I walked slowly down the hall, munching thoughtfully on a bag of stale potato chips, unaware that I was in the most danger I had ever been in my entire life. It had been a little over a month since 'the Incident', now an honored event that had lifted me to celebrity status. Jumping within the 70-year radius that any self-preserving historian would respect had been suicide. History, a cruel mistress, simply did not allow anyone to bang her, or any of her brother's favorite children.
History, Time, Space, and Continuum: the most deadly set of quadruplets in, well, History. No one was quite sure where or what they were, but the Four controlled most of whatever happened. The famous, advancement, anything to do with 'contining' belonged to the youngest brother, Continuum. The worlds, stars, including Earth were Space's dimension, though he controlled any space: any tangible or logical thing outside of thought and abstract concepts was Space's place. Time owned thought, abstract concept, and basically ran the world on her OCD schedule. History was the oldest, not surprisingly, and took care of making sure everything stayed the way it should. History was also the most deadly- mess anything up, misstep by one millionth of a millimeter, and BAM, one dead historian. You simply vaporized, disappearing forever. Not pleasant at all. This was why everyone had been so surprised I had lived. A crime like that, messing with the 70 year rule, Continuum, Time, and History? It had been suicidal.
The shrieking came from everywhere, everything. I continued crunching the potato chips, grimacing slightly as the flavor hit my tongue. The unstoppable screams from the alarms had begun at 4 o'clock yesterday, making sure everyone knew that Max, from the tech department, had finally managed to make a howling bomb. What he hadn't figured how to do yet was turn it off.
I ate another potato chip, relishing every soft crack as the frail tasteless mass went soft and chewy to the touch of my salvia. Reaching up, I adjusted silicon stuffed into my ears, serving as blockades; earplugs, cutting out almost all sound. Stepping through the door to the largest room in the building, the HoH, or the Hall of Horrors, as we all jokingly called after the fact that it was were we received our reports and had taken all our finals, I glanced around nervously before heading towards the center of the enormous room. There, I stopped and stared at the Timeline.
In the exact center of the circular hall, there sat a perfectly round glass case, holding in the coils of parchment, goat skin, paper: all forming a twisting line. The Timeline. And beneath it sat a roll of paper and a needle, like seismograph. A tracker, to show us Historians what exactly the state of the Timeline was. And there I stood, staring down at that needle, jumping far higher than it should. No one else had noticed, due to the earplugs, but another, louder, far more piercing sound had spilt the air a few hours ago. It had been the alarm set to go off whenever the Timeline was in mortal (or rather, immortal, yet critical) danger. Watching the needle jump ever higher as the level of danger to humanity rose, I set a steadying hand on the glass surrounding the Timeline map, and closed my eyes tightly. 5 days. Just five days. Five days until the Timeline collapsed completely, folding inward and sending everyone and everything into an never-ending loop.
Then, turning on the stop, I pulled my sweaty hand from the glass and walked out hurriedly out of the room and went to fetch one person from every department.
"Look, there's something I need to tell you," I said softly to Johta, Keeda, and Max as we stood together in my office. "The Timeline's alarm had been set off, and I'm to find out why. Right now."
Keeda stared at me with one of those expressions that she only got when either I had been talking or had just been hit over the head by frying pan.
"You... you can't do that." Max said, staring at me with the same befuddled expression as Keeda.
"Agreed." Johta put in. "That's probably the stupidest thing I have heard come out of your mouth yet." She smirked slightly then continued, "You realise you have to jump at least 70 years into the future and that you probably wouldn't figure out what is happening-"
"But-" I broke in, but she kept talking.
"Do you have any clue whatsoever what happens when people jump into the future?"
"Yes, but-"
"I don't want to hear it!" Johta said, then glanced at the rest of the assembly. "What? Give me some support!"
They glanced at one another, then Keeda said softly, "Have you seem the Timeline?"
"Well, no, w-"
"No buts." Max put in, grinning slightly.
"We're a group of time travelers. Our job is to be stupid." I snorted.
"Lex, please." Mihi pleaded, desperate. "What if it's a bomb? If you jump to the future-"
"I never said anything about jumping to the future-"
"-you'll land in the middle of a wasteland chock full of nuclear waste!" She made her point triumphantly. "And you didn't have to say it; I know you." Johta and Mihi eyed me as Mihi added this, and I glanced away, unable to hold their joint glares.
I shook my head. "There's no use in protesting. I'm jumping. I was just asking for your support so if-"
"-when-" Keeda's eyes shimmered slightly with tears.
"-I come, right, when, I come back home, I'm going to need medical help." I took a deep breath. "And as to the fact that, I'm leaving. Right now."
They stared at me, mouths hanging slightly open. I felt nausea boil in my stomach, but I smiled weakly.
"Here I go." And the world lost it color.
