A Paradox’s Regret

Sumber : Pinterest.com

“You’ve done it!” her co-worker exclaimed loudly, revelling in the marvel of their creation. Thousands of hours of work had finally paid off in front of them in real time. “Emilia, this will revolutionize the very concept of time!” another one of her co-workers celebrated. Time travel—trivializing the passage of time, no, conquering time itself. That’s what they just did, what Emilia just did.

“Okay, okay, settle down guys,” A certain scientist said, trying to calm the rowdy crowd of excited scientists “We don’t know if It has any side effects or not yet remember?” She reminded everyone.

            “Oh, come on, El, we just discovered the possibility of TIME TRAVEL here!” Emilia threw a hand over the other girl’s shoulder. “Can you blame us for being just a little happy?”

            Ignoring Emilia’s hand, Elena rustled through her observation notes, combing through them whilst everyone else celebrated. While she couldn’t deny that she was as happy as everyone else, Elena was more interested in what came next. All her brilliant mind could focus on was how this could impact society as a whole. Emilia, however, decided to get back at Elena for ignoring her by snatching her notes out of her hand. “Hey! Give that back!”

            “Nope, not until after you join us for bite.” Elena could only scowl at her best friends incessant teasing, but then again, as much as she didn’t want to, her stomach certainly had joined Emilia’s side of the debate. Elena could only try to hide her face as her stomach growled loudly, and as any best friend would, Emilia took this chance to further tease her. “Wow, didn’t know you were that hungry, El.”

            “Okay, fine, you win,” Elena said, embarrassingly defeated. Everyone cheered her on as she reluctantly dragged her feet away from her work station. But their cheers wouldn’t last long, as the shrieking alarm of the lab cut their celebration short.

“What happened?!” Elena flinched as the glass holding their creation shattered. Out of everyone, she was the first to react. She shoved Emilia’s hand off her shoulder and headed straight for the control panel to shut down the now uncontrollable vortex that was their creation. Emilia only finally snapping out of her shock ridden trance as she heard a loud…

“…gunshot!?” The terrifying sound ringing through the halls of the lab made their fellow scientists stumble towards the door in an attempt to run for their lives. Little did they know, the originator of said sound was already at their doorstep. Emilia could only observe as one of the scientists rushed out of the room, their footsteps suddenly stopping, only to be followed by the sound of them begging for their life, and finally a loud and clear. Bang—another shot rang through the halls. “El!” Emilia ran to her friend. “We gotta get out of here, now!” She pulled on her sleeve.

“NO! this is our life’s work Em, I won’t let it go to nothing!” Elena ignored Emilia’s pleas, trying her best to calm the raging vortex in front of her.

“We won’t have a life to work with, if we don’t leave!” Emilia pulled harder on Elena’s sleeves, only to be met with the cold swat of Elena’s hands. Emilia could only stand there, too stunned to speak. Their small spat wouldn’t last long, footsteps approached the now chaos ridden lab, its doors swung open by a fierce kick and the sound of a gun cocking. Emilia wasted no time, she forcibly pulled Elena off the console only to start typing something into it then after that dragging Elena off the ground.

“Em?! What are you doing?!” Her voice riddled with panic. But without another word Emilia shoved Elena through the vortex, yet before she could follow suit.

  Bang.

The sound of a gunshot rang through the room for one final time.

Emilia smiled at her friend, eyes slowly losing their lively blue hue, body losing balance. All Elena could do was reach out and scream her name into the soundless void.

As Elena passed through the wave that is the timestream, she saw what seemed to be different realities flashing across her very eyes. She saw humans shooting down dinosaurs, Ships in the sky beaming up people, and a… A kid dancing? Before she was able to finalize any thoughts, the timestream had dropped her off into a world full of flames, its buildings ravaged, and its citizens scattered on the ground like rain, the truly grim scenery expanding farther than her eyes could see. Curiously, Elena noticed a figure standing not far from her, seemingly completely unbothered by the surrounding hell. The drift through time appeared to have finally take its toll on her body as Elena’s eyes suddenly couldn’t see straight, her mind awry, and with her knees weak, she found it impossible not to drop to the ground. The figure couldn’t help but notice the sound of Elena’s body hitting the ground and so decided to approach her. With steps slowly coming her way, Elena’s breathing only became more erratic and her nasty headache wasn’t helping. Before Elena could get back up, the figure was already looming over her. All she could do was look at the floor in fear of angering whoever was standing over her. A deafening silence set in as neither spoke up, Elena’s mind couldn’t help but think of every worst-case scenario that could happen-

“Wow, Em was right, I really did look like the stereotypical scientist, huh.” Elena’s eyes jolted up, her eyes locking with…herself?

“W-what?” was all she could muster out of her now agape mouth. Their eyes locked, she couldn’t believe it, she was staring straight at another her. She’d describe the feeling akin to looking into a mirror but, well, this one wasn’t mimicking her movements at all.

“Anyway, you’re not going to be able to stay here long so listen up.” Her parallel had grabbed her attention by the collar and wasn’t willing to let her get distracted. “Yeah so, Time travel? Look around us, worst idea we’ve ever had,” She reprimanded herself while signalling to the mountains of dead bodies near them.

“I… did this?” She looked around again; eyes full of dread. A chill went down her spine, the blood of thousands, maybe even millions, on her hands. Tears started welling in her eyes as the headache set back in. Elena could only groan in pain as her body seemingly started glitching and contorting itself.

“…out of time,” her parallel complained under her breath. “Here. we’re supposed to be smart right? Then you’ll know what to do with it.” Elena didn’t have enough time nor brainpower to think about why her parallel had just handed her a loaded gun. Before she could croak out a response, the timestream had decided to whisk her away once again.

Just as before, the timestream was throwing her across different worlds, worlds she had no care for. All Elena cared for now was to go back to where it had all started, she just wanted to hear her friends’ teasing again, to work alongside her again, to go back to the time before all this madness was shoved into her face. Before long, her brain started pounding at the walls of her head again. It seems like she has reached her next destination.

“Hey! Drop your weapon!” the voice of a man pierced her ears. “I won’t ask you again! On the ground! Now!” he continued. Elena’s mind was still in tatters, she could do nothing but hold out her hands, showing she didn’t mean any harm. The man however, took that as a sign of aggression and took a shot at her arm.

Elena could only scream in pain as her hand recoiled from the pain, instinctively pulling the trigger of her firearm.

Bang—the shot rang out through the halls,

The jarring sound of the shot not helping her headache. As the pounding in her head slowly subsided, the dread began to pour in. The blood trickling to the floor, was not just hers. She wasn’t allowed a moment to process the moment for long when an alarm started blaring throughout the place followed by a drove of people in lab coats bursting out of a door, the worst part being, they were coming her way. One of them had bumped into her in the panic, seeing her gun, he squealed for his life. Another seeing her stumble backwards a bit at the pleading scientist, took his chance to go for the gun in her hand.

She was tackled to the ground, her mind and body too overwhelmed to handle the brunt of attack. After a small struggle for power, she was able to kick him off her, and before said assailant could go for another attack.

She shot.

Elena was too far gone, she thought nothing of killing this person other than another nuisance gone. The other scientists scrambled away from the lifeless corpse, making way for Elena.

As she walked aimlessly through wherever she was, for some reason it all felt so familiar to her, these series of unfortunate events felt repeated, like a broken record. Then she was finally shown why, the crudely taped ‘close slowly’ sign in front of the door greeted her with a knowing glee. Looking through the window of the door, she felt like she was looking at a video recording of the very moment she wanted to rewind to. She hated herself for swatting away Emilia’s arm and seeing herself do it again, made her blood boil. With a huff and a puff, she kicked the door open.

The force of the action making her stumbling over herself, the headache setting back in, this time though she couldn’t tell if it was because of the sheer amount of blood she had lost or if it was timestream that was pulling her away again. Either way, she knew what she had to do. She raised her gun, her hand shaking through the pain and before she shot, she closed her eyes.

Bang.

The sound of a gunshot rang through the room for one final time.

After that, the headaches abruptly faded, as if she never had them in the first place. As the dust settled, everything became horribly clear. The sight of her friend, now lying weak in front of her, because of her, made her sick to the stomach. Now that her brain wasn’t constantly buzzing, Elena started recounting everything that had happened up until now. All the disgusting things she had seen and done had finally caught up with her. She couldn’t hold it in anymore, she let all her disgust flow into one foul stream of vomit.

“You still there…El?” The sound of her friend knocking her out of her wallow.

“Y-yeah, I’m right here Em!” she bolted to her dying best friends’ side, tears already streaming down her face. Elena decided she wasn’t worthy of looking at her friend— the only person that gave her a genuine smile and not some ploy to earn her favour. She felt like this was her punishment, the consequence of human folly. Thinking she could ever attain power that extraordinary without a sacrifice was foolish of her.

“Hey, come on open your eyes El.” Still, she wouldn’t, heart wrenched in guilt. “Do I look so bad that you can't even bear to look at me?” Emilia joked, this time cupping Elena’s face, rubbing her cheeks softly with her thumb. Elena took a deep breath and opened her eyes slowly, finally taking in the sight of Emilia, dying in her hands. “There she is,” Emilia said softly, her voice weakening. “’W-woah, what happened to you? And what’s that smell? Is that barf on your coat?” She chuckled, only for it to turn into a coughing fit.

“I-I’ll go call an ambulance, okay? J-just s-stay still and-and-” Elena said, trying to stammer through sharp sobs. Her hands stumbling for the phone in her pocket only to find it shattered and unable to turn on, probably the result of the hard tackle she had to endure earlier. Hopeless, she threw the phone and with it any hope for her dying friend.

“I-I’ve got a mountain of questions right now… and I know I won’t make it through all of them before, I, you know—” She joked; motioning to cutting her throat and dying. In response, Elena could only awkwardly chuckle at the gestures. “So, just know that… i-I’m glad that you’re okay, and, i-I’ll n-never-I’ll never regret what I did.” She stopped for a second, gasping for air, her breath only becoming more erratic after each inhale.

“…if you could do me one last favour before I go,” her voice growing softer, her hand somewhat drifting off of Elena’s cheeks.

“W-w-what is it Em? Whatever it is, i-I’ll do it!” she said, catching her friends’ hand and leaning into her embrace.

 “Could you...” Emilia’s eyes weren’t even focused at Elena anymore, her gaze becoming ever more distant.

“…Forget about me?”

A tear falling out of her now lifeless eyes, fingers slowly slipping through Elena’s own—her eyes baren of any signs of life left in her body. Elena’s own sobbing only becoming louder, her frustrated screams and sorrowful sobs echoing through the empty halls. All Elena could do was sit there and ponder if it could have gone any other way. What could she have done to avoid this? But then again, thinking back, did she have any choice at all? All the well-timed headaches, all the out of character tendencies she had, and all the worlds she was thrown across suddenly came to mind. She had never chosen to do any of that, she was just an unfortunate soul who happened to… make a few mistakes here and there… it’s not like she intended to shoot the guard… her body just reacted to it, right?

Her mind franticly trying to justify her actions. Were all her actions predetermined for her from moment she was born? Was she just an actor forced to play out her lines in some sort of twisted screenplay? She didn’t know anymore, she didn’t care. She reached for her murder weapon and decided, it was time for a curtain call. She took aim at the person who had been causing her all this pain, her finger trembling over the trigger. After a brief moment of hesitation. She steadied her finger with one big inhale.

Click.

Nothing.

She choked on her held breath, succumbing to a violent coughing fit. In the end, the blaring siren of the lab and her harrowing sobs were the only things left making a sound throughout the cold and desolate room.

The world would be so cruel, Elena thought to herself.

Penulis: Yeshuah Ruben R.W.

Editor: Aurelia Mischa Aveline