Microstory 806: The Future and the Past

< > Table of Contents

During spring break, I had nothing interesting to do, so I just decided to go back home to visit my parents for the week, which I hadn’t done in a couple years. I was having trouble sleeping, and thought that it was just weird to be back after all this time, but another part of me was urging me to go to their basement. In almost a haze, I stuck two fingers in a hole in the wall paneling, and started ripping it all out. Then I just kept going, tearing out all the insulation. I had this uncontrollable belief that there was a subbasement I never knew about, and that this was the way to get to it. I felt validated to see a light on the other side, but was surprised to discover that it was not another basement, but instead, I was back in my bedroom...the past. It was so far in the past that we hadn’t even moved there yet. I had to sneak out quickly, not wanting to disturb the nice family that lived there. At the risk of screwing something up with the timeline, I contacted an old friend, and asked if he would take me on his relativity ship. The idea was to fly around for ten years, until I was back in my own time period, and then go back home. He agreed, but something must have gone wrong, and we found ourselves decades in the future, on another planet. And instead of coming out the same age I was before, I was ten years older, which was unfortunate, because this planet turned out to hold the secret to immortality. You had to be young enough for the immortality solution to work, though, and I had just barely passed that threshold.

The rest of the crew realized they would have to stay there in order to stay alive, so I took the ship myself, and headed back home, even though I knew it would be the year 2130 by the time I arrived, which meant everyone I knew and loved would be long dead. What I didn’t count on was learning that Earth was secretly being run by angels, nephilim, and demons. And the only reason they even told me about it was because they thought I was an alien, and wanted to include me in their future plans for the humans. Out of fear of what they would do to me when they found out I was one of those humans, I booked passage on a time machine, hoping it would finally take me back home. Once again, I was detoured, this time 300 years even further in the future. I made my way to an information booth, and asked what things were like now. The booth attendant explained to me that the secret of the supernatural creatures had long ago come to light. Humans were now hunting angels, paving the wave for nephilim to take full control, for they lacked the weakness that their angel parents possessed. Things were actually going okay in this state, but demons were slowly gaining power. Seeing me as an valuable outlier, a group of independent supernaturals who wanted to see the world return to what it once was, bequested me special nephilim powers, hoping I would use them to fight the demons.

Still seeing myself as an outsider, I tried to use these powers to return home, which is all I ever wanted, but of course this could not be. I accidentally jumped millions of years into the future. Most everything was the same as it was while I was first growing up, as some sort of cyclical timeline sort of thing. I discovered myself to be a particularly notable historical figure, even though I hadn’t ever actually done anything to impact the world. Hoping to capitalize on this, scientists had been researching for years how to clone me. They ended up creating a genetically engineered daughter from my DNA, whom they considered to be close enough to their goals. She still needed someone to take care of her, though, and now that I was back, I was the obvious choice. I decided to take her out on a stroll so we could get to know each other. Somehow, I walked several miles before I realized she was no longer even with me. I tried to retrace my steps, but I never found her, and no one seemed to be bothered by this. They shrugged and said that if she was to be their savior, she would have to find a way to survive on her own. So that’s why I’m here. I’m hoping to find even a small remnant of the ancient nephilims and angels. They’re the only ones who can recharge my powers, or send me back to the past, where I can work to stop any of this from taking place. Can you help me?