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Ten
Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Thump Thump Thump

“Ahhhh Ahhh Ahh!”

Bolting up I could hear my son running down the hallway. Damn, I was hoping to sleep through the night. Flipping the covers off the bed I sit up and twist over. Even if I am out of shape and far from being the agile man my wife married at this moment I am spider-man in the flesh.

Feet hitting the thick creamy white carpet I give a loud whisper to my son heading this way. It is practically ritual at this point. So much so that even a night going by without waking up makes me feel a bit off at first when I wake up.

“Nicholas! Go back to bed! Stop! Go to bed!”

The fast pace running down the hallway stops for a split second before I can hear him turn around and head back to bed. Even louder now he wails out into the cold night air his protest.

“Awwwww!”

It’s not even worth looking at the wife to see if she woke up or not honestly. Her ear plugs are in and if she woke up or not she’s going to just stay there anyways. It’s became a bit of a contest of strange rules and even stranger ways of winning.

If our son is slow enough to not run down the hall he will make it to the other side of the bed. He makes it that far without waking me up it’s not my problem. He freaks out and sprints down the hall I’m going to wake up and it’s my problem.

The carpet is just cold enough to wake me up yet not so cold as to jolt me into full awareness. Reaching for the door I grab my phone from the wireless charger checking the time.

Oh joy! It’s only 11:40ish. Yeah, he’s going to get up at least two more time tonight at this rate. Have kids they said, make a family they said. It’s so awesome they said. Yeah, at almost midnight it’s like a total blast!

When talking to yourself in a sarcastic way do you need to add the /s or not? It seems like you wouldn’t need to but also you never know these days. Could just be seen as rude to not add in the backslash s.

What the fuck? Seriously is this what’s going through my mind in the middle of the night!? That should be a interrobang by the way, just saying…

I need to either drink more or less, not sure which yet at this point honestly.

Well you’re having a full-blown discussion with yourself in the middle of the night while going to tuck your son into bed. I would go with the first option though I must admit an objective third party would say the second option, and you know therapy, would be the better choice.

Psshh you, I don’t want to hear it. I am a fully functioning adult I’ll have you know!

Reaching my son’s bed, I pull the covers up and kiss his cheeks.

“Go to sleep! Just lay down and sleep okay? Goodnight buddy.”

“Yeah goodnight daddy, we go to the Nerf gun store okay!?”

“Sure buddy, later, now sleep okay? Good!”

Not even giving him a chance to reply I finish pulling up his duvet and make my way back to the hallway. In the hallway I check my phone, a few messages and some notifications from some social media. Whatever I am up anyways, might as well get some water and reply.

Heading downstairs I make my way into the kitchen the cold tile pressing on my feet like ice cubes. Cool comfortable thick carpet to bare tile, yeah that wakes you up rather well. Gonna want that water for sure now.

Opening the cabinet, I see my daughter’s Garfield cup front and center. ‘It’s not a pretty life but someone has to live it’. Sure Garfield, sounds about right you fat ass cat.

The fridge sounds loud enough to wake the dead as it crunches some ice for the glass. Totally forgot to change it back to cubed after making those Mojitos for us. Whatever, pouring some water I notice the dining room light is on.

Normally this would be near impossible as there is a thick door in the way that makes it hard to tell if the light is on or not.

This light however was glowing through the walls.

Well that’s totally normal and not at all a sign that we have left Kansas, skipped Oz and are in straight up WTFville or anything…

Well curiosity killed the cat and I’m not a cat so it should be fine. Yeah totally going to be fine.

Yeah let’s not, say we didn’t and just write this off as a product of entirely too much booze and being tired. Well it’s that or we can walk into the bright light at the end of the tunnel, ehm, hallway.

Pushing open the door there on the table I see some whiteish blackish every color in existence and a few that I am sure don’t normally exist tesseracts floating above my dining table. What is a tesseract besides a shitty excuse of a plot device for the Avengers? A tesseract is to a cube, what a cube is to a square, in four dimensions.

Now how do I know this you might be asking yourself?

Well the answer is I love random trivia and this is one of those I really love. So next question, how do I know they are tesseracts!? Well that is because shining cubes of light that eat themselves and make shadows that seem to be solid must be a tesseract. Why, because if they are not I am so lost in the sauce it’s not even funny.

Yep, tesseract they are, all, um, eight of them. Yeah eight, hard to count something that doesn’t exist in your universe and all you see. Took me a few seconds of staring into impossibility to remember basic math.

Stepping closer to them I can feel the pulses push through my body harder and clearer with each step. Like an approaching cliff face you cannot turn away from I just find myself staring into the infinite moment of now with each breath.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Understanding slams into my brain turning it into a pure crystalized slushie of information. Now I know what each of the tesseracts are. They are gifts, artifacts of unconceivable power. Each granting to me an item bound to me alone that would fundamentally change my life.

Wow, well I mean that first one is a duh right?

Of course, the ability to reset time to points I chose from now on is without something we must have. No need for any internal debate on that.

Well now hard part, the question is how big a douche canoe am I?

Oi! Yeah totally a jackass, but not that. Straight up put complete and total mind control out the window mate!

Agreed, that’s just asking for all kinds of moral fuckery problems. Teleporting anywhere in the universe is real tempting. Hello Nasa? Let’s kick this space program into ultra-high gear!

Sure, up until a teleport accident goes wrong. Merge with a wall for bonus points!

Fair enough there actually, so moving on. Reading minds and memories is pretty broken powerful. Talk about being the ultimate world police. That could be really useful bruh.

No, just no. Not digging through a bunch of sick fucks memories, to get them all arrested. DO NOT WANT! Would need brain bleach for that on a regular basis, up until I drink bleach to erase them forever.

Well I knew what it was from the beginning, just nice to rationalize it out first. It’s not like being a ruler of a universe would be the most amazing fucking thing ever!

I mean, yeah the remaining items are not of any interest to say the least for me. Especially when compared to being able to create and control my own universe!

Shame I can’t take anything out of it, but still I can bring things in! So that’s going to be awesome! So many possibilities, it’s amazing!

Having decided which two I want I can feel two of them change in a fundamental way as they shift and become a part of me.

I must choose two objects to be the artifacts avatar on this realm. Only through this can I access the powers well beyond anything our universe could normally handle.

Choosing my old dog tags with my red tag for the Subspace Amulet that allows me to create a universe it sinks into my skin before falling back around my neck. The only reason I even carry these anymore is for the blood type and penicillin allergy. A red tag has saved a few lives at least and one of those may become mine one day. Better safe than sorry at least.

The second of the two gifts I was given at random flows into me and I step back into the kitchen placing my hand on the fridge. The energy pulses out of me warping the fridge and becoming a conduit for me to save moments of my life to return to. Feeling a pushing sensation from it I allow the energy to wash back into me.

I would love to be able to describe any of these feeling past a basic nearly bland description. However, it is simply impossible for me to do so. Simply due to there being no words to describe how they felt that exist that I know of. It is like trying to describe what color sound makes to a deaf colorblind person.

This energy pushing into me was different though. This one I could describe in perfect detail to the slightest nuance with no difficulty. It was the feeling of my entire life to the current date being lived in fast forward at millions of times the normal speed. Abruptly ending with me at this exact moment was disconcerting to say the least.

“Alright time to try out this thing! How though? Before I start messing with creating universes let’s get the reset button user manual figured out. Seems kind of important and all.”

Taking a few steps back into dining room to get the Garfield cup I look closely at the table. You would never know that just a few short moments ago I walked in to two floating tesseracts of power just sitting there. Those two were waiting for me, two shining beacons of power, as if someone knew exactly which two powers would be my favorite.

Life is crazy to say the least, that is for sure. Walking into the living room from the dining room I place the cup on an end table and reach for that feeling of my life story energy inside me. Suddenly my hand is resting on the fridge again.

“Wow, this is awesome!”

It is a strange sensation, to go from bent over standing on soft carpet to standing on cold tile. The jolt of going from one to the other isn’t there. I can feel my body’s moments before here, I was used to the tile. Yet I had just been on carpet.

Heading into the dining room there is the Garfield cup waiting for me where it just was seconds ago? Damn, time travel requires a whole new set of words. What tense do you use for something that has already happened subjectively yet has not happened as of current objectively?

Bleh, that sounds like a good word. Bleh, yep! No not really, fuck someone could write a book 1,000 pages long and still not cover every potential word you would need to describe tenses, verbs and likely even adjectives. That’s just for starters off the top of the head.

Yep, agreed, fuck that just going to say whatever makes sense at the time. Consistently is something people who don’t travel through time must worry about!

Okay step two of this experiment! I check my phone for the time just to make sure time is staying on track as well.

“Crash!”

Smashing that smug cat face cup on the tile feels way better than I would have ever thought honestly. Well it is officially broken that is for sure. Reaching out back for that energy, reset energy from now on for sure, why you might ask, that’s because the name sounds fun, I grab it and find myself again facing the fridge with my hand on it.

Looking at the phone again the time has reset as well this go around. Turning around there is no fat cat busted all over my kitchen tile anymore either. Cool!

“This is awesome! Yeah, like seriously this amazing!”

Poking my head back in the dining room there sits that fat cat cup again. Unable to resist the insane amount of giddiness flowing through me I start dancing like a fool.

“Who can travel through time? I can travel through time! I said who can travel through time!? I can travel through time!”

“I’m a time traveler, bitch, I’m a time traveler, bitch, imma travel through time imma fuck up the space time continuum.”

“Oh OH!!!”

Waving my hands in the air and jumping like crazy my voice belts out some impromptu lyrics loudly to say the least.

“What what! Oh yeah, fuck yeah! Who’s gonna shitpost!? I’m gonna shitpost!”

Hearing me yelling loud enough to wake the neighbors my wife makes her way down the stairs slowly looking at me.

“What the fuck are you doing? Are you an idiot!? You’re going to wake the kids up yelling like that!”

“Baby doll, I’m a time traveler for real! I can travel through time now! It’s awesome!”

Pulling on the reset energy I find myself back to the first save point. From now on this shall be Save Slot 1!

Okay, time to see if she still has memories of what just happened. I really doubt it but it is much better to find out now than later. Walking up the stairs I see her sleeping there curled up all over my side of the bed.

She’s adorable in so many ways. So much so that I am willing to put up with her furnace like temperature at night even.

Pushing her shoulder, I wake her up and ask the dumbest yet most obvious question I could think of.

“Baby, did you know I am a time traveler?”

The look of confusion on her face was so priceless it could be a Mastercard commercial.

“What the fuck are you talking about? Go to sleep and leave me alone.”

Oh, hell yeah!

This is amazing!

Okay one last test for right now then I am going to get some sleep. Walking back downstairs I grab the carving fork from the rack and grit my teeth some. Carving fork you say? Yes, this is going to be not fun at all.

In fact, it’s going to…

“FUCK!”

Best way to do something like this is surprise, even to yourself!

Oh fuck, this was a bad idea. What the fuck was I even thinking!?

Pull on the energy, that’s right. You got this, it’s going to be okay soon. Doesn’t even hurt that bad right now honestly. Still got the shock from getting stabbed happening, so time to do this!

Pulling on the energy I find myself once again at Save Slot 1.

My hand is fine and there is nothing wrong at all as I flex my fingers. There is a phantom pain that lasts for about a second or two. That is good to know.

Heading upstairs I go back to bed and lay down. This means a drastic change in so many ways I cannot even begin to think of them all right now. I am also super tired so some sleep would go a long way to helping me out on this.

Despite the life changing events that just happened I fall asleep rather quickly and it is a deep restful sleep as well.

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