Time Meddler and Stories

Do Not Meddle With Time.

She giggled and lay her head down on a ramshackle bed next to him. He leaned over to kiss her when the door burst open with an explosion of light. The dirty apartment shook, dust and grime falling from the walls and ceiling. She jumped, her flaming red hair tossing about her head, snarled. He brushed his messy black hair out of his eyes and adjusted his cracked glasses.
A young woman with chin-length brown hair staggered into the room, a crazed look in her eyes. She stared at the younger woman with the red hair and stepped closer. She slowly raised a pistol and pointed it at the red-haired woman.

“What did you do?” she asked, her voice strained. “What did you do that night, eleven years ago?”

The young woman looked at her, frightened and bewildered.

“You threw the universe into chaos.” she continued. “Everyone's life was erased and rewritten.”

Her voice started to waver.

“I couldn't pinpoint it in time- in time to save us.” She swayed, a look of pain on her face.

“My life-mine, the one who was to protect the universe- my life disappeared! Do you know what it's like,” -tears made their way slowly and silently down her cheeks- “to, in one moment, have your child on your lap, and see your husband in his study; then in the next instant, you are eleven again, on the train, headed for school?”

She shifted her weight, but never lowered the weapon.

“I remember every detail about the day I met the people who were to be my life-long friends. I knew exactly who said what and when. But it never happened in that next instant when I was sent back eleven years. We never met. I became the girl in the back; the quiet one who never talks except when the teachers call on her.”

The tears started to come faster as she screamed,

“Do you know what it's like to relive your life, but never see your friends? To become a nobody? Your greatest memories never happen? To have everyone you ever cared for stripped away and placed behind a wall of indifference and ignorance?”

Her voice dropped to a whisper.

“You had been my friend once, not some slut who's turned to prostitution when the magic failed! Don't tell me you forgot about school! None of these horrible things would have happened if you,” she pointed an accusing finger at the woman. “had not done something, changed something. Maybe if I had figured it out sooner, it could have been reversed, but it's too late. 10 years too late.”

She let out an anguished sob. “We are doomed.”

She turned to the man. “In one life, you had been my husband, my best friend.”

She started sobbing uncontrollably. “But everything has changed.”

She let out one last, strangled sob and cocked the gun. The man and woman scooted backwards.

“Please...” whispered the red-haired woman.

“No.” was the reply. “I won't stop. Just fix what you did, and maybe tonight shall wink out of existence. If that doesn't work, at least I can end the suffering.”

With that she pointed the gun at her head and pulled the trigger.

Agony

She lurched as the pall bearers slowly walked past with the coffin. She looked around frantically for a way out while trying to keep her shifting body under control. She leaned over to her friend.

“I knew I-i sh-shouldn't-t h-have c-come.” she stuttered.

He turned in time to see her lose control of her fingers and long black claws spring forth.

“My emotions are in turmoil.” she finished through clenched teeth.

His face darkened with worry, remembering her over-zealous emotions could be set off by even the smallest things. A funeral was no small thing. Especially since it was the funeral of a classmate; a funeral for someone they knew. So many emotions. The boy's father stood weeping over the casket while his mother sat stiffly, still pale with shock. Many other students were crying and comforting each other. He looked back to find spikes slowly ripping through her clothing. Her face was contorted from the painful concentration that was demanded to keep her body in place.
Sweat beaded her brow and tears formed in her eyes. Just as the headmaster revealed the cause of the boy's death, she lost control. She let out a piercing shriek and her body shifted. Her body stretched, forming wings. A long tail whipped around and razor sharp teeth snapped at the air. Spikes ran from her massive, scaly head to the tip of her tail. The dragon hovered and shrieked again. As the students ducked and covered their ears, it crashed through the window and spiraled out of sight, trailing sounds of agony behind it.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

An indistinguishable figure was perched on the tallest tower, occasionally lashing out at unseen objects.

“Do you think she's alright?” asked a brown haired young woman, from below.

“I doubt it.” said a young man drily, but his face was full of concern. He ran his fingers through his flaming red hair and continued,

“She nearly killed the last person who tried to get her to come down.”

The woman looked at him, shocked. “Who was it?” she asked anxiously.

“Sean, actually. Accompanied by a teacher, of course.” A young man with short black hair explained.

“I dunno what he was thinking. Maybe he thought he could calm her.” He snorted. “He doesn't know what she is capable of,” he continued softly.

The young woman shook her head, wavy locks tossing about her head.

“The only other time I've seen her this upset was that time on the Cynarg, in Razé, when Hapulus Brian died.”

The young red-haired man nodded. “Her emotions are unstable,” he stated.” they are easily disrupted.”

“That happens,” replied the black-haired, green-eyed man. “when one is strong and wrapped in magic.”

He sighed, knowing exactly what she was going through. The others exchanged worried glances, but remained silent. It didn't seem the type of topic to inquire upon.

Satan's Summoner

The bearded man stepped back, a look of horror and disgust on his face.

“Take him to the prison,” he said. “They should find they are missing an inmate.”

A man squirmed in a chair in front of the bearded man. His tounge flicked out and in before he spoke, and when he did speak his voice was filled with anger and triumph.

“Go ahead! I'll be treated like a hero!”

“That maybe so,” came a forcibly calm voice from the back of the dimly lit room. “if those who are greeting have gone insane.”

The bearded man turned around quickly. “Miss... how did you get here?”

The young woman, who had spoken before, smiled drily. “I walked, same as you.”

“Yes, but last I saw you, you were lying in the field... dead!” A young man spoke from behind the teachers.

“Nine lives, love.” she explained, returning her attention to the insane looking man in the chair.
She sauntered closer, a look of disgust and hatred in her green eyes. “So, you think you will be treated like a hero.” she said softly. “I think you will be welcomed only by the guards.”

His face paled at the mention of the prison guards.

“Or maybe,” she continued even softer. “you won't even see the prison again.”

His tounge flicked again as he looked at her, confused and nervous, but still silent. She smiled evilly. She handed him a black envelope. The seal on the back was shaped like the peak of a mountain and a trident.

“What...?” he whispered, his brows knitting together in confusion.

Her grin spread and she explained.

“Seems you've been a bad boy. Bad enough to warrant a personal invitation from an acquaintance of mine.”

She paused, looking over her shoulder. One teacher had left to contact the prison, but everyone else was still there, staring at the two of them.

“Can you guess who that might be?” she asked, turning back to the man in the chair.

She received a blank stare.

“No? Oh, well. He is known by many different names. But he prefers... Satan.”

The man stared uncomprehendingly at her. She snarled and unsheathed a long knife. She plunged it into his chest saying,

“That's for all the pain you've caused.”

He looked at the knife handle protruding from his chest, shuddered, and slid to the floor. Blood began to pool around him. She threw back her head and laughed maliciously, revealing fangs that must have been two inches long. Her pupils widened until her eyes were completely black. The others in the room stepped back in shock as great leathery wings ripped through the back of her shirt. She snarled, an evil grin spreading across her face, and grabbed the dead man's body. She leaped out of the window and let loose an inhuman screech as she flew off into the night.

All Things Hidden

I mourn. My body shifts. I can feel sharp points ripping through the thin flesh on my back, becoming a trail of sharp, deadly spikes that run from head to tail-bone. Smooth yet gnarled claws spring from my fingers and toes. My arms and torso lengthen; my clothes tear. Patchy, mangy, and dark fur grows upon my skin. I feel my flesh split apart in deep, throbbing wounds. I can feel the pain, tearing like a thousand needles at my soul, shredding. I open the fangs within my snout and howl in anguish and mourning. Howl an unearthly and haunting tune of death.
Shredded wings push through at my shoulders, and I lift into the air. I claw at my eyes; the eyes that will not shed a tear. Not for a kinsman, or a classmate. On the outside, I am stone. Inside, I am ravaged by roiling emotions. Every time my eyes fill with tears, I shove them away, saying

“Later. Later, where no one will see you cry.”

It fills me, tears me, fills me with pain, seeing others weeping, but I am dry eyed. I feel cold and hard. Uncaring and unfeeling. But I am not. How can I be when I feel such pain, that I feel my body and soul contort?

the speed of Life

She hurtles down her time tunnel. The speedometer jumps between 90 and 100 miles per hour.
She remembers when she was little and had to sit on the time bus with all her peers. She had always thought the bus traveled so fast. It never lingered; only pressed on. But her feelings gradually changed until she thought the bus moved hellishly slow. But she wasn't able to change it's speed, whichever way she felt. She had been shuffled and herded with everyone else; all forced to go the same pace. Guided by regulations and rules. She left the bus when she entered high school. That was when she rode with her mother. Still herded by rules, but the time car moved a little faster. But not fast enough for her. She would roll her eyes with each passing car, and glare at her mother when a fellow teenager sped past in their own vehicle.
Now, though, she is eighteen; a legal adult. No longer as restrained by so many rules. She is in control of her life. She travels quickly; going to many parties, studying, and preparing for college. She knows exactly what she wants to do, and who she wants to be. Her time tunnel is connected to hundreds of others, but slowly separating from her family. She smiles, happy at last. She looks down and changes the song she is listening to. She feels the car swerve and she looks back up quickly. She screams as she hits a cement barriar on the side of the tunnel. Squealing tires and screeching, crunching metal is all that she hears.

She slowly opens her eyes. She looks around. Her car is gone, and the tunnel gray. She lifts a hand to rub her eyes and gasps in shock. Her body is a milky-white, transparent color. Out of the corner of her eye she sees something bright white. She goes over to it. A tall white cross stands at the side of the tunnel in the place where she crashed; her name is engraved in bold letters upon it. Through the dull wall of the tunnel she sees vehicles slowing down; people shaking their heads and crying. There is a pile of flowers on the side. She runs past the cross, trying to keep up with the people driving past her. She doesn't get far before she hits an invisible wall. She looks past it and sees her visions of the future slowly fading away. Suddenly it dawns on her and she falls to her knees sobbing.
~She had finally realized that she was dead.
Her carelessness had cost her life.
The end of her time tunnel disappeared.
She had run out of time...~