The Time Machine - The Traveler

My take one what a sequel to The Time Traveler would be.

 

-Prologue-

            Science says man should only move about the three known plains of reality.  Practical men hold my sanity in question, always taking the chance to note that what I do, what I have accomplished, is pure hog wash and never in any plain of mind possible.  But believe me when I say this to you my friends; this profession of mine, this art I have crafted from mere pen and paper into a fully functioning device, is unlike any that your wildest dreams could imagine.

            With a flip of this switch I may visit those long dead, or sit down for tea with those not even thought of yet.  I may return to times that are now nothing but pages in a history book, or go forward till a time where our lives are what those books are about.  With my machine I have traveled to times where cities were nowhere to be found, where people as we know them now were roving packs of uncivilized wild men.  I have been to times of great despair, of happiness and prosperity, and of great expanses of nothingness.

            There is a time way forward in the future, past the rise, decline, eventual rebirth, and second and final death of our race that I like to call the “cut off line”.  It is the furthest I have ever traveled friends, but today I vow before you all, my audience, that in no more than thirty-five minutes I will return with proof of passing this “cut off line”, and you will all wait here until I return, talk amongst yourselves my friends, I will return.

            With that the Traveler was up in the seat of his wonderful machine.  With a few knobs turns, a few switches flipped, and a lever or two pushed or pulled, the machine sprang to life.  Spewing steam from brass pipes sticking from odd angles throughout the back, the room erupted in a blaze of light and sound centralizing around the Traveler and his machine.

            The sun set and gave way to the moon over and over until all that the Traveler could percept was quick flashes reminiscent of a camera’s flash hitting second after second.  Five years gives to ten, ten turns to fifty, which soon turns to one hundred years, and as the minutes pass by so do the millennia.  The Traveler finds himself passing human history, watching what he had known change for what the newer generations found to be bigger and better, and then watching as for the first time it collapses.  Fire and terror reek outside of his own dimension, the fourth dimension, that of time.  Closing his eyes he quickly passes this painful blip of time and enters the next great rise of man and then finds himself traveling through the second and final great downfall, man’s last flare before dying off uneventfully and permanently.

The Traveler notes this as the time where the old world comes to an end, and a new, disturbing world begins.  Gargantuan bugs with the feathers of birds and appendages of a canine dominate the skies in huge clusters.  Hoards of elephant sized carnivorous horses baring the fangs of lions stock the lands.  Many more strange and wondrous species of animal rise before the Traveler, but they mean nothing to him, for they are nothing but dust in the wind compared to his main objective, the “cut off line”.

            He has only ever glimpsed it; just a small grasp at something he knows is an ice berg.  A world where the air is thin, all living things except those most basic dead or dying, the sun has arrived towards the end of its long life.  This is the end of it all, but what comes next?  This is the question the Traveler has come to ask for, this is what he will find out, and this is his mission.  What is beyond what is last?

Prologue End!

 

Chapter 1 – Being

Bursting onward the Traveler’s machine pulls quickly through eons of life, and death.  All around the universe molds in a new and frightening pit.  Planets once marked as the homes of the dominant races fall.  Mars expands greatly through the years before collapsing inward upon its inhabitants.  Mercuary was one of the last to fall.  After growing and finding great prosperity in the mining of rare metals once colonized the planet fell prey to the bum luck of being closest to the sun.  When the sun entered the first phase of death, Venus and all of the alien inhabitants upon her soils found themselves vaporized from all existence.

            Even travesties such as extinctions of races only dreamt by some in the Travelers times find no room for thought in the grand scheme of time, and with the death of the old order of the universe the Traveler finds nothing but everlasting darkness.  God had reached forward, and with one great hand grabbed the sun and with it all other light from all other worlds.

            “This is the END!”  Maddeningly the Traveler finds himself bursting with anger, “GOD!  Where are you!?”  Turning towards the one being he knows can take all from the world without so much as a twitch of the pinky the Traveler screams in rage for God to show his face.

            “Even with me trapped in a bubble of time I know you are here with me!”  He bellows, “I know that you can hear every last word I call out at you!  Now show yourself!”

            In an instant his machine sputters and begins to bust apart, shattering into a million tiny puzzle pieces the Traveler is sent hurtling head first into the dark abyss of what used to be a universe.  Hanging for one second the Traveler tries to make sense of where he could possibly be before starting to fall.  But fall where?  Up, down, side to side, no such directions exist in this state of darkness.  All that is known to him is that he is moving, and fast.

            Fear freezes his blood in his veins, a dark and icy cool man known as fright clenches the Travelers throat in its claws and squeezes tight until breathing becomes impossible.  Eyes tear, mouth dries, body starts to grow limp, the brain enters a thick fog, and before it all ends, Death knocks lightly at the door to his heart.

            Before the knob can even be turned to let the eternal sleep enter the Traveler is plucked lightly from the darkness.  In one single flash he is pulled through into a new world.  Warmth is returned to him and unknowingly he is seamlessly put at ease as a light shines brightly upon him.  The light grows, brighter and brighter until all is consumed.  Blinded the Traveler must shield his eyes but even that is not enough, the light consumes him whole and swallows him.  Darkness once again surrounds him and sleep comes in a tidal wave of exhaustion.

            “Sleep child, all will be known to you upon your return, but for now you must rest and regain your strength…”  A kind and aged voice whispers in a slow wisp of air.

            A millennia passes by in a second as the grains in the hourglass of time slowly fall.  Life may end, the sun may fall with no rise on the horizon seen, but still, Time marches forward.  Never tiring, never failing to count on, and slowly trudge forward.  This is the order of things.   Ever since the original creators met to piece together the universe, all the creatures, all the planets and stars, the galaxies, Time has always been the one being to be ever present, not even God can claim that.

            Blinking against the harsh light invading his eyes, the Traveler tries to look at his surroundings.  He takes note of his new clothing, pajama like pants and shirt, and of the extra comfy recliner he is placed in, the oddity of his present predicament seems almost laughable.  Looking to his right he sees nothing but blank space white and spotless.  Same for his left, for above, and as well as below.  Looking to what he labels as in front of him, the Traveler sees a tall and withering man slowly writing in the pages of a thick ledger.

            “Hello Mr. Traveler.”  The man seems to whisper and bellow at the same time.  His voice occupies every space of this infinite white world.  “You called for me?”

            “Excuse me…?”  The Traveler stammers slowly, unable to form words quite yet.  The old man’s words still rattling his mind about his head, the Traveler recalls a falling sensation as he pieces together his immediate past.

            “My machine had been destroyed…and as I fell…Death had come for me.  But if that is true, why am I still living?”  He slowly reasons with himself.

            Appearing at the Traveler’s side, the old wither man seamlessly moves, as if with the wind, without sound.

            “Who says that you are not dead my son?”  The old man whispers, once more sending the Traveler’s head into a spin, “Here in this realm there is no such thing as live, nor dead.  Only the action of being.”

Reviews

[zee]

I loved this story. The prologue was a nice touch. I got all excited for the story to begin.
The way you portrayed Time is amazing. I love this line, "A millennia passes by in a second as the grains in the hourglass of time slowly fall. " Makes me realize there's so much more than we actually know.