Microstory 1203: Alim Demir

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Serkan Demir wasn’t the only runner in the family. Serkan’s younger brother, Alim took to the activity as well, and would easily surpass Serkan in speed. As he was born on June 17, 2013, he was one day too young to register for what should have been his first City Frenzy event in 2025, and had to wait an entire year. Sadly, he would not be able to race then either, however, as the flu disqualified him. He would finally get his chance to prove his might in the tenth annual event, shortly after turning fourteen, and prove it he did. He won that race, and the next three after that, beating his own brother’s record, which would never be broken by anyone else. The event ended after his final win, which didn’t matter to him. Not only did he age out of qualification, but it was time for him to move on with his life anyway. He still loved to run, but what he really wanted to do was become a food engineer. Things were changing as he was growing up. No longer were consumers willing to eat so-called normal food. They wanted their nutrition to be tailored to their needs. They wanted it to taste exactly as they liked it, but also be effortlessly healthy. They didn’t want to kill animals if they didn’t have to, and they didn’t want produce grown with harmful chemicals. Alim didn’t just want to be part of this movement as someone whose body required food. He wanted to help make these changes. Unfortunately, just as it was with the race, Alim’s dreams would have to be put on hold. As he was excitedly preparing for his college courses, life took him in another direction. Though Serkan had made every attempt to shield Alim from the world of temporal manipulators, there was only so much he could accomplish from the shadows. Alim found himself caught in the crossfire of a war between two factions of time travelers, and though his adventures could have landed him right back to the moment he first left, this did not actually happen. He went missing for years, and the whole point of his struggles was to prevent people from changing the past, so had he erased his own disappearance from history, it would have been hypocritical of him. He eventually returned to his life, and following the spread of a believable cover story, was able to resume his track towards higher education. While he would never be fully rid of the world of salmon and choosers, he would be able to follow his dreams, and contribute positively to society. His work—along with that of his contemporaries—would go on to be of great importance to new environmentally-conscious and efficient means of food distribution. It would also support the nutritional needs of more specific industries, such as space travel, and emergency rationing.