Prompt: Time travel

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Jordie

Nya never thought the ocean would be this large. On a map it looked contained, clean and always near land. But no matter how hard Nya would squint she couldn't see beyond the vast expanse of water and its waves. The sea was unforgiving, Nya knew that much. She had seen it before in the eyes of her father as he steered their family sailboat to safety after a near tragedy with jagged rocks and another with a cruise ship fast approaching. Nya had always been saved from immediate danger. Most recently she took on the guilt and responsibility of the wreck of the space time continuum itself. She had been warned not to go backwards in time, but all she wanted was a gal pal trip with her friends to celebrate and release the pressure of everyday life in the 2100's. Instead, the time travel ship had broken down, coming to a halt in the year 2002. Unfortunately for them, their GPS coordinates read they were somewhere near the coast of Guatemala, although Nya couldn't see land from where they were. Using the advanced technology of their era, Nya had disguised the ship to appear as a small dingy boat, but until they could figure out what was wrong with it, they were stuck in a land of boybands and no scrubs.

"I'm going to be sick." Bree speaks from her position in the boat, knees tucked to her chest, her body trembling from exhaustion and dehydration. She leans over the edge of the yellow paneling and heaves up the two granola bars and banana she had digested not too long ago into the sea.

"Nya," Savannah whispers from the other end of the raft, her lips barely moving against the frigid breeze. "What do you think he's doing right now?"

Nya rolls her eyes and places her face in her hands, trying to emotionally mask her anger and frustration with her best friend of twenty years. She understood Savannah's fear of water and the anxiety she had over not being able to swim properly, but what she couldn't comprehend was the constant bellyaching over her ex-husband who had left her in the dust for a younger woman. Nya notices burns on Savannah's hands as she clings to the side of the boat, no doubt from the blistering sun that's been beating down upon them. Savannah's once pin straight hair has gone up in a frizz, resulting in a fiery red primitive look, thanks to the rain that cascaded down in the previous night.

"Oh, shut up," Bree spits from the other side of Nya. "Would you rather still be married to the slime bag?"

Savannah bites her lower lip and rests her forehead against the boat; she knew Bree wouldn't like the answer. There was an elephant in the boat, and it came in the form of the hefty diamond engagement ring on Bree's finger.

A large wave sends the boat upwards into the air and then back down again, causing a small surge of water to flow below the three companion's sockless feet. Savannah's body is thrown into Nya's and in return, she is launched into Bree and sent to the floor, creating a dogpile of limbs and skin, lifeless if seen from an aerial snapshot.

"Watch it!" Bree growls, weakly pushing Nya off of her body. The boat creaks and moans as if to complain about the sudden shift in weight. Nya notices Bree reach a shaky hand up to her face to caress her torn and freshly bleeding lip, wincing once before tossing her matted hair into a messy ponytail.

"You don't get to talk to us like that!" Nya shouts back, her temper fueling and her mind feeling trapped. "This situation is my fault, not Savannah's, or yours, Bree."

"Damn right." Bree glares back, folding her arms and pouting like a child.

Nya had only known Bree for one year. They were coworkers at the intergalactic insurance company but not only would they spend Monday to Friday together, but they often went out on weekends and hit the bars until the sun came up. Nya went for the fun of it all, but Bree would always pray on the men that drank too much and at the end of the night Nya would be left to walk home alone, wondering where the hell her life was leading her. As the weather warmed into Spring the perfect girl's trip loomed in the back of Nya's mind and stayed until she put the down payment on the time travel ship. It seemed like the perfect getaway Savannah needed after finalizing the divorce of her second marriage and the foolproof sendoff for Bree before she tied the knot on her single life, and, before a door closed for Nya to have one last adventure before everything changed.

Only forwards, never backwards. You cannot change the past.

Read the words on the side of the boat. If they didn't want anyone to go into the past, why did they even have that option? Nya was hoping to go back to the roaring 20's, the time of great parties and carefree dancing.

"Shut up." Savannah moans and opens her mouth to heave over the side of the boat, but nothing comes. Nya can see that both of her friends are frightened as to what is going to come next. They had already gone through a litre of water in the past two days and not only was their water supply draining but their food as well; they were down to their last granola bar. Looking up at the sky, Nya wondered how much time they had left and if they could escape the grasp of death one last time.

From either side of her, Bree and Savannah began to argue about the food they had, and who had eaten what earlier. Nya wanted to cover her ears, jump over the side of the boat and say to hell with it all but even though Bree was getting on her nerves, she couldn't leave Savannah alone. The newspaper headline flashed before her eyes:

Three women in their thirties found floating in the Pacific Ocean. Each one murdered the other over a Nutrigrain bar.

"What was that?"

Savannah leans over and stares into the deep abyss, waiting for something to creep out from underneath them, but all that could be seen was the reflection of herself, bruised, scraped and broken.

"I don't hear anything." Bree moves closer to the edge, pushing past Nya with her body, practically knocking her over with her big ego. "I swear if it's something to do with your ex..."

In an instant three things happen: A seagull flies by overhead. Something from below hits the boat, and all three girls are sent plunging into the ocean.

Nya is the first to come up out of the water, treading and trembling all at once. She takes a deep breath in before her ears pick up on the straggling cries of Savannah as she calls out for help, fumbling and barely staying afloat.

"Help! Help!" Savannah wails as Nya finds her friend, wraps an arm around her hips and begins to pull her to the empty boat that drifts silently in the breeze.

"Nya! Nya!" Bree shouts from behind, a good distance away from Nya and Savannah.

Nya pulls herself up into the boat and then Savannah next, collapsing to the floor, her chest heaving up and down in a steady rhythm. After making sure Savannah is alright, Nya turns her attention to Bree, still fumbling in the water, disorientated by the waves.

"Bree! You have to swim!"

"I can't! The waves are too big!"

"Just come back to the fucking boat!" Savannah screams, pulling herself up off the floor to tell the acquaintance she had just met two months ago; she had had enough.

Nya reaches a hand to hoist Bree up out of the water, but she's not paying attention, she's looking down into the darkness. A tiny gasp escapes from Bree's lips and then, she drops down below the waves. Nya still leans over the boat, her hand outstretched, now welcoming someone who is no longer there to accept the invitation.

"Over here!" Savannah shouts and Nya dashes over to the other side of the boat but, it's only Bree's jacket, floating above the waves. Savannah pulls it in and throws it onto the floor. Nya doesn't understand why they wait, but they do. After all, this is exactly the kind of shit Bree did; she'll appear in five seconds, splashing everyone on board.

But it didn't happen.

Five seconds goes by. Fifty. One minute. Two minutes.

"How long do you think she can hold her breath for?"

"I don't know."

Savannah grabs Nya's hand and takes a deep breath in; she's thinking the worst, but neither of them dare say it aloud. The seagull swoops around and lands on the edge of the boat, pecking its beak against the soft yellow. Twenty minutes goes by and the waves begin to pick up again, slowly carrying the boat away from the spot where Bree vanished, giving Nya and Savannah no choice but to follow along with it; neither of them speak. The seagull ruffles its feathers and takes off from its perch. Grabbing the side of the boat, Nya lets out a scream across the water, but no one is there to answer her back.

"She's gone." Savannah chokes, the last word that would be said between the two friends for several weeks. The Guatemalan coast guard picks them up in the late hours of the night, and between the darkness and the bumpy ride to the hospital Nya prayed that Savannah hadn't seen the tears that pooled in her eyes. They don't fix the time machine, nor do they want to; the price to going backwards was paid, this was now their punishment.

It's two weeks before they do speak again. Savannah sends Nya a link to a Guatemalan newspaper where she had translated the best she could an article from Spanish to English. Nya didn't read the full article, she doesn't even make it past the headline.

Tiger shark found dead in fishing net. Biologists find chilling stomach contents of human flesh and one large, diamond ring. 

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Annie- Missing

Brendan Phillips was born with a hole in his heart. It wasn't a large hole, nor was it something that any doctor could have noticed. It was just in the right place that every so often, with the repetition of a certain beat, Brendan found himself in the same place but a different time. The first time, or the first time that he could actually recall, it happened was when he was four years old. Brendan was hungry. He was scared. His parents had been in the store for the past two hours buying groceries and it had gone from a nice pink sunset to a horrid darkness outside. The other cars were strange and foreign evils. A man tapped on the window--it was then, at this precise moment, that Brendan's heart hit the right beat.

He was there.

And when his eyes opened, Brendan Phillips, four years old, was sitting on the ground in a parking lot. A car honked at him. It was still dark outside, but his parents' vehicle was nowhere to be found.

He started to cry. Someone came out. The police got called. It was when they arrived that they discovered that he was the same boy who had gone missing two hours prior--his parents were beyond ecstatic to have him returned. Kidnapped, they claimed. The police were skeptic.

"He likely went out looking for you. Don't leave your kid in the car," they said, and that was that.

A year passed. Brendan's parents slowly released Brendan back into responsibility, cautious to never leave him alone too long. He was, afdter all, only five years old. A toy blanket was his favorite thing to carry around and he watched Elmo's World like it was the best thing in the world--he was a young, small, innocent child, and they didn't want to ever feel their hearts beat the way they did when he went missing. That fear that had consumed them...for a moment or two, it was like they'd lost him forever.

But of course, like all new parents, they came to realize that Brendan wasn't going anywhere. And when he'd been up since 6 a.m. and it was midnight, and he was still bouncing off the walls and saying he wasn't tired, they realized that there were times they wished he would.

One such night came.

It was a beautiful night, but the young couple dared not to go to the movies or on a 'real' date. Instead, they sat in their comfiest clothes on the couch, a bowl of hot popcorn before them, and a thriller on the screen. Sinister, one of their favorites, was playing on the TV. They didn't even have to pay for it.

Just as the man on the screen held up a picture, their son walked in, rubbing his eyes and frowning. "Mommy-" He shrieked as the sounds played and the pale-faced woman appeared, outside the picture. They turned to him just at the moment that his frail little heartbeat one beat too fast--one too many--and Brendan was a blip in the night.

The mom paused the movie, looking over at her husband.

"Did--"

"He's in bed, honey. It's just the movie that's got you scared." He leaned over, kissed her, and put his hands on her stomach to hold her down. Growling into her ear, he paused to whisper, "I can scare you later if you'd like."

It wasn't until four a.m. the next day that Brendan was back, in the same place, his eyes squeezed shut and his little fists tight together. His parents were asleep on the couch, his mom still half dressed, and he frowned, looked at the black screen, and returned to his room.

Four years pass before Brendan would begin to notice that those moments were not singular events. Sometimes a year would pass between the pauses--as he'd come to call them--but sometimes, only a few months would. At first, they were only a few hours. One, two, nothing important. Then it was a day. His parents would scold him for hiding or running off. Brendan was nine years old and not one person believed it when he said that he would close his eyes and open them at a different time.

"Too much television," his grandfather would say.

"You need to take him to a therapist," his teacher would tell his dad on parent-teacher day.

Brendan learned to keep silent. At nine years, silence was the only way he knew to deal with it. After all, how could he even explain it? He never saw what happened. His eyes were always shut. One second, he'd be feeling just fine, then something would come out of nowhere and--poof!--he was gone like yesterday's cookies.

So when he crawled up to his bed, a double-decker despite the fact that he was an only kid, Brendan would cradle his blanket and his pet shark named Tony and whisper that everything would be okay. "I won't pause again," he promised to them, petting his shark. Its fur was soft and he squeezed hard, feeling the cotton inside like it could make everything okay again. "I'm a good boy."

His mom was in the other room cooking dinner. His father was still at work, always coming home a few hours after his mom. School had ended three hours ago, meaning that it was almost time for family dinner, homework, then bed.

There was nothing that scared Brendan. Or, if it could truly be said, nothing that existed in the material world that scared Brendan. His hands held tight to Tony, his toes were crossed, his eyes were wide open, and one second it was March 3rd, Thursday, 2022, and the next it was March 3rd, Monday, 2025. Brendan was nine years old.

His bedroom looked different. Instead of the double-decker, there was only one bed, and the color was ugly--a bright pink! Brendan hated pink with all his heart. Speaking of which, hearts lined the walls, and the floor was covered with tiny toys that looked both painful and oddly cute. Everything was cute.

Brendan shook his head and walked out of the room. Tony didn't go with him. Nothing ever did but the clothes on his back--why he couldn't say. Brendan wasn't a scientist. He didn't know what day it was, what year it was, what anything was. All he knew was that he was hungry, it was likely already dinner time, and he had somehow traveled int someone else's room.

A little girl, hardly three years old, played with a stuffed bear on the floor of his living room. His mom was in the kitchen, cooking dinner and listening to loud music. His father wasn't home yet.

"Mom?"

She didn't hear him.

Brendan walked closer, leaning against the door of the kitchen. The last time he'd tried to tell her she wouldn't listen. What would make this time any different? He breathed in deeply.

"Mom?"

This time, she turned, her eyes falling on him. A screech, louder than anything he'd ever heard before, escaped her. A pot of chili fell from her hands, hitting the ground, beans flying everywhere. Sause hit the walls, the counters, her clothes, coating all with its tangy goodness.

"Brendan?" Her voice was histrionic. Running towards him, she held her hands far out, ready to catch him and keep him forever.

She never made it that far.

A scream pierced the air. The high pitched noise cut through the distance, through the loudness of the atmosphere, and as he slowed down once more, Brendan's scream became a sob. "Mom?" There was no mom. The house was empty, all the lights turned off, no car in the driveway. He walked around but nothing made sense--the couches were different. His room was still pink, but this time, posters lined the walls. They glowed in the darkness just as a computer screen would. "How long was I gone?" he asked, his voice trembling, but there was no one around to answer him. No way for him to know that ten years had passed.

A thirteen-year-old girl sat down at the movies with her date, a boy from her classroom who'd already begun to get acne and had a wicked sense of humor. His clammy hand held hers and they shared a bowl of popcorn. She had Coke and he had Pepsi. It was perfect. As Brendan explored her room, she leaned her head on his shoulder. As he angrily left the house, slamming the door behind him, she giggled at a stupid joke and stuffed her mouth with the butter-saturated popcorn. They laughed at the before-movie credits and she kept her eyes shut as the R-rated ones passed by.

Cars passed outside, rumbling down the track with models he'd never seen before. The track was made out of pure metal, five inches thick, and the cars hovered on top and flew past at high speeds. None of them noticed a little boy in outdated clothes walking past, his hands shoved in his pockets, moving through the suburbs of a city he no longer recognized.

"I'm getting worse," he whispered, this time only to himself. Tony wasn't around anymore. He had a sinking feeling that he'd never see Tony--or his parents--ever again. A rock formed in his throat and he tried to swallow it down but it just kept growing, bigger and bigger, until tears the size of his fingertips were rolling down his cheeks. Frustrated, he stopped and wiped at his eyes. "This is stupid! I want to go back! I want my mommy!"

In the movie theater, the girl scooted closer to her date as a man with a chainsaw came on screen. They'd snuck into an R rated movie after their parents had paid for a PG one. Parents didn't know anything about teenagers, they told each other. They didn't want some stupid kids movie. They wanted something real.

When the perky young hero was walking past, the girl closed her eyes tight, but it didn't stop the sounds from coming. The yell. The chainsaw. Metal cutting through bones. Blood, spurting out everywhere. She screamed into his shoulder but it didn't muffle the sound. In fact, it was like her scream went on and on, nothing there at all. Like she wasn't leaning on anything. Like she was sitting in the theater chair all by herself, a thin wisp of air all that was left in her throat, and the patrons who'd just walked into the theater all stared at her as though she was crazy.

"Oh no," she whispered, then stood up and excused herself as quickly as possible. Christina Phillips was thirteen years old. It was March 3rd, 2034. It wasn't the first time she'd disappeared--as she liked to call it--but it was the longest. As she walked into the main area of the theater, she didn't recognize anything. Everyone was dressed differently. Instead of palm-phones, people were talking into their thumbs. Little devices beeped and people had the metal attached to them in all sorts of ways. They blinked and their eyes were different colors. "Oh shit," she said, shaking her head and running out of the movie theater.

The air was unfathomably hot. She started sweating, having worn her prettiest sweater dress to the date. Her little heels were useless for walking long distances and she chunked them off, preferring to just walk barefoot. Stares followed her as she went but Christina didn't care--she knew better than to try and talk to anyone. No one listened, no one believed, and nothing would change the fact that she could never go back. She was stuck there. Forever.

She swallowed down a lump and forced herself to keep walking. Home wasn't too far away--if it was still there at all.

It was by chance that she passed a small boy, also without shoes, on the side of the track. Cars whizzed past and she looked down at him, seeing a face that looked just like hers--just like their mothers.

"Do I know you?" she asked, frowning.

He shrugged. "No one knows me anymore," he said, then shoved his hands into his pocket. Content to walk forever, he saw no need in stopping to talk to people. It wouldn't change anything. His stomach would grumble but he had no way to eat. Brendan didn't know when he'd last ate. It was far from dinner time.

Just as he started off away from her, she stopped him, reaching out to grab his tiny arm.

"No, wait, I do. I know you. It's you who doesn't know me," she said. A smile crossed her face. "You're name is Brendan, right?"

As one smile grew the other only strayed further away. Brendan pulled his arm back and stared at the strange girl before him. "Who--how--"

"You went missing the year I was born. I never met you, but dad had pictures of you all over his old cloud drive. You haven't aged at all." She shook her head, smiling greater. "They all said that you just went missing one day. When I was real little, my mom said that you came back as a ghost and said goodbye. She said that you had died and that no one knew it but her--she swore she had proof. When I first started to blink, I tried to tell them, but dad always got angry at me. He said that you used to say the same thing. That it wasn't nice to say that."

"I don't--"

She kept talking, shaking her head and showing off her teeth as she grinned even wider. Someone had turned on the water and the handle broke--she wouldn't stop pouring out until everything was gone.

"But I kept blinking, you know? It kept happening. I realized how to control it, sorta. I just needed to stay calm. When you're not calm, it gets bad. You start blinking and you just get out of control!" She stopped there, and her smile grew softer and softer until all she had left was a thin line and a sigh that rested on her cheekbones. "I was stupid. I went on a date with Jacob and he said to go to the scary movie...I thought I could control it, but I guess I couldn't."

"You...you're my sister?"

Christina couldn't help it. She snorted.

"Is that all you took from that? Sheesh, you're just like dad."

"I...I just always thought I was alone," Brendan said. It felt weird, talking to someone else, knowing that someone else existed that was just like him. "My mom always told me that I was supposed to have a twin. They had made up a big room for two, with stacked beds, and she was always upset when it was just one. Just me. So they never gave me any siblings and I was always alone. No one was my friend in school. I had these...these pauses. I still do. I pause and everything goes away and when it comes back, it's the same but it's different."

She nodded. "Time passes. But we...we don't." She reached out and took his hand. "It's okay. You're not alone anymore."

Something new blossomed inside Brendan. Something he hadn't felt in a long, long time.

"You promise?"

Hope.

"I promise."