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Nothing ever felt the same when the turning and twisting segments of time flowed through my mind and body; I had no words to describe the rush of information flowing through me. Asleep I was in one place in one moment; awake I was somewhere else in some other moment. I had no time to conduct any personal thought or emotion to the environment, to a rapidly shifting world around me. All I could do was process and observe everything I saw and felt in moments most foreign to me.

Somehow, I knew I was only dreaming. Yet, I floated in discontinuous space, watching full moments of the lives of many which had not come to pass. My life flashed before my eyes. The lives of three others flashed before my eyes as well, people who I knew, yet had no ties to this far ahead into the future. Without understanding why, I came to understand that I was seeing somewhere between ten to twelve years into the future, compared to where I was before.

The fragments of video playback were realistic experiences I lived through, skipping through random segments of existence while I struggled to understand them, but in each moment, I knew exactly how I felt, be it my own body, or the body of the others who are part of this prophecy.

First, I saw myself, my own personal life lived in a wondrous winter wasteland. The external appearance of my body proved that I had aged well into this moment. However, I was standing out in the snow bank of a place I would one day call home, laughing, smiling, enjoying the time I spent hanging out with Lumina in the familiar manner of psionic telepathy. I knew I was still on Earth, but I've never looked so happy before, so full of life, so certain that everything would be okay.

I knew I was living on my own, but given all the planning I put into that part of my life, everything managed to work out. This is the future that I've desired most for Lumina, the future I desired most for myself. This is the lifestyle I want to live while on this planet, the future I hold most dear to me, my number one priority.

I didn't have long to enjoy the show, because the world soon shifted to another moment, or rather another place and subject entirely. Still around the same time of the future, I was now looking through the future of Zero, all grown up and living alone. Except, I knew she wasn't living alone when the door opened up.

Zero was enjoying some quiet time inside her own house, a house which she owned herself, some place nearby but out of the confines of Georgia. She had moved out of state as well, and built a calming life for herself here. The woman entering through her front door was not a stranger to Zero on the other hand. This tall brunette brightened Zero's eyes with purpose, lifting her spirits in ways I couldn't currently know. The stranger was happy to see Zero again, just as Zero was thrilled to see the return of her wife.

Zero apparently found somebody in life that made her truly happy, a life partner working together, living together, and owning the large expensive home together. They were both happy to be around each other, to be involved in each other's lives. The happiness reflected in Zero's expression was all powerful, warming and hypnotic. It was a kind of happiness I could understand, though aweing was it for me to witness something in a classmate I barely knew.

Before much longer, the environments shifted again, leading me to the interior of a corporate office meeting room, with the windows overlooking a huge city. The room was quite impressive, and the unknown business I was witnessing was in the process of conducting a huge corporate meeting with people in sharp suits and pie charts.

If I could have allowed myself to be shocked and beside myself in the moment, I would have, though my emotions in the moment were not for me to control. Instead, I let her sensations flow into me, proving the seriousness of what I was now seeing. Among the many who took turns standing in front of the window for a presentation, the most important came when Maddison started presenting her work in front of the board.

Grown up Maddison, the same woman I concluded earlier to care about nobody was giving some kind of presentation plan in how the company would fundraise and afford feeding the thousands of starving masses in a world that had changed through instability. I wasn't aware of the why or the how, but I could tell that this fundraiser was a project bigger than what most companies would provide. It wasn't a dead speech built for clout, or an idea being pitched in a planning phase; the process was already in motion, the gears of time making it certain. Maddison's intentions to help provide what she could for the world were genuine and real. Her words echoed in the hearts of those around her, having a more familiar understanding of the world crisis situations.

Maddison actually cared in this moment; she cared enough about the world to use monetary income as a secretary or board member to pan out a real solution to a real problem. The other members were in agreement before the meeting ever started, having already known about the details in advance. Once it was all over, she got praise and support.

One more time, the environment around me changed. This time, twelve years into the future, I was seeing the subject of Kate. However, I wasn't able to see much at all. It was nothing but broken static surrounded by darkness, my view of this future blocked out by some unknown force.

Then, I finally awakened back into the world I was really part of. My mind lagged as I tried to piece together all I could remember from the dream, while the sensation of certainty plowed through me again. I was more than certain today that all I just witnessed was real, a segment of time so far away, I won't see it for more than a decade. This, I realized while waking up, was the fifth premonition experienced. This time, it was the strongest premonition I could remember, and it involved more people than just myself, unlike all other premonitions before.

Since my mind was as tired and groggy as my body, I had to put a lid on the situation for now, at least until I could gradually wake up some more and get to school. I'll have no choice but to drag Lumina into this as well; there's too much information to process alone this time... Did I really see twelve years into the future?

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<11/22/2012 - 11:30 | Cage High School (Algebra), Austell, GA, USA>

"Please understand how weird this is for me. I know what I saw, and it's freaking me out!" I made sure to put time aside for this moment in class, so that I could talk to Lumina about the fifth premonition and what it all meant.

"Why do you keep staring?" Again annoyed by my wandering eyes, Banarus did her best to ensure I ignore them all.

Ignoring any of them was really impossible for me to do. Maddison and Kate were both in this class, two people involved in the distant future that I saw. I wondered to myself why I only saw their futures and nobody else's. Why them? What was so special about Kate, Maddison, and Zero? I didn't have any answers to that. I've been wracking my brain all day long about the prospect of talking directly to each one about this, about what I saw. "Sorry." I turned my gaze away, still too indecisive to talk to anybody else about it. Even if I were to tell them what happened, would they really believe me?

"I know it's weird... Still, everything you saw was in the distant future, right? The way you described it, everybody was really happy."

That's about the summary of it. The future that I saw between myself and Lumina was in fact a happy moment, perhaps the happiest moment I have yet to live. It was the only revelation keeping me calm about the situation. I actually fluctuated in and out of excitement today because of it. It's like a promise, a certainty that everything will be okay, that all of my efforts and plans to enjoy such a wonderful future with Lumina will happen no matter what.

My eyes drifted back to Maddison, too bewildered to forget about the contrast in what I saw. The vision of the future pertaining to her life made all of this harder for me to believe, though some alternate source of certainty always won me over. Maddison surely doesn't act or behave like a person who gives a care in the first place, so I don't understand how she could turn into that kind of person twelve years from now. Can people really change that much? "I wonder why I saw their futures too. I never asked to, yet I saw it anyway, even if it was just a few glimpses of moments."

I tried just as well to identify what kind of crisis would occur in the world so many years from now, a crisis that would invoke mass starvation. It only seemed to be on the scale of one or two major countries, but I could not be sure of the details beyond the vision I witnessed. Of course, if I tie in my future at the same time, I would not be too affected by it.

"I'm more interested in why you're having these visions at all. Somebody must be giving them to you. How can you see into the distant future so far ahead without even being awake for it? It doesn't make any sense."

I don't know why I embodied small comfort in Lumina's cluelessness to the situation. Maybe it's because, if it has nothing to do with psionic powers or anything that the Altiri have done, then none of them could possibly be responsible for this. Whatever is causing my premonitions to trigger, it has something to do with me directly, some mechanism I just don't understand yet. Instead, I wondered what would come next. "Kate's future made no sense at all. I mean, it was all broken up and didn't seem like something put together."

"Maybe the ability started to break down the moment you were about to wake up. You said Kate was the last person you saw in the dream, not the first, right?"

Can she even contemplate what I witnessed? Can I? If I summarize it again in my head, I just saw twelve years into the future! What person could possibly have that much power? "I guess. I have no details at all about it, other than her being the subject. Then there was Zero's future."

"What happened in her life?"

"Don't you mean, what will happen?"

"Were you hoping to hear me laugh like a hick and slap my knees?"

Okay, so that was the lamest, oldest joke about time I've ever come up with, but would it kill Lumina to laugh a little? It's so hard for me to get her to find anything funny these days. "When I saw Zero's face, she looked most happy, like someone who had their entire life fulfilled. She looked just like I did in my own future, in my own life that will come down the line. She lived in a big house, and she was married to some woman with brown hair."

"Lots of women have brown hair. I have brown hair!"

"I mean, she wasn't you. I don't know who this other person was, but she and Zero made each other happy. I saw bits of Zero's personal life and bits of Maddison's business life."

"Hold up just a second. So Zero swings both ways?"

"I knew you wouldn't let go of that small detail." Like I'm one to talk. Days ago, I was surprised myself to learn that Zero was a lesbian. It only makes sense that her future spouse is a woman. Still, I won't have Lumina judging her for it. I've already decided that those who are gay are still making acceptable choices of freedom, and I have to respect it, even if it means further defying the church. "Got something to say about it?"

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

"No, I just didn't know... Actually, that might make it easier for you to become friends with her, if she knows that you're trying to be platonic about it."

"I don't know," I reflected, swapping thoughts. "The place that she was in, it wasn't here, but it wasn't the same as where I was either. I can't be too sure, but I got the sense that Zero and I were not involved in each other's lives in this premonition. If that's the case, then nothing I can say or do will change that. I don't want to try making a friend if we're only going to drift apart afterwards."

"I hear you, but it's quite common for high school kids to do that as they grow up."

"Why though?" I put both of us on the spot. I knew what Lumina was saying was statistically accurate. Once people start getting jobs and other aspects of life, they pretty much abandon the idea of staying in contact with those they used to, but there's no logical reason behind it. "If someone is best friends with another, why the hell would they just split off all contact and never check in? That's not how friendship works. And I don't buy that garbage excuse of being too busy with things all the time. People can make time."

"I never said I agreed with the practice. I don't know why people do that Reed."

"Don't tell me it's like that in your world."

"It's harder to compare that way. I still keep in touch with all my friends when I can, but the position I'm in makes it really hard for me to make any new friends, practically impossible."

"Well I'm just not like that at all." The very thought of the behavior sickens me. If I were best friends with someone, I would want to help each other throughout most of our entire life spans, go as deep and as personal as possible, and fix any wrongdoing we inflict on each other. "Even if you and I never fell in love the way we did Lumina, we still would have been amazing friends all the same. Given those circumstances, I never would have cut off contact with you at all; never!"

"I'm glad to hear it. Still, if everything you're seeing is a vision of reality, a totem of the future playing out before your very eyes, then this is all good news."

"It is?"

"Don't you see it?" Lumina pointed out. "If all of this is a vision into the distant future, if everything that you saw was part of what will eventually happen, then you don't have to worry so much about the possibility of failing to make that goal."

I sat silent and stunned by her simple explanation, more stunned that I overlooked that fine detail. Though, I couldn't celebrate the way she wanted to. Something tugged at the background of my conscious, a reminder that this was all somehow very wrong. "Is that really how time works?"

"Huh?"

Even I can't claim to be an expert on the timeline, but I've spent so much time thinking about it today. Some aspects of the most probable mechanism are starting to make sense, while others are not. "I don't understand this Lumina. Time isn't supposed to be something locked in place. Our futures are not set in stone. If they were, it would imply that any seen destiny is inescapable."

"Only you could somehow be upset that you saw a perfect future for yourself."

"I'm not upset. I'm thrilled that everything will work itself out somehow... But I just don't understand something. I thought, based on what I learned earlier, that the future can be changed if we somehow knew what would come ahead. If we became aware of what would happen, we would have the power to change it, the butterfly effect growing stronger if the vision is more distant."

"What's your point?"

"Think about it. If somebody glimpses into the future, a future that is supposed to be set into stone, their new knowledge of that future creates a time paradox. The future they saw was how it should have been before prying their eyes into it. So then, how could that same future come true with exact specifications if..." I let my thoughts trail off into a different possibility, one that took much more mental effort.

"I'm pretty sure the world would have ended by now if that were possible. Yeah, there's no such thing as destiny. That's the point isn't it? If a person can see into the future, they can change what events they don't like, or keep things the same if they do favor the results."

I wanted so much to believe that all Lumina was saying was empirical truth, but the revelation that hit me during her speech overpowered my state with potent fear. "No, you're right! Seeing into the future changes the future every time. What we see is what would have happened before we became aware of it. But by peering into the future, our very knowledge of it changes events, even if the only thing different is our reaction to everything around us. Therefore, there is no time paradox. Seeing into the future and having that same exact timeline coexist is physically impossible! It's an anti-paradox system put in place to prevent us from screwing up the universe."

"Sounds dramatic when you phrase it that way."

"This is terrible!" I cried, holding my head in ultimate shame.

"What? Why?"

The concept was jarring for me too. All this time, I never thought much about the previous premonitions I've had. Most of them involved something too small for me to care about, or something negative that I would have wanted to change in the first place, but I never considered the consequences of what might happen if I see a future with a positive outcome. All of the premonitions I've had so far involved futures, futures that no longer exist. I've warped and changed every single moment of time I saw when looking ahead. Even though I never asked to have these premonitions, looking into the future has altered the course of events, even in moments when I didn't want to change anything. "That future..." I started shaking without realizing it, envisioning all that I remembered being dissolved away in an epic wind. "Our future... All of our futures, all of those moments that I saw; they're no longer going to occur anymore!"

"What the hell makes you say that? Reed, you're not making sense. Why wouldn't they occur?"

I was too mortified by the truth to talk to her directly; I was now judging myself alone. This was me; I did this! "My future, the one thing I wanted will no longer happen, all because I've seen a glimpse of what I shouldn't have. My very reactions and thoughts that would have led to that event are no longer the same Lumina. All that would have led to that moment are different now! With a twelve year period, those futures might as well have turned into dust!"

"You look sick." Maddison was the one to point it out to me, that the color had drained from my face while I was shaking slightly every few seconds.

I couldn't look her in the eye anymore, nor could I face any of them after what I've just done. "I'll check it out then." I tried to levy the illusion that I was calm and collected, insinuating that I would only take a trip to the bathroom, where I would really go outside to collect myself. It didn't take me long to get a moment to be myself outdoors beside the building, but the situation didn't become any less alarming.

"Even if you're somehow right about this, you're overreacting. The future is still something that we all control, by the choices that we make."

"How can you even say that?!" I wasn't listening to her anymore. My thoughts became more unhinged as I plunged my own mind into the chaos I've unleashed onto myself. I knew the truth! Lumina is still technically correct, but matching that future to this new timeline is going to be a long shot. I never knew how I got there in the first place, but the very thoughts I'm having now are shattering that vision apart if they have not already. How many choices will I second guess after realizing this? How many wrong decisions will I make? I figure it won't take much to veer me off path. "I chickened out of bringing Veronica with the mall with me because I couldn't understand how that future could have happened. I stayed away from Ms. Ridge after my second vision without even thinking to the reason why. Lumina, every little interaction I make will be different now, even when I'm trying to get to my goal. That future I saw is gone forever! It's never coming back!"

"Then make a better one. Sheesh! You don't even know for sure if these are psychic visions anyway!"

It floored me that she could say that. Shortly after my forth premonition, Lumina retook classes on the transperation material, and soon after discovered a small yet critical flaw in the conversion plan to transperated my body later on, a flaw that has already been fixed. How could I have possibly known about it before hand if it were not a premonition? She knows these blasted future sights are real, but she won't acknowledge it now? "They're real. I never asked for this, but it happened anyway."

"You're the one who always went on about never giving up, and doing whatever it takes to move up north and live a happy peaceful life with me. Yet one vision into the future, and it's totally impossible? Pull yourself together Reed. You're not acting like yourself at all."

"Seeing through time can do that to a person... But you're right. This has me too messed up to think straight." Hearing my own words in thought, I realized that I was making a bigger deal about my situation than I needed it to be. However, there were still critical problems this has caused already, and the guilt swallowing my soul was only opening wider.

"Just take a deep breath. You've done nothing wrong."

"Lumina? I can't make up for something like this."

"For what? You really think it's a deadly sin to accidentally warp your own future by mistake?"

"Not my future Lumina. I wasn't the only one affected." That's what bothered me most about this whole ordeal. Even if I tried to accept gambling with events that would unfold as part of my life, the same rule still applies to Zero, Kate, and Maddison. "I saw their futures too... I destroyed their futures Lumina."

"You don't know that. All you know is a glimmer of what you saw."

Her words couldn't convince me otherwise. I couldn't wipe the looping playback of memory on my mind anymore, the moment I saw Maddison caring about other people, or Zero being the happiest person ever. It was Zero in particular that got to me the most. Maddison rubbed me the wrong way, so seeing into her future didn't bother me as much as everything else. I never really made out what happened to Kate, which equates to me learning nothing about her at all. Zero on the other hand, she was on the path to learning how to live a most wonderful life full of happiness, and yet these cursed eyes of mine snatched that very future away from her. "Zero would have been happy so many years from now. But given everything I saw, it's going to be different, isn't it?"

"Reed..."

Frustration swallowed my patience, so I slammed my fist against the brick wall behind me, ignoring the pain flooding in from impact. "Well what if I don't want it to be different?" Why is this happening to us? As I turned my gaze beyond the sky, I let everything out while I started to break down some more. "Why God? Why is this happening to me?"

"Reed, please—"

"You heard what my wife said, didn't you?! She said somebody had to be giving these visions to me directly, and I believe her, because I would never wish this upon anybody! Why are you giving me these premonitions? Why are people's futures being sacrificed for nothing? You're supposed to know everything and be all powerful, so fix this mess!"

Though she wasn't my focus in the moment, I could hear Lumina breathing carefully in silence, forced to watch my own meltdown. I of course never expected any kind of answer or respond from the creator of our universe, but my anger couldn't manifest for much longer. Coming back to the haunting memory on my mind, I knew that I alone caused the inevitable wreckage of three futures, all of which had such positive endings. I changed everything without wanting to, without meaning to. If Zero or Maddison ever knew the context for what was going on right now, they'd punch me square in the face!

"I... Can't..." My body lost its will to stand, so I sank to my knees instead, the nausea filling in where my anger left me. It felt like a soccer ball slammed into my stomach. "This is all my fault."

"Don't start blaming yourself for this now. You had no control over these visions in the first place."

"Does that even matter anymore?" I asked Lumina, though she couldn't answer against the truth. "Whether I meant to or not, Zero's bright future was destroyed by me. She'll never forgive me for it. I'll never forgive myself for this."

"You can't blame yourself for this Reed. I'm not going to let you talk like this, like you're some horrible person all because of some vision."

"Lumina? Stop it." I continued to elaborate after I heard her gasp. "I'm the one who saw the future, the one who altered the future, the one who destroyed the future. Nothing you say will change that truth. Nothing I say will put Zero's future back together."

"Why do you care about Zero's future more than your own?"

"I don't. But these premonitions were my problem to begin with. Zero was never supposed to be dragged into this with me. I never wanted to peer into the futures of other people. If this is what I get for developing premonitions, then I wish this power never existed in the first place. What I broke cannot be fixed."

"So then, you feel guilty?"

"Took you long enough to realize that! Of course I feel guilty. What I did to Zero isn't something we will ever undo with certainty. On top of that, this is all lots of stuff I don't think I can explain to her anyway. If I apologize to her, it will be all without any context."

"What about trying to make things right anyway?"

"What I try to do now doesn't matter. We could try to fix the future only to unintentionally make it much worse. I won't have a stake in that." I've done enough damage to the timeline already, and I can't take back what I've done. I would love to believe Zero and I would get our futures anyway, but so much could have changed by now. "Face it Lumina. There is no recovering from this. I've doomed us all! Zero and I don't have those exact futures anymore!"

"Just calm down."

"It's all my fault! My fault! My fault! My fault! My fault! My fault!" My body gestures matched the tantrum I threw silently through my thoughts of telepathy. For once, having Lumina here with me didn't make this situation any easier. I wanted to tear down something, to destroy everything around me to take my mind off the guilt of insanity.

I'm just a powerless, meaningless, ordinary human, yet I destroyed a moment of time that could have been, performed a despicable act no other person could have been capable of. I should have known there was a good reason why everybody else didn't have the powers of premonitions! I should have known that every single ability has its price! This time, the cost was far too high.