The tour took them around more areas of the camp, until finally, Jeffords fell silent and they arrived at their final destination.

It was a small hill at one end of the wall, where there were not many houses and people. Victor stepped out of the portal onto lush grass and a field of trees that looked ethereal in the middle of the desert.

There was a small pond beside him and even birds in their little nests. But none of that compared to the sheer number of headstones scattered about.

A graveyard… Victor noted with a heavy heart.

“I’d like to have some words with Victor if the rest of you won’t mind?” Jeffords asked them.

Mei and the others agreed, and they took off in another direction. Victor walked past sullen looking men and women who sat around graves and prayed. Some left branches in lieu of flowers, honouring the dead.

“There are many bodies in this graveyard. And many headstones without one. Most people didn’t have the luxury of finding a corpse of their loved ones,” Jeffords spoke.

He took Victor up the hill and into the little forest he’d carved out. While they walked, Victor wondered just what feat of magic it had taken the President to make this place.

He followed up until they reached a clearing with four headstones laying side by side. From their names, Victor could already tell who they belonged to.

“My wife and children. We never found the bodies,” Jeffords said.

He didn’t make a face, but Victor could hear the cracking in his voice and see the shaking in his arms. Jeffords sat down to offer up a prayer and Victor felt obliged to do the same.

I’ll help you someday. You won’t die a meaningless death like this, he promised.

“We couldn’t have expected something like this to happen. To break apart the world so easily, son,” Jeffords started to speak. While he did, his face was still on the graves.

“Those monsters don’t care for our lives. They’ll pick us apart and eat us like supper if they get the chance. But together, we don’t need to. We can show a United Front, push them back before they get their greedy claws into us.

“Tell me, Victor. Haven’t you seen how they keep coming? I’ve ventured beyond the Gates myself, they’re not sending their best men. The Professor says there has to be a reason behind it, and I find myself agreeing. Because if they’d sent their best, you and I wouldn’t have the luxury of being alive anymore.”

A united front…

“Think on it. Even if your friends decide otherwise, we’d be glad to have you at the least,” Jeffords told him.

The two of them left the glade soon after. The rest of the day went as normally as it could. The people of New Columbia were welcoming and helpful, and they spent their time walking around.

The kids loved every second of it, and of not being cooped up in a car. When they were done wandering around and checking out the sights, they were invited by the President to a feast.

Lillie and Amadeus enjoyed the meat more than anything. It’d been a while since they had chicken or beef, but somehow New Columbia hadn’t run dry of it.

Victor watched for Lillie through the whole night. She’d show brief flashes of sadness in between the meal.

She’s thinking back to her parents.

Another thing Victor would have to fix once he could figure out his Timewalker’s Origin to go further back.

Maybe I should reveal it… Professor Cooper was more knowledgeable on Seeds than anyone else Victor had met. If he stuck around, he could just as easily learn how to progress it faster.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

New Columbia also had resources that most other places lacked. Within it, Victor could help aim those resources towards a better future for everyone.

“Vic?” Amadeus asked.

“What?”

“You’ve been staring at your food for a while…. You gonna eat that?” Amadeus asked.

“As a matter of fact, I am,” Victor replied, snatching the plate away from his hungry friend.

They finished and were escorted to their beds for the evening. The bunks looked like they were ripped from a military base, which they most likely were. While Yvette and Amadeus set the kids to sleep, Victor lay in his bed staring into the ceiling.

What do I do? Continue on to Los Angeles or stay here? He wished again that his Timewalker would let him see the future, but it wouldn’t.

He’d have to make his decisions and his mistakes himself. Why?

He had so much power yet it was so limiting. What was he supposed to do with it? Was it all a test?

If so, I must be passing with flying colours, he remarked.

Amadeus shuffled into the tent with a tired sigh. He plopped himself down into the bunk below Victor’s and rested. Victor thought he might’ve fallen asleep, but then Amadeus stirred.

“Oh, my head’s killing me,” Amadeus complained. “Shouldn’t have eaten so much…”

Victor scoffed.

“That’ll teach you.”

“So, Vic, what do you think of the place?” he asked.

“It’s nice.”

“That all?”

“That’s all.”

“No thoughts on the President? Or his cute secretary?” Amadeus asked.

“You’re hopeless, you know that?”

Amadeus shrugged.

“Maybe.”

“I thought she looked nice,” Lillie chimed in. “Though you’ve never called me cute, Am. What’s with that?”

“Oh that’s… reasons,” Amadeus replied.

“Reasons?”

“Someone call me?” Victor asked.

The three of them chuckled into the night, the mirth dying out as cicadas started chirping outside.

A bit later, when Victor was near sleeping, he heard a kid walk into the tent.

“Am?” he whispered to no reply.

Victor looked down into the dark and could see Amadeus snoring. Victor groaned and sat up in his bed before dropping down to the floor of the tent.

“Am’s asleep. Who is it?”

“I feel bad,” the little girl said. Victor realized it was Tiffany and shook awake Amadeus. The blonde man rubbed his bleary eyes and took a good look at the little girl.

“Oh, afraid to sleep alone, Tif?” he asked. She shook her head “no.”

“Then let’s go outside and figure it out.”

Victor joined the two since he had nothing better to do. Sleep wouldn’t reach the man and tomorrow was too far away to consider.

The moon gleamed down onto the three of them while they took a little walk. Amadeus let a pinkie down for Tiffany to grab and she kept pace with the two of them.

“What was it, then, Tif?” Amadeus asked.

“My brain hurts. People keep talking and I don’t want to hear it,” she complained. “It’s better now though.”

“I thought I put them all to sleep? Guess I’ll have to check again,” Amadeus replied.

“I don’t want to stay here anymore. Can we leave?” Tiffany asked him as she stopped.

Amadeus crouched down beside her and smiled.

“Sure, we were going anyways, right, Vic?”

Victor didn’t reply.

“I...”

“Vic? I thought we were going to Los Angeles?” Amadeus asked.

“It’s better here for the kids, don’t you think, Am? Fresh water, good food, if we go back to Los Angeles, we’d have to deal with the same problems that we had in Washington. Maybe even for longer this time!” Victor told him.

“But Lillie wants to go back. Weren’t you the one who said we had to make it better for the people there?” Amadeus asked.

“I did, but I didn’t think we’d find a place like this!” Victor gestured all around them.

“You wanted to understand the threat, Vic. Learn how to save people.”

“I could do that better from here. Where I know you’re all safe.”

“You’ll be working for the President. Everyone here has a job, Vic. But you have a job more important than theirs,” Amadeus reasoned.

They both fell silent and Tiffany tugged at Amadeus’ clothes. He lifted her up to his chest and waited for Victor’s reply.

All the Timewalker could think about was the past then. How Amadeus had stuck by his every decision. And it brought him back to an old memory.

“You remember that drink we shared?” Victor asked.

“What?”

“The coke in the gas station,” Victor asked.

“Vic, I remember a lot from the past year, but not that. Are you sure it was me?” Amadeus asked.

“Of course it wa-”

But it wasn’t, was it? It was a different Amadeus, from a different time.

A different Amadeus… who didn’t end up saving Tiffany.

He’d failed in that world and become heartbroken, just like Victor. He’d ended up dying like him too, at the end of the world. Victor had been so focused on preventing the future he hadn’t thought of the past he’d lost.

“You’re right. I was mistaken, Sorry, guess I’m really tired,” Victor told him.

His head did hurt, he realized. All that fatigue must have gone ignored by Victor through the whole day, only to be let out then.

“Same. Let’s talk about this tomorrow, with Lillie, alright?” Amadeus told him. He walked back to tuck Tiffany in while Victor returned to his bed.

A different Am… And a different Lillie.

The full weight of it hit Victor in that instant. All those memories from that forgotten time, they only lay within him. Every meal and joke he shared, every wound he took and person he saved. Every laugh, every tear were all erased from time.

He was the Timewalker, and it was his burden to keep those memories alive for the numerous years ahead.