Survival of the Fittest

Entry 3

Prompt Three: Fantasy - Back In Time
Your character has made Mr Dev laugh and been to the loo. However, as they turn to leave they notice something strange. A tall box all lit up with bright glowing lights. Your character is very curious and steps inside. There's some really weird noises. It feels like your character has been in the box for hours, and then the door opens. Your character has been transported back to their childhood home and sees themselves as a young child, but they can't see you. On the table in front of you is a riddle your remember was given to you as a child for homework. Solve the riddle and then you're free to go. However, if you touch anything from the past you will vanish into thin air.

A man calls his dog from the opposite side of the river. The dog crosses the river without getting wet, and without using a bridge or boat. How?

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Debra stepped out of the box, wondering where she was. It vanished, leaving her standing in the shower of her first room. The shower being the only place in the tiny rectangle without windows or doors that the box would fit. Memories of growing up in this place came flooding back. She examined the white room she spent a century living in. Desk, sink, and toilet on one side single person bed and shower on the other with glass wall to protect the bed from the shower.

She looked at what she believed to be her first body at age three, seated at the desk, talking with her electronic version. They are performing a test on the Latin language.

A few steps and she was looking down at the brunette at the far end of the room. Neither being noticed her or her movement. A paper appears on the desk in Latin. Homo ex adverso fluvii canem vocat. She remembered this moment. The child read the paper aloud with no emotion, then translated it into English.

"A man calls his dog from the opposite side of the river. The dog crosses the river without getting wet, and without using a bridge or boat. How?" After the translation, the paper vanished, no longer needed.

"Fluvius congelatus." Debra laughed while the child translated. "The river was frozen." Neither being reacted to her laughter.

She restated the answer. "The river was frozen. A fully logical response from a computer attempting to act human. Magic would be a better answer because it creates the mystery of which method I would use. I could freeze the river even in summer, float the dog and let it walk on air, prevent the water from touching the dog as it swam over, or make dry rocks appear under its paws. I could even part it like Moses. There were many possibilities."

She sighed, knowing how far she had come in eight centuries, yet knowing she will never completely understand being human. A normal three-year-old was so much better at it than she will ever become.

The room vanished, and she watched her younger self join with twenty other three-year-olds for mandatory exercise. The playground was massive, with many things to interest the young kids. An android version of herself supervised. Her friends were heading towards the ball pit so both Debra's joined them, the older version watching from the outside. She remembered knowing this activity should be fun, but not understanding how or why. She laughed, remembering how she finally learned to have fun. How she gave herself that body and recreated a time like this with these friends to experience it for real once.