Race Against Reality

I was nearing my deadline, yet I found myself void of ideas. Only three days were left for the short story competition I was taking part in to end, but I hadn’t even written a single sentence. My best friend, Rana, suggested that I stay at the family cabin she recently inherited.

I accepted her offer and went to the woods that morning. It was peaceful there. The cabin wasn’t too far from the road, and there were no wild animals nearby, so it was the perfect spot to relax and find some fresh ideas. But the journey to reach it was so long that by the time I got there, I fell on the bed and slept until the next sunrise.

I woke up feeling more refreshed than I had been in weeks and finally found myself with ideas for my story. It was going to be a sci-fi thriller about an intergalactic war that pulled Earth into the crosshairs. I went to grab my laptop but found it nowhere in my bag or anywhere around the house.

It was strange. I was sure that I brought it with me; how could I have forgotten that of all things? I didn’t know what to do. I’d have to go back home to start writing, but that would take hours. I needed to get these ideas out while they were still fresh. It was then that I found someone else’s laptop lying between some of the sofa cushions. It was old. Could have been a decade old. I didn’t know if it would work, but thankfully, it did. I called Rana and asked whether it was hers, but she wasn’t sure whose it could have been. Her best guess was that it was her sister’s old laptop. I didn’t press the matter any further. I had a laptop, so I started typing. I didn’t feel the time fly; I was halfway through my story by midnight.

The next morning, however, I woke up to rumbles in the distance. The earth was shaking. I got under the table with the laptop and checked the news, wondering whether there was an earthquake, but what I found pierced me like a cold blade. We were becoming collateral damage in an intergalactic war. The three different alien species that I was writing about in my story were real.

This can’t be real!

I kept scrolling through the news: everything that had happened so far was exactly the same as I had written it. Was I seeing the future, or was it…?

I grabbed the laptop and resumed my writing. So far, the events that had unfolded covered only a quarter of what I had written. I had no time to think: I now had to race against reality itself to literally write history. Two hours passed and the events were accelerating. It was only a matter of time before reality caught up with me. I felt my heart pound in my chest as my fingers raced all over the keyboard.

I could see it. I could see a quick way to put an end to this conflict. I made one of the generals betray their army and defect to one of the other two sides, only to feed them false information that brought upon the ruin of the three armies in a cataclysmic event.

I wanted to believe that I had another option, but there wasn’t one. At least not one I could think of at the time. The aftermath of the event was horrifying, but I had no other choice. It was the only way—it was the only way I could save the rest of the world.

I’m sorry, Rana… I’m sorry, everyone…

I curled up under that table for what felt like an eternity as tears flooded my eyes. My hands began to shake so much that the laptop slipped through my fingers and fell to the floor. What had I done? The world was saved, but my best friend, my hometown, and several more cities were all gone.

There was no other way. That was all I could tell myself.