The Time Travel memoirs: Lost And So Alone

I could have murdered a bacon sandwich there and then. I felt another bomb explode, a little further away now. Damian had said that as long as I was awake I would be in this period of time. My internal monologue clashed and I debated the idea of staying awake. That was of course, a stupid idea. I knew of people who couldn’t sleep. They were called insomniacs. I knew how much of a pain not being able to sleep must be for them. Plus, I couldn’t stay awake anyway; I was a damned good sleeper. Did I really want to stay in this time period anyway? This cottage could become a smoking crater in the Earth the next time a Messerschmitt flew overhead.

I spent the rest of that day thinking. I had never just sat down for a whole day with my own thoughts. I was always occupied, reading or writing, essentially just drowning out the sounds of the rest of the world whilst I could live in my own. I made another cup of tea and sat down on the chair. I took out the pocket watch once more and twirled the watch on its chain. Things were going to change for me. I had the possibility of time travel entwined in my future. Who’s to say that was such a bad thing? When I was a child I always dreamed about possibilities such as this one. I always dreamed about seeing the rest of the universe. I always wanted to find out if we were alone in the universe.
Looking back to when I was a child I could already answer that question. No, we certainly weren’t.

Damian would have to find another way to harvest my soul, he didn’t realise that the possibility of time travel to someone like myself wasn’t a curse. It was a gift. In my life I had been neglected and unloved. I had seen some pretty unexplainable things when I was a child and I was pretty sure that I was ready for anything. I was going to see some pretty gruesome things, but it didn’t matter. I couldn’t let it drive me mad. This was a possibility of a lifetime. I smiled and sipped the hot copper coloured liquid. I remembered what Faith had said to me on our first date. “Georgie, a problem can always be seen as an opportunity in disguise.” She had been trying to cheer me up that day, but her words had meant a lot to me, even if she didn’t realise the importance of what she was saying.

I still had an English one pound coin in my pocket. It felt almost wrong to have modern currency in the forties. My mind was set on going, but the rational side of my mind wanted to do nothing more but wither away and die. The rational side of my mind had been holding me back for a long time. I hadn’t yet realised it, but I had smiled earlier. I hadn’t taken a day just to think before. I’m not sure I had ever smiled before either. It felt like a familiar gesture, but I didn’t notice it until I began smiling on a daily basis. I needed that push. Heads I sleep and I’ll handle the curse the demon set upon me. I dragged the combat knife from its place in my pocket. Tails, I end this all now. I gulped audibly, I wasn’t suicidal, but there have been times in my life where I wanted to cease living. I just hoped that fate would stand by me. I placed the coin on my right hand thumbnail and flicked it upwards.

The coin flew up almost in slow motion, I watched in professional anxiety as the coin turned from heads to tails in the air. I caught it and slapped it on my left hand. I looked at the coin and gasped. I put my head in my hands, breathing very hard. The coin had landed on heads.
If I Had I checked, the pocket watch would have shown me 11:35pm, this was the time my head hit the pillow every night on a scheduled routine. I was one of those people; I was convinced I had a mild form of the obsessive compulsive disorder. I would always follow the routine, mainly because it worked and I didn’t particularly have much to do past that time.
I sighed.

There was only one thing on my mind, the words she had said, the words that she had whipped me with, she had meant every word. “Do you know what the worst thing is? You’re cold George, you won’t change. Not for me, not for anyone.” I had looked at her in disbelief. “I could change” I had whispered. She had shaken her head slowly. “You’re a lost cause; I can’t believe I was once in love with you.” She had then slammed the door and left.

Faith…

I hadn’t realised it. I hadn’t realised that I was cold; to be told by someone who I thought loved me was painful. I sighed and stood up, heading for the bed in the next room. The bed only had a singe blanket on it, I don’t think that would be the thing keeping me awake though.
I heard Damian's voice as if he was next to me, "Your soul will be mine Human, and you will slip up, this time you will lose something more precious than your girl."
No, I thought, I will not lose more, I will not mess up anything else, and I will change.
I had to change.

I closed my eyes, and within minutes I was lost in time, I dreamed long and hard, I heard Damian talking to me, telling me that I was a lost cause. Telling me what a loser I was, looking deep inside my thoughts and giggling.
The whispers… the bloody maddening whispers and giggles.
What a night.

I woke up.

Shit, my spine was killing me. I was fully clothed; I was wearing what I was the night before. The pocket watch was still in my pocket. Ticking slowly, the watch had only one purpose. That must have been nice. I wished I was a watch, with only one thing to do. Hitting twelve o clock twice a day without feeling fatigued. I sat up. No wonder my back hurt, I was sprawled over a massive purple boulder on my back. This wasn’t planet Earth; I began to shake a little as the familiarity of the cottage drained away. This was different, this was a change. I looked at the sky which was a shade of pale violet. The ground was a purple so deep it was almost black. I rubbed my eyes and looked ahead of me. The landscape was bare, the only thing I could see were three men, heading straight for me. Their helmets were made of a black metal, with a visor covering their eyes. I could only see their mouths. They looked vaguely human, but they were too big to be human.

They were approaching fast, hunting knives hung from their belts, along with a small first aid kit. The three men approached me. The man in the middle was the tallest; he was the only one who didn’t have a weapon in his hands. The two men who shadowed him both held large assault rifles in their hands. The armour they wore looked thick, I would have said about five inches thick myself. The armour looked like it was heavy and yet these men walked almost gracefully, as if it weighed the same as a housefly. “I’m unarmed” I managed to stutter, before the unarmed man in the middle drew out a pistol from a sheath on his waist and pointed it at my forehead.

“Oh goody, now I get to see my brains” I muttered sarcastically.