Traversing Time

Ever since we were children, my twin sister and I always dreamed of building a time machine; and as we grew older, we became more determined to turn it into reality. However, our hard work through university and beyond went unrecognised since no one was willing to back our project. As a last resort, we turned to Prof. Jacobs, one of our former lecturers, for help; he said he knew someone who could provide us with the funding we needed.

We began our project a week later with the help of a millionaire with the right connections, who was more than willing to help as long as his name was stamped on the project. Prof. Jacobs also joined our efforts, initially helping only on weekends, but later immersing himself fully into the project. We were glad that he was just as enthusiastic as us about the possibility of time travel. We once asked him whether he was curious about time travel since he was a child as well, but he said no. Prof. Jacobs said he just wished he could prevent certain events from occurring in the past. It seemed personal, so we never pressed the subject any further.

A year passed by, and before we knew it, our main time machine and its navigational timebands were ready. None of us wanted to use anyone outside our team for testing, so I volunteered to be the test subject. The first two rounds were unsuccessful, and we found that there was more work to be done to fine-tune the interface between the time machine and our timebands. Two months passed before everything was perfect. Before I stepped into the machine and sealed the door, we decided on setting the duration for twenty-four hours into the future. Everything seemed to work smoothly until, suddenly, the alarms started blaring just as the launch began.

When the door opened again, I found myself in a desolate lab overrun with weeds and cobwebs. What was this? Where was I, or rather…when? I looked around for answers and found files buried in palls of dust, scattered in every corner, but it was when I ventured upstairs that I beheld a sight that froze me where I stood. Several skeletons lay strewn on the ground across two adjacent offices, nearly all of them enwreathed in weeds and roots that had bored through the decayed concrete. One of them, I recognised instantly because of the chain that remained around their neck. It was my twin sister…

Just how far into the future had I travelled? I sank to my knees and just stayed there, motionless amidst the vast silence that surrounded me, not knowing what to think or do. It took me an eternity to gather my thoughts and sift through the files before me. It was Prof. Jacobs… He had messed with the data, wanting to send me fifty years into the past as opposed to our initial plan. As a result, I was sent fifty years into the future instead. I trembled where I stood, a deep chill suddenly gripping my entire body. What happened here in just half a century? I was frightened of what I’d find outside.

I slipped out of the building and snuck through the streets, sticking to the dark corners littered with rubble. Pits and fissures surrounded me, and every building in sight was in ruins, most hewn across, as if sliced with a sword, and others in ruins, as if bombarded in a war. But the most significant of all was the sheer emptiness that pervaded the air; it was truly a hollow world beyond words. I returned to the lab and checked if the backup power still worked, and it seemed that luck was on my side at least on that front. The time machine had suffered in the past half-century and was still in desperate need of repairs.

In the coming weeks, I scoured my surroundings, grabbing whatever fuel I could find to keep working on my return journey. Soon, those weeks turned into months, and before I knew it, an entire year had passed. But my efforts were not in vain—I was able to restore the time machine to perfect condition within that year. I set the date and time to exactly a minute after I had initially left and prepared myself as the system began to roar. The chamber darkened as expected, and soon, I was racing through time. For but a fleeting moment during my journey, I saw the afterglow of an older version of myself bearing a jaded countenance, and with a scar stretched across her face. She noticed me as well but spoke not a word, only nodded as she dissolved into the air.

When the chamber brightened once more and the door subsequently opened, I was back in my own timeline. My team stood there, dumbfounded, seeing the state I was in. The next two hours were long and dreadful, but at the same time, they were nothing compared to the eternal silence of the future. I was just happy to be reunited with my sister, who lightened the mood by asking how many people could say they have a twin who’s a year older than them. Prof. Jacobs confessed that his emotions got the best of him; he only wanted to see if it were possible to return to his family whom he had lost in a fire fifty years ago.

All was forgiven, but we had more pressing matters in our hands: the silent future, the older version of me traversing time… It had to be connected—I needed to know what exactly happened. And so, we began to look for answers, tuning the machine to meet a wider range of time-travelling scenarios. Our true journey had only just begun.