Time Travel Tales

4. Trespass

I feel sick as the swirling subsides and my head hurts like its just been compressed by a great force. I’m afraid to open my eyes, afraid of the disappointment when I open my eyes see my laboratory, see that yet again, my efforts to achieve time travel has been in vain.

 Indeed it feels more and more likely that I have failed for I am still alive. I have no protective clothing on me due and due to the nature of my machine, time travel achieved by teleportation, in theory the energy and chaos of time should have already killed me. Not that I wanted to die, I just never really believed I’d ever achieve it; I’d gone through all the motions without any real confidence for success. I sigh then open my eyes.

 For a moment there is a flash of colours and swirls, a visual portrayal of insanity and then I see a door. Still not sure whether this is real or not I walk through the door. Again I see bright colours and patterns that make me want tear my eyes out, then I see a street. I soon recognise as a street in Venice I once visited. The street is lined with doors and the doors all have dates going in chronological order in front of me stretches doors of future dates and behind me the doors of past dates.

 It takes me a while to figure it out but I manage to create a comprehensive theory. It goes thus: The place I am in is a transitional space between locations and times, a gap in the universe. However the place is so unnatural and odd in its existence if seen, the person who sees it will inevitably go insane. Therefore, in order to stop this, my brain has created a masking system and has allowed me to see this place in a way in which I can understand, translating and simplifying the gap in space and time for my understanding.

 “I’ve done it!” I shout, while laughing and crying at the same time with the sheer joy of my achievement. But then I stop. Because I think I just heard something, a whisper.

 Trespass

There it is again, a whisper.

 Trespass

A voice full of malice, I can hear my heart beating faster.

 Trespass

Am I going mad? Did I see too much of the unshielded view of this place.    There can be nothing here, this is a gap in the universe, nothing was here before me, “NOTHING!” I shout into the empty street, daring it to whisper the infernal word, but it doesn't, there’s just silence.

 Then I hear them, footsteps, shoes on cobbles, coming closer and closer.

Click

Click

Click

I rip open the door nearest to me and flee to the safety of my world.

 I’m back in my laboratory, present day. Suddenly my strength leaves me and I slump into my chair, tears of relief streak down my face.

Click