Chapter 23: Wake Up Rick

March 12th, ????

Rick felt what he thought was a tear on his cheek, but when he reached up to wipe it from his face, he realized that it was blood.

“Oh…” he murmured. “I remember now… I remember everything.”

He was still in his time coma, standing outside of a faded red door with Mary at his side.

“Are you ok?”

Rick’s mind was racing. Now that he remembered everything, there was just one thing that he couldn’t stop thinking about.

The fact that Emille had said something about seeing glimpses of a woman in the time stream… a woman that was going to kill Harry… a murderer. As much as he hated Harry, he wasn’t sure if killing was the right solution. After all, wasn’t that kind of the reason why Emille was so obsessed in the first place? She didn’t want to lose him.

“Mary, do you have plans to kill Harry?” Rick asked quietly.

“What? No!!” the woman insisted. “All I’m trying to do is help you wake up.”

Rick looked at her long and hard, trying to decide if he believed her or not. But whether or not he believed her didn’t matter at the moment. If she had wanted to kill him, she would have already done it.

“So what do we do now?” he asked, keeping his guard up.

Mary sighed.

“Unfortunately, I can’t go with you to the next place. But you’re almost there. You’ve made it this far. So whatever lies behind that final door, don’t give up ok?”

“What door?”

Mary pointed to a spot amidst the snow and trees to a black door standing ominously in a clearing by itself. Rick gulped, wiping the rest of the blood off his face.

“What’s beyond that door?” he asked. Mary shrugged.

“I honestly don’t know. I guess you’ll have to find out for yourself.” Rick sighed.

“Well, thanks for everything Mary…” he said with a small smile. Mary winked at him.

“Don’t worry dude. You’ll see me again.”

Did he want to see her again? He wasn’t sure… Rick then took a deep breath and walked up to the black door as the wind began to howl.

“Here goes nothing…” he muttered, and then he walked through the door.

He found himself in darkness, only with the light from the open door behind him. Slowly, the door shut behind him, casting him into utter darkness. However, before he could worry, a light came on several feet away from him, and some more lights came up to light the path to…

A person?

There was a person in there with him.

Hesitantly, Rick started walking.

It was a man.

A man with black hair wearing brown converse.

“H-hello?” Rick gulped. The man turned around, causing the teen’s mouth to drop open.

“No way…”

“Hello Rick.” the middle aged man smiled, putting his hands on his hips.

“Are you-are you-me?!”

“Yep. Well, kind of. I’m a representation of you in the future. I’m not really, well, it’s complicated.”

“I don’t understand.”

At this, the man laughed.

“Honestly, there’s going to be a whole lot more you don’t understand there buddy. What’s uh-what did she tell you to call her?”

“Who? Mary?”

“Wow. Very creative…” the older man said with a roll of his eyes. Well, she’s the reason this weird little thing is happening. Has she told you who she really is yet?”

Rick had to take a moment to process all of this. Talking to a future version of himself was really weird.

“I… guess not. Well, she would flip her lid if she found out I was here. She likes things very orderly. Unfortunately, her presence sometimes… causes some anomalies to happen…”

“Who is she?!” Rick blurted. The man simply laughed.

“You think I’m going to tell you that? Man I forgot how impatient I could be…”

Rick scowled.

He wasn’t sure if he liked the future version of himself. The man’s smile started to fade.

“Listen… er… younger me. Have you ever thought about what you would tell a younger version of yourself if you ever had the chance?”

Rick looked at him warily and then sighed.

“...Yeeeees.”

“Well that’s what I’m here to do. The things that are going to happen to you-we can’t change that. They have to happen. And I’m sorry for that. But-through it all, just remember that it’s only for a moment. You get out of it. You live a life. And an exciting life at that!”

Despite the encouragement, Rick couldn’t help but worry. What in the world was going to happen to him after he woke up?! What needed this much encouragement?

“So how do I wake up?” he asked. The older version of himself pointed to a point in the darkness that was suddenly illuminated. In the spot of light, was an hourglass-just like the one he thought he was dreaming about back in the eighteen hundreds. Standing in front of it, was his sister. The teen took a deep breath and started walking.

“Oh and Rick-.”

Rick turned around to see a grave look on the face of his older self.

“T-I mean-Mary-might do some things that you don’t necessarily agree with or understand. But you need to learn to trust her if you are going to work with her in the future.”

Rick nodded in response, and then ran into the darkness towards the hourglass, eager to get out of there, but still feeling a bit wary. Cadi stood there looking up at him.

“Hi Rick.” she said. Rick gave a small smile.

“Hey Cadi.”

“Are you ready to wake up?”

“I guess so. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

The little girl nodded and handed him a bat.

“Then do it.”

Rick stood there for a moment, feeling the weight of the bat in his hands. There was no confusion as to what he needed to do now. He looked up at the hourglass, feeling determined, and then with all of his might, he took the bat to the glass. It shattered with the sound of a thousand plates being smashed, and the glass fell to the ground as sand.

“I’ll see you soon Cadi.” Rick promised as the sand picked up and started to swirl around him. He closed his eyes and listened to the rush of the wind in his ears and felt the soft sand pelting him in the middle of the torrent.

He could do this…

Everything would be alright.

At least, if everyone wasn’t lying to him…

Finally, everything became dead quiet, and then there was the faint sound of something beeping.

Rick slowly opened his eyes.