Tales Of The Macabre

Endless loop

I struggled to remember a time when I was happy. My life seemed to be an endless loop of disappointments, hardship, booze, and drugs. The self-medicating didn't do anything to help my situation, but it certainly made living in misery a whole lot easier.

It all started when my father was murdered in front of me and my little sister. The whole memory of it was a vague blur. I remembered a shadow, I remembered shouting and a bang and I thought the killer said something about hurting us but that's about it. Maybe my brain was protecting itself from the pain and just blocked most of it out. We were just kids after all.

I liked to imagine that life was good before the events of that night. I would imagine my mother tucking me and my sister into bed while my father sat reading us stories.

My mother completely shut down after that night. She never talked about it. In the end, it drove her mad and she ended up dying in a mental institution. My sister blamed herself for it. Sometimes I blamed her too. It was easier to have someone to blame for it. I hated myself for it though. My sister like me also used drugs to block out the pain that was our childhood. she wasn't so lucky though. In the end, it all just got too much for her and she killed herself.

Time travel had been invented about thirty years ago. But people had only known of its existence for the past ten years. When time travel was invented by its creator Stanley Phelps. The Global government decided it was too much power for one man to have. So they took it for themselves in the best interests of the people.

But when the people found out that a few of the Global-elite were using it to enrich themselves and change history in their favour. It sent shockwaves around the world. Pushing people to rise up against them. That triggered the global riots of 2068. That saw over 50 million people killed.

The riots were Inevitable. The world had so many social and economic problems. Poverty rates were at their highest in the history of humanity. And instead of the world government fixing the actual problems. They blind the people with false hope of a dream and it didn't matter your status our how much money you had. Everyone had a chance to make it all better. And the solution was the Global time lottery which chooses a member of the population through a lottery once every six months to go back in time and change one aspect of their lives for the better. And it worked the riots stopped. And It cemented the president of the world in the pages of history as the greatest president there ever was.

It was at that time. The night the whole world stopped dead as the numbers for the lottery got called. The chances of winning were billions to one. So normally I wouldn't watch it. For me, it seemed like a fools dream, hoping for something that would never happen. Tonight felt different though, I was feeling hopeful for once in my life.

I sat watching as the numbers got drawn. As each number corresponded to my personal security number. I began sweating. This can't be right. I ticked every number down to the last ball. I must have read over the numbers about fifty times before it actually sank in I had won. And when my name and picture came up on the screen I knew I wasn't imagining it.

They flew me first class to the government's headquarters in Germany where the time device was situated. They brought me into a room and sat me down at a table with three government officials.

They must have asked me a million questions. They asked for my reason for going back. How long I want to go back for and most importantly what year, day and time.

I knew the year and what day it was because it all happened on the night before my ninth birthday. As for the time, it was one of the few memories of that night that my brain held on to.

The process by which they send you back was fairly simple. They put you to sleep and then when you wake up, you are at your desired destination. They didn't tell you much about the process, I guess it was a highly guarded secret.

As I started coming back around, my senses started to kick in. Familiar sights and smells flooded my mind with memories long forgotten. But they weren't nice memories. There was a sense of fear and intimidation from the images my brain was conjuring from the sights and sounds of the house I once called home.

I remembered the gun cabinet where my dad kept his gun. As I opened the cabinet door memories of my mother giving out to my dad for never locking it flooded my mind. I slowly crept up the stairs with my dad's revolver in my hand. I crept down the hall to the bedroom where I and my sister slept.

I slowly pushed open the door and peeked my head inside. I glanced over to the bed where I slept and I saw a young me sat on the bed crying. I look over to my sister's bed and the fear I had felt walking up the stairs turned to anger.

The light from the holographic clock I had gotten as a present one year lit up the room. I saw a man on top of my sister with his hand over her mouth muffling her screams. I heard her begging him to stop. But what I heard next sent shivers down my spine.

“Please, daddy stop you are hurting me.”

I couldn't believe what I was seeing.

I shouted to my dad to get off her. His head swung around to meet my gaze. He was like a deer got in the headlights. He looked like a kid that just got caught doing something he shouldn't.

“Who the hell are you” he shouted.

“Get the hell out of my house” he screamed as he lunged at me.

I had the gun raised at this point and as he came at me I fired, hitting him in the chest. He kept coming at me as I pumped another bullet into his head. Dropping him to the floor.

My sister and my younger brother screamed for our mother who came running into the room after the shots were fired.

She ran over to cradle my dad while also screaming for me to get out and not to hurt the kids.

The watch on my hand began to beep, sounding the end of my trip.

I walked over to my mother and I looked at her dead in the eyes.

“He can't hurt us any more mum,” I said as I began fading away into the darkness.