2.

Something most odd is happening, a string of things most odd if I were really to get down to it. Having considered making contact with a friend of mine whose services I so happen to be in need of, and be it coincidence or something else entirely, we so happen to come together ... just like that.

We go for a coffee, and I explain my situation with him, share this tale of mine ... another tale to keep between just us. And fairly soon, my friend and I arrive back to my apartment and as soon as we do, I am taken somewhat aback.

My door, my front door was open, only ever so slightly open but open it was, ominously ajar. I had closed it when I left, and I knew for sure that I had locked it. I live alone. I always lock my door when I leave and in no way would I do anything else, accidentally or purposely, so seeing it open, I instantly felt justified in wanting to be cautious.

The place inside had been thrashed, completely ransacked. The coincidence thought runs through my head once again. What were the chances that I would just so happen to be burgled at that particular moment in my life, especially with what I had recently come into contact with? This was no run of the mill burglary. This is a violation.

'Man, they really done a job on your place', my friend informs me.

'You don't say' I quietly say to myself.

My laptop is upside down in the place where I had left it and it looks to have been put through the mill too.

'Did you try to open the file on that memory stick using your laptop?' my friend asks.

'Yes, well I tried to, but as I said it is encrypted and I ...'

'Your internet was on at the time?'

'Well, yeah.'

'It might be possible that someone traced your position, but what do I know?'

The break in certainly was no accident. This was no random crime. Someone was after what I had found. And to add to all this ...

In the midst of trying to piece together this puzzle, a movement from within the kitchen caught us off guard sending an immediate and horrid terror through us both. Whomever had come had either yet to leave or had hung around in the hopes I'd make a return. A gun glinted in an intruder's hand. The sight of this was both real and unreal at the same time.

Shots rang out during our panic induced fleeing of the apartment. How neither of us were hit, I have no idea. Adrenaline and disbelief merged to form a desperate urge to survive and survive we did. We ran and we ran until we came to the conclusion we were not being followed or at least no longer being followed.

'What have you got yourself into?' asked my friend.

'I have no idea' was all I could say, which was true, and as odd as it is, it also seemed ... untrue.

When calm next came, I began to question everything. Was that bottle on the beach meant for me or had I come to be tangled in someone else's web? Wrong place wrong time or right place wrong time or something along those lines, perhaps. If I had turned that memory stick into the authorities, then not knowing would have eaten at me for some time to come.

Despite the recent visiting danger, I really couldn't abandon this quest of mine. I had to find out what it all was about. My friend, ever loyal as he is, offered me refuge at his place. He now was all in too though we would wait until the next day to try crack the encrypted file, which of course, I still had.

Thing now too is, not only have I put myself in harm's way, but my friend has already been in danger too and surely will again once we attempt to open that file. I am thankful I have him. Hopefully we'll still have one another when all is said and done.

So, we got to work, or rather my good friend got to work. He told me he hadn't seen encryption quite like this before though he had tricks he could put to work so all is not lost. The process, his process, yielded results quicker than expected as if he was destined to have at it. What was discovered shook and threatened all that is my life.

The file, it is a video file meant for me as apparently it was recorded by me. I had done no such thing, as I haven't recorded anything of the likes ... yet. And here's the stinger ... it is from a future I do not remember, a future I could not remember. It is something yet to happen though has happened? The proof of such is right there.

We play the file full screen and, on this screen, this older me speaks directly to me as I am or was in this moment of shocked and disbelieving viewing. The message was both clear and cryptic. Time travellers are seeking something I am yet to create. It is something valuable and very necessary to their cause.

I'm not an inventor. How does any of this work? I have no idea and to make things worse, my future self ... he implored me to run, hide, and do all I can to evade those who would do anything to claim this phantom creation.

This discovery and all that it is, has sent me on the run, and I have been running ever since. It may have come full circle since then but in many ways, I am still running, and I may never wholly get past it.

The coincidence thought I had more than once already, would set back in with how easy it was for my friend to open up the file as if it was something that he was meant to do, kinda the point though, right? He was the first person I thought of to help me to do such a thing and coincidentally was in the right place at the right time.

Yeah, apparently, he was right where he was supposed to be for not only do I greet myself in that video file but future me greets this friend of mine, this friend of ours, too.

From the very moment I found that bottle, my life had already been altered in many ways, ways which could be impossible to fathom, whether that is intentional or something other than intentional, and this will continue to be the case from here on in.

What would the chances be that I would come across a clear bottle on a beach with a memory stick inside of it that contains a message intended for me to see? One hundred percent apparently, given the fact it was I who recorded the video.

As already said, I had never done such a thing, record a video message for myself that is, let alone have it placed within a clear bottle, and have it strategically placed upon a beach for myself to stumble upon; definitely do not remember any of this other than finding the darn thing, though as it would appear, memory would have nothing to do with its existence. Still, there had been something about it all.

You can imagine my surprise and that of my friends when the file is opened and played. To go into a little more detail ... in this video file I appear to be quite a bit older than what I currently am. This apparent older looking me has something to say, though as to how 'I' take it, I guess is completely up to me.

'Hello, my friend, I know it may sound weird that I am calling you, a younger version of myself, friend. I know that this whole situation is weird but listen if you will, you need to hear it. For it begins and ends with your position of watching a video of your older self. Well, it starts with that bottle you found but here is where it gets ... interesting ...

I am sure you have questioned it by now so I can tell you that yes ... I am you, you twenty-three years from now. I opened by calling you friend as you are right now everything of which I once liked about myself, well apart from how much I used to work back then, though you were taking steps to change that and in such ... here we are.

You could do with taking a few more walks like that one but without finding messages like what I am sending you and if you are watching this now, as I know you are, then obviously enough fate has intervened, and the message has arrived at its intended destination.'

Can you imagine how would you act to something like this if you so happened to find yourself in a position like that of what I found myself in? would you take it for what it appears to be or just believe that someone somewhere is playing one hell of an elaborate hoax? My friend and I could only stand there, or rather sit there as we were, silently in his apartment watching this video in disbelief.

'In the not-so-distant future ...' continues my older self, 'you, I or we, however you want to look at it, will create something which will be wanted by many. Some of these many have found a way to travel through time especially to come looking for you with the intent of acquiring what it is we have, or what it is we will create. ...

Thing is, that you do not have what they want and won't have it for as I said it has yet to be created. So, all I can tell you for now is to run, hide, keep your head down. Do whatever you can to avoid being captured by this ... crowd. The future depends on you; I depend on you, so get going ... now ... knock, knock.'

The video ended then and there and with that, there was a double knock to the front door, as the video appeared to suggest.

'Oh crap' I said looking towards the door and then to my friend.

'You heard what you said, you better get going, use the back bedroom window.'

Wait just a moment here. Future me sends present me a message informing me that there are time travellers coming and they are right here right now? And they want something I am yet to invent? What the hell? Though I can't be waiting a moment, can I?

Another knock comes thick and strong to the door. I close my friend's laptop and remove the memory stick. With all that has come already I was not willing to hang around to find out just who really is at the door of the apartment I have come to be in.

'You're coming with me, right?' I ask of my friend.

'I will distract whoever it is at the door then I will follow, I will catch up with you, alright? I know where to find you.'

He knows where to find me? Really? Reluctantly and quickly, I made my way to the back bedroom. As I get there, I hear a sound from behind, as if the front door had just been kicked in, there is a scuffle, and I hear my friend let out a roar. I want to go back and help him, but the words spoken on that video, however strange they may seem, remain with me so I exit the apartment through the bedroom window.

It has been six months since I found that Memory Stick inside a large clear bottle on a beach, and I have been on the run since that day at my friend's apartment. I haven't seen him since then by the way. Either he doesn't know where to find me after all or he has been hurt so badly he cannot follow.

What have I been doing for those last six months? Well, mostly I try to keep out of trouble while also trying to get myself some answers.

There is definitely something not quite right. Whether or not I believe in that message, whether or not I believe it is real, I was not willing to take any chances. I had to play my cards cautiously, and I can tell you right now that the video message has not been the only contact, I have had with my older self. ...