Prompted Fiction

#10 - Ruler of Time and Space (Week 3 No. 3)

The text in italics is part of the prompt, and was to be included at the start of the story.  I did take the liberty of partially obscuring some of the language, to avoid offending the sensibilities of more delicate readers.

"If someone told you they'd experienced an alternate timeline, you'd call them crazy, right? Of course, if that same someone were to prove it to you, then it'd be a different matter entirely.

"You see, there's more than one alternate timeline. F-k, there's . . . I dunno . . . Hundreds? Thousands? Millions? They come about every time someone makes a decision - and I'm not talking little things. What you have for breakfast is your own f-king business, and choosing between a boiled egg with dippy soldiers or a bowl of your favourite cereal has never - and more to the point, will never - make a blind bit of difference.

"No, it's the big stff. Left or right? Going out on the piss or curling up on the sofa to watch crappy TV. It's the things that put you somewhere else, somewhere other than you might have been.

"In this timeline, you turn right, whereas, in the other . . . Well, you catch my drift.

"So what's it gonna be? Left, or right?"

" . . . "

"Nah, gotcha! I'm just f-king with you. I mean, sure . . . If you were to make that decision right now, then you'd definitely create a couple of vastly differing timelines, but thats not why you're here. You're not ready for that!"

" . . . "

"Aw, shucks . . . Got nothing to say? Well, I . . . S-t, d'you hear that alarm? Means someone has managed to go back and alter something in past, someons' trying to create an alternate timeline where something big didn't happen.

"Yeah, damn straight that's a problem. See, there are a few things that're set in stone. They happen in every timeline and if they're taken out of the equation . . . Well, suffice it to say that 'cataclysmic event' is probaly an understatement . . . Now listen close. We don't have long at all before all of this, everything you see before you, comes crashing down.

"I'm sending you back, kid.

"Fix it . . ."

Before I could respond, a bright light filled my entire field of vision. The floor fell out from under me, my stomach lurched, and I fell for a long time.

When the lights dimmed again, I was standing on a stone pathway. My brain barely registered the cut stone structures that loomed on either side of me in the darkness. I wasn't sure what that damned idiot had done, and I wasn't sure where – or when – I might be.

My stomach roiled. I tilted my head to one side, and retched. The vomit spattered against the plaited hair straps of my sandals. Llama hair, a voice in my head suggested, for some reason I couldn't fathom. They were funny sandals, too, the leather soles ending at the ball of the foot, leaving my toes unprotected.

A voice spoke to me, a young voice, a child's voice. It was a boy; dark-haired, solemn eyed, thoughtful expression. He was a handsome child, except for his oddly-shaped head – it was almost pointy. His clothes seemed fancy, his tunic decorated with feathers and the occasional jewel that caught the dim light from stars and braziers. For a moment, his words were just noise, the buzzing of a mosquito in my ear. Then something slotted itself into place like a radio tuner homing in on a station. I could understand the words.

"You okay?" the child repeated.

Quechua, my achy head offered. But even as I bent double and vomited a second time, I realised that I shouldn't have known that. I had never studied Quechua or any South American language. And somehow, I knew that this was an old sort of Quechua. So this was the purpose of the device that irresponsible idiot had popped into my brain.