Traveler trilogy Book 2.
Five years after killing Levi Cornwall, Arthur Morgan is happy. He has a wife who loves him, an honest job he enjoys, and two beautiful children named Sadie and Hiram. All of it is turned on its head, however, when Francis S...
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Alright guys. This is a bit of a WEIRD chapter. Remember, this series is a science fiction series with a western backdrop. This story thus far has been lots of western and not much science fiction. This chapter, however, is a LOT of science fiction and almost no western. Hopefully it doesn't jolt you out of the story too much. I sort of fell down a rabbit hole of weird physics mysteries when I was writing it. Enjoy!
~Alex
Francis had a splitting headache.
He seemed to be getting these migraine-like pains a lot lately, and nothing seemed to help, including the last few ibuprofen they'd brought along with them when they came back to 1899. Perhaps it was simply something rearing its head coincidentally the closer they came to the end of Arthur's story, but after all he'd seen and done, Francis didn't think this was a coincidence.
Something was very wrong with him, and it was likely his fault. After all, this was his mistake in the first place, wasn't it? He was the architect of this new timeline. All of Jenny's pain and rage, as well as the danger she put them all in, were his fault. He couldn't keep his bloody mouth shut on that boat, and his arrogance had cost him and people he loved very, very dearly.
It was the middle of the day, and he sat in the small cottage in Annesburg alone at the kitchen table, with a cup of coffee in his hand. Sometimes the caffeine helped his headaches, but today it seemed to be doing nothing. He rubbed his temples methodically over and over in an attempt to calm the pain, but it did nothing.
A soft plopping sound on the table in front of him startled him for a moment, and he came to the realization his nose had begun to bleed. Thick, fat drops of blood hitting the table were what had made the noise.
"Shit," Francis whispered, pinching his nose and making his way to the sink for a towel or rag to help staunch the flow of blood. As he sat back down at the table, his arm accidentally knocked over his half-full cup of coffee, and Francis nearly leapt out of his skin when the coffee cup froze in midair, the liquid inside it fanning out like some sort of artful icicle. He realized at that moment, that somehow, in some way, time had frozen around him, and his headache had disappeared.
Mopping up the last bits of blood flowing from his nose, Francis looked around. Everything was silent and uncannily still. He appeared to be the only thing that could move, and if this was something he had done, he had no idea how to fix it.
Then, as if by magic, he heard a knock at the door.
Time was still frozen, so the knock unnerved Francis. Someone else was out there; someone else who existed outside of time, like he somehow could. Cautiously, Francis crept to the door and opened it slowly, prepared for anything and anyone on the other side.
He needn't have worried. Outside on the front stoop were two figures he knew well: Mother Superior Calderon - his aunt and the woman he'd known for years simply as The Traveler - and her brother, the Strange Man in the nice suit and top hat who happened to be Francis' biological father. The Traveler smiled sadly at him, but the Strange Man's face was stoic and emotionless, as cryptic as the sudden nosebleed Francis had experienced a moment ago.
