesses in one body!"
"Which is why you must let me take control. Let me absorb everything in you."
"No!"
"Yes. You know it makes sense. I am the older consciousness. I should take over. As you say, to have four of us in one body, then eight, then sixteen...it would be too much. We would go mad. Let me take over...now..."
"No...you already sound mad."
"I sound like you!"
"No, there's a difference. You sound familiar...but not like me. Not exactly. Kind of like the alien sounded familiar...wait..."
"What?"
"..."
"I hear what you're thinking. Don't try to hide it from me...don't be absurd. The alien...you're thinking it was a future version of us!"
"Of you."
"Whatever. That's crazy. You saw what it looked like...you just saw it a few minutes ago. It wasn't human."
"It was of human size. It was distorted, wrong...but what if the time travel did that?"
"You are wrong, young one. Now let me take this body so I can begin our great work again..."
"No! It was you, of course! The time travel did something to you, changed you...changed US. Oh God. How many times did we do it? How many times did we live this coming year over and over? Eventually, it changed us! We weren't human anymore...somehow our body changed. We looked like...like that thing. That was us! Don't you see? It was us! From just a year in the future. This is the path you'd take us down again! If we do this year together, then go back and keep doing so...that's how we will end up."
"STOP IT. That isn't it at all. It was an alien, that is all it was. We will use this machine to do good, to change the world. It just needs refining first."
"What if it CAN'T change the world? What if all it can do is bring us back one year? Over and over, an infinite loop of madness!"
"It...no, you are wrong. The alien was physically here. It gave me...you...us the crystal."
"Okay, so improvments are made. It gives us the crystal...but only to start the cycle over again! Maybe it was dying, finally. Maybe that's why it looked the way it did, it was sick."
"No."
"You know I'm right! I can hear you screaming that I'm right!"
"That's you."
"It's you! too!"
"Stop trying to trick me...you're just scared."
"And you just don't want to think that you've wasted a year! But you're back now...you can do it over. But not working on the machine. We...you can forget that. Live life again. Maybe get her back..."
"SHE WILL NEVER COME BACK."
"Did you even try? Did you even once apologise to her?"
"It would have been pointless. Besdies, I was working."
"I'm not letting you do this."
"You have no choice..."
"Get out of me...get out!"
He writhed in pain. He fell to the ground. He tried to pull himself up, to grab the crystal, to destroy it, to end the cycle. But another part of him was telling him not to, telling him to leave the crystal, to work...that it would all be okay. That the machine needed refining. Yes, that was it. The alien...even if it had been him, there was no reason he had to end up like that. It was a warning, the alien's apperance, he could avoid that fate...NO, DESTROY THE CRYSTAL. END THIS, END IT ALL...but no. He knew not to do that. That was a silly, small, scared thought, born of fear. He was in control. He? Which one? Did it matter? There was only one now. Only one.
And he had work to do.
He stared at the clock. Still ten minutes to go. He'd always pictured himself jumping back at exactly one minute to midnight. Why, he couldn't remember, but that was how it was going to be. He'd been imagining it so clearly and for so long, that to do it any other way was unthinkable. It caused him actual physical pain to even think, TO EVEN THINK, of doing it now, ten minutes early. That's how bad he had gotten.
He took his eyes off the clock and stared into the time crystal instead. He saw himself refeclted back. No, not him, the alien! It was looking back at him. For a fleeting second he thought it had returned now, to take the crystal away, to end his impssoble dream, to dash it all so cruelly. He almost felt relief at that thought, then he felt angry at himself. This was the last year of his lief! He had to do it. A year was a terrible thing to waste. He looked deeper into the crystal and the alien was gone. Only he looked back out at himself. He tried to smile, but couldn't.
Five minutes to go.
He went over the meeting with the alien in his mind again. He used to go over it a lot, but the work had been so intense in the last year that he had put it out of his mind. But he could still bring it back, and so vividly, the most vivid memory he could bring himself to recall. Far more vivid than even the most vivid memory of her. Maybe it was the time crystal. Maybe it amplified his memory. He had never been able to find out how the time crystal worked...he felt the sudden terror he felt when he reminded himself that he didn't know if it WOULD work. No, it would, of course it would...the alien had promised.
He'd been sitting here, in his lab, waiting for the new year. Waiting for...change? Ha. She was gone. Nothing mattered. A new year wasn't going to change anything. It wouldn't change the emptiness inside him. Wouldn't make him a person again. He would continue to fade, continue to waste his life. All his work had been put aside. Even the machine. The time machine. He laughed as he thought about it. A time machine! How could he even have thought such a thing was possible?
Then the alien had came. It was the same heigh as him. But its skin was so white to almost be translucent and its face...it wasn't a human face. He had stared in awe, unable to move, unabel to comprehend what was happening. Then it had spoke, in a voice that was strangely familiar and, above all, sympathetic. It had told him it had been watching his planet for years. Mostly watching him. It told him how brilliant his time machine was. How he shouldn't give up hope. There was just one thing missing, it had said. The crystal. It handed the crystal to him. It smiled then. It was strange, seeing a smile on such an inhuman face. Sad, definitely sad. Then it was gone. Just like that. The clock clicked over into the new year and the alien was gone. It was amazing, incredible, unbelievable...but it had happened. He knew it had happened because he had the crystal to prove it.
Then he'd went to work.
At first he tried to figure out where the crystal would possibly fit into his machine. It did not seem to have any use. He had examined the crystal and found nothing. He had been frustrated, but he didn't want to give up. This was his purpose now, his reason for being. He devoted every moment he had to working on the machine. He did not see anyone all year. He stopped only to eat and sleep, and even then he would go over equations as he ate and dream of the machine as he slept. He had put the crystal aside and continued to work on the machine along the old path he'd been working before the alien had come.
After three months of working, he suddenly knew exactly what the crystal was for. He had eoncountered a problem. An energy source was needed. Something...the cyrstal. It had just come to him. He inserted the crystal in the space he'd left in his machine for the unknown energy source and it fitted perfectly. He could not believe it.
There was a lot more to do before then. But he worked out that he'd be able to finish by the end of the year, if he worked every day, every hour. He'd finish literally just within a year. It seemed fitting.
So here he was. His time machine built, ready. Ready to take his consciousness back in time a year and take over his own body. Then he would have a whole year of his life back. For he had figured out that the machine could only take him back to a time in which the crystal existed. But that didn't matter. Going back a year would be proof, to himself, that the machine worked. He'd go back and know exactly how to build the machine without having to do all the work again. He could then work on making it so that he would be able to travel back even further into the past, into times before the crystal had come to him. If he didn't manage it first time around....he could just travel back in time again after a year. Again and again, each time the machine would grow more powerful. Eventually, he could use it to...well, he didn't know exactly. Change the world. Yes, definitely to change the world.
It was one minute to midnight. He breathed in deeply...and started up the machine. He felt the whole thing spinning around him. He saw the cyrstal light up, as it too span. He felt himself leave his own body. It felt like a dream. He had become a being of pure consciousness, floating around the chamber.
Then, suddenly, he had a body again.
"It worked," he thought to himself.
"It worked," he heard someone else think. The alien!? No, not the alien...it was him. He was in his own body...but his old consciousness was still there. The one from a year earlier. He hadn't been expecting that.
"I...I wasn't expecting you to be here," he thought.
"What, thought you'd have my body all to yourself?" his younger self said, out loud.
"Well...yeah."
"I can't believe this. A few minutes ago, an alien visits me, hands me a crystal...and then I feel another consciousness in my body. And it's MY consciousness. From a year in the future! I'm absolutely sure of that."
"Yes. I recognised you, recognise the way it feels to be you, and I expect you recognise a lot of yourself in me."
"You...you spent a whole year working on this?"
"Yes."
"A whole year...just so you could go back and do the year again! Why?"
"You know why."
"Yes, I do. I have all your memories. This is...this is crazy."
"You have my memories. You have my knowledge. Let me have your body now. Let me take over. And I will build the machine and build it better."
"Then what? What if it's not good enough, what if it still can't do anything but this...you'll go back again, won't you?"
"You know I will."
"How many times?"
"However many it will take."
"But...how does this work. You don't remember this happening, do you? Even though it's a year ago for you."
"No, I don't. I've changed history."
"So every time you go back...who's to say you're not really travelling to another dimension?"
"Does it really matter? I'm pretty sure this is my dimension, you feel the same as you did a year ago...but if it isn't, so what? All that matters is that consciousness is maintained."
"Not for me! I'll never become you now."
"But whent he machine is built, you can go back with me."
"Go back with you to what? A version of me...of you...of us...with the two of us already in it! Back to this moment, the two of us! Think of that! There would be four then, four consciousnesses in one body!"
"Which is why you must let me take control. Let me absorb everything in you."
"No!"
"Yes. You know it makes sense. I am the older consciousness. I should take over. As you say, to have four of us in one body, then eight, then sixteen...it would be too much. We would go mad. Let me take over...now..."
"No...you already sound mad."
"I sound like you!"
"No, there's a difference. You sound familiar...but not like me. Not exactly. Kind of like the alien sounded familiar...wait..."
"What?"
"..."
"I hear what you're thinking. Don't try to hide it from me...don't be absurd. The alien...you're thinking it was a future version of us!"
"Of you."
"Whatever. That's crazy. You saw what it looked like...you just saw it a few minutes ago. It wasn't human."
"It was of human size. It was distorted, wrong...but what if the time travel did that?"
"You are wrong, young one. Now let me take this body so I can begin our great work again..."
"No! It was you, of course! The time travel did something to you, changed you...changed US. Oh God. How many times did we do it? How many times did we live this coming year over and over? Eventually, it changed us! We weren't human anymore...somehow our body changed. We looked like...like that thing. That was us! Don't you see? It was us! From just a year in the future. This is the path you'd take us down again! If we do this year together, then go back and keep doing so...that's how we will end up."
"STOP IT. That isn't it at all. It was an alien, that is all it was. We will use this machine to do good, to change the world. It just needs refining first."
"What if it CAN'T change the world? What if all it can do is bring us back one year? Over and over, an infinite loop of madness!"
"It...no, you are wrong. The alien was physically here. It gave me...you...us the crystal."
"Okay, so improvments are made. It gives us the crystal...but only to start the cycle over again! Maybe it was dying, finally. Maybe that's why it looked the way it did, it was sick."
"No."
"You know I'm right! I can hear you screaming that I'm right!"
"That's you."
"It's you! too!"
"Stop trying to trick me...you're just scared."
"And you just don't want to think that you've wasted a year! But you're back now...you can do it over. But not working on the machine. We...you can forget that. Live life again. Maybe get her back..."
"SHE WILL NEVER COME BACK."
"Did you even try? Did you even once apologise to her?"
"It would have been pointless. Besdies, I was working."
"I'm not letting you do this."
"You have no choice..."
"Get out of me...get out!"
He writhed in pain. He fell to the ground. He tried to pull himself up, to grab the crystal, to destroy it, to end the cycle. But another part of him was telling him not to, telling him to leave the crystal, to work...that it would all be okay. That the machine needed refining. Yes, that was it. The alien...even if it had been him, there was no reason he had to end up like that. It was a warning, the alien's apperance, he could avoid that fate...NO, DESTROY THE CRYSTAL. END THIS, END IT ALL...but no. He knew not to do that. That was a silly, small, scared thought, born of fear. He was in control. He? Which one? Did it matter? There was only one now. Only one.
And he had work to do.
