Random Frames Into The Abyss

For years we’ve always assumed that the concept of time, the concept of the past, the present, and the future, was merely just a consequence of time as a unit of measure. More so we’ve always just assumed that those same concepts only existed in the current moment you were living. We assumed that time was a static notion because there was no logical way to go forwards or backwards. The best we could do was exist in the current moment.

All of this turned out of to be false when the quantum displacement device was invented. In layman’s terms that meant someone, somewhere, somehow had invented a time machine. A real working time machine. To prove it they took the world’s top skeptics and camera crews on a journey throughout time. There was an unforeseen problem though; it was that by just witnessing the past you changed that moments present, and it’s future. If you went forward and witnessed the future than the future that you witnessed no longer existed. It now become your present. If, after witnessing your future, you tried to go back to what would have been your present, you suddenly found yourself witnessing your past and thus you changed that moments present creating an infinite loop unless you went forward and stayed there for good.

To complicate things, only the people who time traveled knew that time had changed. Everyone else was seemingly unaware. Things started to go haywire when two time machines were running at the same time as both groups were constantly changing both the past, present, and future all at once. It took a mere two trips with two machines running for the Abyss to form.

The Abyss, as it was understood, is a giant suction cup shaped blackhole located in a rural area in Iowa. No one know’s why it formed where it did but we do know why it formed. The Abyss formed because time was changing too much too frequently. The timeline just couldn’t support two time machines. In one timeline people who were alive should be dead and in another the people who were dead should be alive. Time, unable to constantly resurrect or kill said people came up with a solution, the Abyss. These “unsures” were all at once sucked out of whatever life they may or may not have had and sent to the Abyss. They would float around until their ultimate fate was settled.

The Abyss itself became a spectacle to be witnessed. It drew large crowds of people wanting to see the unsures. When time did change and one of the unsures had met their final fate and left the Abyss no would remember seeing them floating. However they would remember seeing the abyss and the unsures themselves.

All of the aside the one truly amazing thing about the Abyss was that once it formed, no matter how many time machines were built and utilized after, the Abyss never shrunk or increased in size. It made no difference if there was one time machine running or a hundred time machines running. From the outside the Abyss was maybe the size of a large house. No one knew quite how big the Abyss was on the inside. The only thing we did know was that it was way significantly bigger than it appeared.

Hundreds of thousands of man hours had been spent studying the Abyss, only to come to one simple conclusion: The Abyss was neither good nor bad, it was just was. Deep down though I think we all knew the real truth. The Abyss and those who travel through time represented our arrogance in thinking that time, just like everything else, could be controlled and bent to our whim. Time wasn’t a caged animal. Time was the cage. The Abyss was merely the physical manifestation of the cage.

In my four years of time traveling I had never met another time traveler along the way. As far as I could tell I had never caused and infinite loop to form. I never went backwards, only forwards, and even then I only did it very sparingly. So then were do I, a twenty four year time traveler, who, to the best of his knowledge had never upset the timeline, fit into all this?

Truth be told I didn’t know. For years I watched the world change around me, in real time. The thing they didn’t tell you about time travel was that, while wearing the watch, you are immune to the effects of the other time travels. So long the watch had contact with your skin you could be able to witness the history of the world changing in real time. You would of course remember the way it was, not the way it had become.

Most people didn’t do this as direct contact with the skin for prolong periods of shortened your lifespan by quite a bit. Even just an hour of direct contact would cost you days of your life. I had had direct contact for your years. My life expectantly was probably my late twenties.

The thing was though I didn’t care. When I had learned about time travel and it’s effects on the future and the past in school I wanted to experience time in a true linear path. This forced me to wear the watch at all times. What I discovered about time travel and it’s effects on everything around me shocked me. I would have thought with all the constant time travel that almost nothing would be same from moment to moment. It turns out that the only thing changes that occurred were at the macro level and even then it infrequent. Every now and then someone’s hair color would change mid sentence, some would be wearing one shirt one moment and a different one another.

I would have thought that a major change in the timeline would have caused major changes but, aside from the event it’s self most things remained unchanged. The biggest change I saw was someone had gone back and changed the result of the election. The thing was though the president they changed to made mostly the same decisions as the one they replaced. This begged the question: Is there fate? Is something destined to happen?

By all accounts the answer was resounding yes.

I think it’s hard for anyone to accept that their fate is not their own. It took me a year after realizing it to accept it. It took me another two months after accepting it to finally view the Abyss. I had heard about it and seen photos/videos but I had never seen in it person. Today was the day I would remedy that.

The Abyss in person is far more intimidating that I would have thought. As I stood in front of the floating purple sphere, surrounded by a mass of people, looking into the faces of the “unsures” I had the sudden urge to rip off my time travel device. If my wearing it somehow caused those people to exist in that state I wanted none of it.

With my right hand I slowly removed the time travel device from my left wrist. I thought I would feel something when I took the device off, but the truth was, I didn’t. I felt exactly the same, if not maybe a little better knowing I was no longer costing myself years of my life. I looked at my wrist, which had a very clear watch tan, and then to the time travel device. It looked so innocent in my hands.

I then looked at the Abyss and the unsures. Suddenly a rage come over me. “Let them go!” I shouted over and over at the Abyss. The group of people that had been close to me dissipated. The security guards of the place began to approach me. “Take it back!” I screamed as the security guards got within grabbing range and tossed my time travel device at and into the Abyss.

The moment my time travel device hit the Abyss a white light erupted from it. The bodies of the unsures began to pour out. Moments later I found myself waking, covered in the purple goo of the Abyss in the pile of the unsures.