So, this is my first attempt at writing in a few years. I'd appreciate good honest feedback. It's just a prologue, but I thought I'd toss it up and see what people think. I'm trying to write it from the perspective of a participate in the events who is writing a log or memoir of sort about the event. Let me know what you think. Feel free to rip it apart, I promise I won't be offended/upset! Side note, no trek in this one though it is set in the future.
Thanks and enjoy!
The last time I had seen Danny, the year was 1945. It was just after the Japanese surrender. We had decided then that we were done playing god, so to speak. Our last attempt at global direction had ended with the deals of millions, so we were content to leave your world in one piece even if that piece was wounded badly. It was then that we walked forward in time to the year 2275. There were 9 of us left then. We represented what was left of the Timewalkers, a race once prevalent in this corner of the universe. I had thought they all died in the last jump. But, to my surprise, here he was. Danny was average height with bright blonde hair. He stood out in any crowd. Maybe it was the millennia of experience under our belts. Then again maybe it was just the hair.
“Danny?” It was almost a whisper when I said it, I was so shocked. Clearly he didn’t hear me.
“Danny!” I yelled over the crowd. His head turned and caught my eyes. For a moment, he too was just as shocked I as was. It would seem we had made the same assumption all those years ago. I dropped some money on the bar a slide out the front door to follow Danny.
“How’ve you been, old man?” It was a running joke. Danny was indeed the oldest of the 9, but you’d never know it. He had been touched at an early age. He still had the body of a twenty-something, even as his age of…well we won’t go there.
“Look who’s calling me old, grandpa.” While I stood head and shoulders above Danny I was slightly older in appearance. The result of decades worth of fighting in hundreds of wars that in the end, really didn’t actually matter that much. “We should go someplace and talk.” He said
“I have a car, in the dock.” I clicked my keychain and the mechanical lift rose to retrieve my car. Danny puffed lightly on his cigarette.
“How long has it been?” He asked. You see, this was actually a code phase. Should any of us be compromised, we would of course give the duress response. “Too long for old friends like us.” I replied. With that, we slide into the cockpit like seats of my car and lifted off towards the docking port of the ship we were on. Once out in space, the conversation continued as I piloted toward my apartment.
“I thought you were dead.” I said
“That makes two of us.” He replied in earnest. “When I woke up, after the jump, I found myself buried under a ton of scrap metal. I had to dig for almost 6 hours before someone heard me. I had a fun time explaining how I had gotten beneath a wreck of something I didn’t even know existed yet. I almost died down there.”
“Have you seen any of the others?” I asked bluntly.
“Right to the point eh? I guess you were always that type.” He twisted a pen in his hands, dancing it over his fingers. “No, but I imagine now that we’re together, the rest will find their way to us.”
“Have you been loyal to the Directive?” I already knew the answer. The Directive that we, in our infinite wisdom had set down for ourselves had been far too strict. No life. No love. No passion. Simply exist, and wait to be called by the forces of history until we were needed again. You see, we are a special brand of people. Being immortal gives you a lot of time to become proficient in…well, a great deal of things. Danny was the leader. We all knew that. He was also the youngest, and usually the most impulsive. He went with his gut instinct. It made for a good combination. In comparison, I was typically quite calculating. Always looking at analysis, readouts, and statistics. Danny hated it, but together we could usually come to an acceptable solution.
I looked at Danny, and could see the sadness in his face. “No” he said, barely above a whisper. A smile crept to his face. “But I’ll have to live with it.
We continued to my apartment where we sat down and opened a bottle I had been saving for a special occasion. Now, permit me to take a small aside here and explain ourselves a bit. Trust me it’ll help you grasp the conversation that follows.
As Timewalkers, we can sense time. As if it were somehow physical, the way you can feel a cool breeze on a hot summer day, or hear a baby crying in a movie theater. Now, a gentle breeze can feel wonderful by itself. But if that same gust of wind were to gather the strength of say, 8 other gusts, the wind suddenly becomes a force of nature. A terrible power that can wreak havoc on anything it touches. It also has the power to correct, in its power. So when I say that Danny and I could feel our presence making an impact in the flow of time around us, you know how important that is. It acts like a beacon to the other Timewalkers. From this point on, I’m fairly sure they were aware of our presence.
“Do you think they’ll be able to feel the impact on the Flow?” I asked
“With the both of us together, yeah definitely.” Danny said sinking into my couch comfortably. “The question is whether they’ll respond. Most were not exactly happy with our decision, if I recall correctly.”
“Regardless of personal opinions, you can’t deny the fate of the two of us meeting tonight. There must be a reason.” There was always a reason. World War I. The development of the atomic bomb. The Crusades. The First Interplanetary War. They had all been important turning points in the history of mankind, and every time we had been reunited. Meeting Danny tonight was all the convincing that I would ever need.
“No, it’d be hard to argue that.” He replied. Already I could feel the flow of time shifting around us, rippling out into space. Like dropping a penny in a pond. Eventually it’ll wash up on the other side.
“We should try to contact the others.” Danny said. “There must be something coming. We should be able to feel it soon. Perhaps will all of us together we will be able to prepare for it.”
“The chance of us actually being able to predict and prepare for something we don’t even know for sure it happening yet are….slim.” I lied. Like I said, fate did not put Danny and I together for no reason.
“True enough, I suppose. So what do we do? Wait?” Danny was looking for direction. A rare moment indeed. I finished the last of my drink.
“f*ck it. Let’s go find our friends.”
With that we were off. Onto another fantastic adventure to save the universe is what I’d like to say. As it turns out, that wasn’t exactly the case however. This was just the beginning. Had I known then what I know now, well, things would have gone very, very differently.
Topic: Totally Original (Read 2403 times)