Save Us

Chapter 4 : Again

'I don't think I want to go through this again.' That was she said. However ...

"Why can't I remember the date when this photograph is taken?" Hope looked at the picture. She was scrolling through her photos in her computer. "I know I have a digital version with the date of when it was taken but where."

Hope went on like this for a while before finally finding the photo. "There it is!" she exclaimed. She moved the cursor to the image and right clicked. She opened the properties.

"Okay got it!" she had the black watch on her wrist. She started to enter the date and time of the event. Hope said she wouldn't want to go through the pain of time travel but instead she had been doing so for the past few days.

She would look through all her old photographs. Finding their dates and hopefully the time. She had visited the past several times. Of course in those several times, she had to witness their funeral again.

Even if she had to watch the funeral a few times, she was willing to go through it to at least see her friends again. As far as she was concerned, she was only brought to Maya's funeral.

"Okay. I think this is the right time," said Hope as she looked at the watch and then at the photograph. Her finger pressed the Start button and the familiar feeling of being thrown backwards was felt. She was already used to it.

It didn't take long for the feeling of crashing through glass to come. "5!" shouted a lot of people. Hope's vision became clear and saw what event she landed in. It was when she was back in high school.

"4!" shouted the entire class Hope was in. The students were looking eagerly at the clock on the wall.

"3! ... 2! ... 1!" The school bell rung and classes were over. School was over and the holidays were starting the next day. Everyone in the class started to scream in joy. "Yes!" shouted some. Hope felt her body standing up and was leaving the classroom.

The students were so happy. Hope felt someone grabbing her by the shoulder. "Hope!" shouted Ember.

"Oh hey Ember," said Hope.

"So what's the plan for this holiday?"

"The same old beach."

"The beach again?" asked Ena who appeared out of the blue. "Aren't there plenty of places we could go?"

"Yea!" exclaimed Mallory who joined them.

"Then do you have any suggestions?" asked Hope.

"How about we go to the movies?" asked Ember. "It's been a long time since we been there."

"Yea let's go there!" exclaimed Maya.

"Okay then," said Hope. Hope was enjoying this moment. She was watching her younger self who was still in high school. 'I never thought I miss school.'

Her body started to feel odd and she was thrown forward. 'No! Not n-' She went through the same feeling before the feeling of crashing into glass. Her vision was as usual blurry at first but quickly cleared up.

It was the same event. Maya's funeral. It was always Maya's funeral which she would witness again. 'Here we go again,' she thought. The event played again in front of her eyes. It hurt her to watch the event again and again but she was willing to go through it.

She cried a lot in her past trips but she cried less now. It was still a pain though. 'I miss you Maya.' As soon as Hope's body was standing outside the gates, she felt her body being thrown forward.

It didn't take long before Hope was back in the present. She looked at the photograph in her hand. "I entered the wrong time."

"Again," she said to herself. She went back to her computer and started scrolling through the images. She stopped at one and clicked to open it. The photograph was taken a few weeks after Maya's funeral. The friends were together at the beach. They left an empty spot in the middle for their deceased friend, Maya.

"Why not?" Hope entered the date and time into the watch. Her fingers on the Start button. She felt nervous. It would be the first time she time travelled to the past after one of her friend's death. She pressed the button and the familiar feeling came back.

Her eyes opened and cleared up. She was standing barefoot on the sandy beach she and her friends would visit.

"Hope!" shouted Mallory. "Come on we are going to take the photo!"

"Coming!" shouted Hope. She raced to her friends. Ena was setting up the camera.

"Alright camera is ready," Ena said. She went over to her friends.

"We should leave a spot for Maya," said Mallory. The smiles on their faces disappeared. "S-she wa-was our friend. We should have an empty spot for her."

The others nodded. They left a small gap enough for a person in the middle. "Alright! Get ready! 1! ... 2! ... 3!" Ena exclaimed. They heard the sound of the camera's shutter. They stayed in their position for a few seconds before running over to the camera.

"Check the image," said Ember. Ena was handling the camera while the others were impatient.

"Here you go," said Ena as she showed the camera's image to them.

"Nice," said Hope.

"Definitely a good photo," said Mallory.

"I'll send it to all of you when I get home," said Ena.

Hope was smiling. She missed this kind of moments. She was mentally smiling. Her body or younger self was chatting with her friends.

Hope felt her body being thrown forward and knew what was to come. It took a while this time. Normally it felt as though she was travelling fast through time but this time it was different. Her body felt as though she crashed through glass.

Her vision should have been cleared but it wasn't. It took a moment before Hope realised why. Her younger self was crying. She didn't know what was going on. It wasn't the same event of Maya's funeral. It was different.

"No," she said. "Ember ..."

That was when it clicked to Hope. This was not the funeral. It was during Ember's death. Hope wasn't aware of the smell of smoke. Her younger self wiped the tears away. Her vision was clear enough.

Hope saw where her younger self was. She was standing in front of Ember's place. It was up in flames. The event took place early in the morning. Hope's younger self was supposed to meet Ember in the morning. However by the time she reached her place, the place was consumed by fire.

Hope's body was on the ground crying. Firefighters were already there trying to put out the fire. "We found a person!" shouted a firefighter. Some of them ran in and when they came out, Hope didn't want to look.

They were able to carry Ember's dead body out. "No...," said Hope.

'No! Why am I here? I thought it would be Maya's funeral again! No!' She was screaming in her mind. 'I want to go back now.'

She started feeling pain in her heart. It was a torture to see the event. As she hoped for, her body felt as though it was thrown forward.

Her eyes opened to see she was back in the present. Tears started rolling down her cheeks. "Why?"

A sudden thought came to her mind. "What if ..."She scrolled through her computer. "I witness the death closest to the event."

Hope looked through the pictures and found one taken some time after Ember's death. She checked the date and time. Once she entered, she closed her eyes. "If it's true, I don't think I can do this."

Her fingers pressed the Start button.