I walk towards the center of the hall. There are other halls I can find, but since there are an infinite number of them, any one would do.

I run my fingers down the spines of the books, hoping for some ancient eldritch magic to awaken at my touch.

Another shadow looms over me. I look up, and there across the ceiling, one of Medusa's limbs move against the glass, leaving behind moist tracks that ooze against the surface.

I want to see what life could have been, before the inevitable end. I want to see how my parents get by. I want to see my hometown, the park, the little wooden bridge over the lake, old friends who have drifted away, never to return. Even when presented with a universe's worth of knowledge, I only want to know my own fate. Yet what else can I do? I'm not some scientist upon a mission to save humanity, nor a great leader guiding nations toward everlasting glory.

No, I'm just a small and insignificant creature concerned with her own survival only.

I look down and realise I've been walking in circles.

No, not in circles.

A spiral.

The floor at my feet has been slowly rising, step after careful step, carrying me in a staircase that twists upward. A heavenly column of light spills from the dome above, specks of dust hovering weightlessly.

The Archive of Time answers my prayer at last.

Glowing letters appear on the spines of all the books, though I cannot recognise the language. Out of the light above, a book slowly descends into my open arms. The pages flutter. My mind goes blank.

Visions play before my eyes, scenes from my own life, where I am but an omniscient observer.

Decades flash by in seconds.

Mother falls ill next year and never recovers. My father watches his life wither away from the rocking chair on the patio. No one bothers to feed the fishes in the tank anymore. Our garden withers away. My childhood friend hangs herself. I watch her family grieve as her body lay cold and pale in the morgue. The old bridge is destroyed in a storm that hits my hometown. They demolish the park and raise a skyscraper. My brother holds my father's frail hand as the monitor flatlines. The ringing sound continues as the vision fades, and the last I see of my brother is the image of him, old and bent, walking into an empty house.

The glass walls of the archive comes into focus before me. But I still don't understand.

Why don't I appear in any of these scenes?

Can I never really go back home?

Is this the end?

✧✧✧✧

It is not.

When Blain wakes up, Medusa is long gone.

"Time to go," I say, pushing her hair back. She gives me the warmest smile I have ever seen.

"Yeah," she says, sitting up. "Let's get you back home."

We set out once more. Blain drops me off on the bridge on that fateful night.

Only an hour has passed since my past self has fallen into the water below. The night is quiet and still, the stars bright and blinking.

She parks Adam 1.0 by the sidewalk, and I step out.

It's time to go home.

But how do I go home, knowing what's to come, yet having no power to change it?

How do I walk back home and not go insane under the crushing weight of it all?

I wish I hadn't been so foolish that night, so eager to end my life. I wish I could stop my own self from coming to this bridge at all, so none of this ever happened.

I walk back to where Adam 1.0 stands. I must tell her the truth and what I saw in the Archive of Time.

✧✧✧✧

"You promised not to do it!" says Blain, slamming her hands down on the dashboard.

"I made no promises," I say.

She drags weary fingers through her hair. "There is nothing I can do for you now. Go. Just go."

"Take me back to an hour ago. Just an hour is all I ask."

She stares at me for a moment, then shakes her head. "Don't. You cannot change your fate. You cannot change what has already happened."

"Won't you let me try?" Tears sting my eyes, and spill. But I don't feel anything at all. "You got a chance to try."

"It didn't bring my brother back," says Blain.

She pushes the top hatch open. I sit down beside her.

✧✧✧✧

An hour ago.

There is no inconspicuous way to hide Adam, so Blain drops me off two blocks away from the bar.

I watch my past self stumble out of the doors.

The air feels too heavy to breathe, the sounds too loud, lights too bright. I run after me, but I cannot find her. She becomes one with the crowd on the street, bustling with people, reveling in the spirit of Friday night.

When I do catch up to her, I grab her by the shoulders and turn her around.

She squints at my face, unable to recognise her own self. She sways where she stands, reeking of booze.

"Don't go to the bridge tonight!" I scream in her face. "You hear me?"

"What...bridge...?" she slurs, and then her eyes widen in alarm and fear.

The unparalleled fear of looking into your own face.

She yelps and pushes me away, and there are people on the street, staring. I make a grab for her bag as she tries to slip away, and the next moment, screams of alarm spread all over the crowd, and there are people shouting for the police.

In the meantime, she has jumped into a passing bus.

The bag tucked under my arm, I run down a back alley before someone calls the cops on me for robbing myself.

I run to my apartment. Even after everything that's happened, I still remember the way.

My run-down car is parked in front of the building. I ransack the bag for the car keys, jam them in, and speed off as if there's no tomorrow.

The night I fell, I couldn't remember where I was, but now as I retrace the route of the bus, I remember the way to the bridge.

But it's of little use.

I'm far behind the bus as it drops off my drunk self near the bridge.

She is quite determined to end it all. She walks to the edge with much steadier steps now, and swings herself to the other side.

She's too far away, her figure a mere shadow beyond the railings.

Minutes pass like hours.

"No!" I shout. "Don't do it---!"

I scream and push down on the accelerator.

Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't don't don't don't don't don't--

She changes her mind. She really does. She begins to climb back over the rails.

I have to stop. I'm speeding towards the bridge and the car's running out of control. I have to warn her. I slam down on the horn. It deafens us both.

The headlights blind her.

The side of my car scrapes against the railings. Sparks fly.

She falls, down and down, hits her head open on a jutting edge, then down and down again.

A splash.

✧✧✧✧

Tonight I finally killed myself.

I have erased my own existence.

My wide eyes stare back at me from the rear view mirror.

It's me who caused the paradox.

As I drag myself out of the car and run to the side of the bridge, the ground trembles, and a flash cuts across the dark sky, a bright bloody red, as if the reality itself is being torn apart from the inside.

I watch as a rip appears over the river below. Waves are pulled into it as a whirlpool forms around the opening in time and space, and my own corpse is dragged inside, before it closes up once again.

The night air is quiet and still.

Blain's words are loud in my mind.

Falling through a time portal can alter your state of being in ways that are unimaginable.

And thus my corpse will come back to life again, and everything that has happened up till now will follow once more, an unchangeable stream of events in time.

I look behind me. The path back home.

A path I can no longer take.