Instants Instance Wattys2016

Chapter 1

01/05/2163 5pm.

Alex woke up, but didn't open his eyes. He was sure something was wrong. Shifting his weight slightly, he had to stifle a gasp as a bolt of pain shot up his leg into his spine. Something was definitely wrong there. Trying to think back, he realised that he couldn't actually remember getting into bed, which was almost certainly a bad sign. The bed didn't seem to be his, either, somehow it rippled under his movements.

He let his eyes drift open. The ceiling swam into focus, revealing that he was most definitely not anywhere he'd been before. The ceiling was cream coloured, and seemed to have a vaulted look, like a tiny cathedral, but upon closer inspection, it turned out to be woven out of some material somewhere between cloth and bone. Turning his head from side to side- very gingerly, as even that small movement caused him pain- Alex saw that the room was about four metres across and dome-shaped. There were all sorts of machines in the room, glossy white and chrome. Some were obviously medical, but others were so stylised that their purpose was unknowable. In one corner, Alex saw a disc floating at about waist height in the air, absolutely unsupported.

What even is this place? They have technology I've never heard of!

A door on the far side of the room suddenly hissed open, and a man strode through. He was probably in his mid fifties, with short dark-grey hair, black eyes and a slight smirk that twisted the corners of his mouth downwards, half-hidden behind a beard, as if he had about a hundred secrets swirling in his head and found them all amusing. He stood over Alex's bed and paused, apparently considering how best to begin. Alex's mind jumped to all the possible reasons why he could be here. The situation he was in had all the hallmarks of a kidnapping, waking up in an unknown location with a stranger wasn't exactly a good sign, after all. But why all the medical equipment? Organ harvesting seemed a little outlandish, but under the circumstances it seemed increasingly likely.

"So... you probably have a lot of questions." There was definitely a note of amusement in the man's voice, but at least he didn't seem to harbour any ill intent towards Alex, at least not to the extent that one would expect from someone about to harvest your organs.

"Who are you, and where am I?"

"Ah, straight to the tricky questions as usual, Alex!" Alex didn't ask what the man meant by this. "You can call me Nestor, though that is not my real name, more of a professional name. As for where we are, that's relatively simple in one regard, and not so simple in others. I suppose you would say that we are in Ukraine."

"Why did you bring me here and-"Alex struggled to sit up, but was thwarted by another shooting pain, which caused him to collapse back onto the bed "- what happened to me?"

"A car crash, I'm afraid. A driver who tried to take a picture whilst driving swerved into you. You broke your right femur, slipped a disc in your spine and got whiplash on top of all that. I brought you here for treatment and for a few other reasons that I'll tell you later."

Alex frowned. "But why am I not in hospital, then?"

Nestor smirked again, but frowned almost immediately, apparently considering how best to phrase his answer.

"Well, the main reason for that is that there aren't any hospitals around here anymore." He answered slowly, choosing each word carefully.

"What do you mean?"

"Umm..." he appeared to come to a decision, and snapped his fingers. "All right, I'm going to be as honest with you as I possibly can. The question you should have asked earlier wasn't where we are, but when we are."

"What do you mean? Wait... how long was I out?"

Nestor laughed. "From your perspective, about a day and a half. From the universal perspective, about a hundred and forty-eight years. I thought you might appreciate the better healthcare."

"Seriously, what are you talking about?" Alex was beginning to wonder whether Nestor was mad.

"You might want to brace yourself; this is going to be a shock." Nestor walked over to the wall of the room and drummed his fingers on it. Then the wall turned transparent, and Alex gasped.

Outside the window was something that bore very little resemblance to what Alex knew about Ukraine. For starters, he was pretty sure Ukraine didn't have deserts. For seconds, he was also under the impression that Ukraine wasn't covered in what were unmistakably bomb scars as far as the eye could see.

"This can't be Ukraine."

"Oh, but it is. In 2035, Russia attempted to invade Poland, but was beaten back because they didn't want to risk a war with the USA or China. In 2046 a suitcase nuke was set off in a main square in Kiev, sparking the war they had tried so hard to avoid. But the most important bit of history you've missed was in 2049. That is when a man named Harvey Gleeson-Wells created the first ever time machine."

Alex's brain finally caught up to what Nestor was saying. "You brought me here by time machine?"

Nestor nodded.

"But why would you do that? I'm just some kid!"

"No one is just some anything." Nestor walked back towards Alex. "All of us have some destiny, some contribution to make to the grand fabric of history. And you have a very particular destiny, Alex."

"What is it?"

"You're going to save Time."