text: Trigger warning: suicide “Our every action opens a loop that can lead to several results depending on the continuum of our further connected actions” Theories travel open in the minds and the works of people who devoted their whole life finding the secrets of space and time seeking only new inventions and ways. However in my life remained another reason for living - my beloved wife. Tanaka held my hand every time as my wife and as my colleague. Both of us devoted our life to each other and to my insane inventions leading to a dream of crossing time and pass to a different period. Call it the result of our certainty, our desire to help this world and endless effort that one day we found the key to our invention even after being around several antagonist and conspiracies. Maybe it was her magic anyway, that day was already too beautiful to begin with. I had put my outmost struggle and to cherish and support it stayed my beloved Tanaka. If only this fortune could remain any longer. I marked the date - 24th August 2021 and went on a manual configuration of the machine once I had received the resource key for its functioning. The sun was prepared to set any moment and I was inside the open chamber busying my hands over energy slides of its walls. Tanaka was right outside the platform with those eyebrows narrowed over her computer. She had forever been my motivation for working hard until, IT happened. My nerves gave a huge thumb and the energy slides slipped from my fingers. When I noticed it wasn’t just the nerve thumbing, my fingers were DISINTEGRATING into flying dust. I turned towards Tanaka, I wanted to call her name, but I was disintegrating rapidly. What was happening? I knew nothing. Was I dying? It was more frightening to leave into an oblivion. Everything went blank all of a sudden yet I could feel it - the darkness. I opened my eyes, hopefully. I didn’t die. All I could see was a dark roof for a while; my throat was burning dry compared to my body, which weighted a thousand pounds whenever I made any movement. I still managed to move anyway and the room I found myself was a burnt room. Somehow, it felt very familiar but that wasn’t my primal concern that moment. Where was I? What happened? I summed up a wild theory yet it only seemed like a dream till I was inside. I had no idea what awaited me outside. Not the slightest of idea. I walked outside the building and I saw - the future. Yes! The future. I saw a more professional and technical city before me. By the scale of shock I was, I was delighted and amazed too. Screaming in excitement wasn’t enough, I had no idea what to do. I arrived in 2026. I ran through my city as a little kid finally let loose to his chocolate world. Everything came crystal clear to me. It wasn’t dust I had disintegrated too, it was atoms. Reducing to atomic level would possibly be the only way of passing through time and space and I knew just the right person who could pull such an action. I went running straight to my house, no location had altered anywhere. How many kids till now? What was my position? How was my Tanaka? Several questions waited for answering. I reached my mansion and knocked on the front door immediately, impatiently. My heart was ready to burst out in happiness and excitement. The door opened. On other side was a small, unknown woman. Maybe we changed our location for better post. She questioned my arrival and my identity by a thorough look. I had to ask. “Excuse me, is this your house?” “Yes, since a year. Whom do you want?” “Well, I was searching for Dr. Rick Dawson” I should’ve been famous for my name till now, for helping humanity all around the globe. “You mean that MASS MURDERER. He doesn’t live here anymore, now get lost.” My excitement died immediately. “W-What the hell are you talking about?” “What are you? From space? Don’t you know anything that happened five years ago?” “What happened five years ago?” “That bastard killed his WIFE and fifteen other workers in a single night.” “I killed my wife? What type of joke is that? A mass murderer?” The skies shattered down on me. It was mostly impossible and unbelievable. “That man escaped right after. Rumours speak about him living in an abundant barn outside the city.” I returned with a crumbled mind and a heart. Just in hope of her words being false I knocked every house around the area but received the same answer. In future, I was remembered as a mass murderer who killed his wife and fifteen more. Who could that be? I always puked seeing blood, how could I even think of killing. My Tanaka, why in hell would I ever do this? What happened to me? WHAT happened five years ago? My devastated self flashed images of my beloved before me. How she would kiss my cheek each time my body would drain from work, how her warm finger entangle around mine whenever they hesitated, how her smile inspired me to live on happily each day. Her smile was an inspiration, it still is. Why did I travel to future - To know my past and save my people, to save my name, to save my Tanaka? It was time I meet the truth and change it. So, I ran without stopping. Not a single other thing mattered anymore. I reached the barn and quickly went inside. Not a sound of a soul, emptiness wherever eyes went. I walked in further into darkness. Terrifying to its core, until the light went on. It was no ordinary barn, it wasn’t a barn at all. Before my eyes stood the machine I dreamt for eternity - the Time Machine. However, it was in its most ghastly shape, like something from scrap. More than machine, I wanted its owner, and fast. I strolled closer and finally behind it I saw a lowly weakened man. As soon as I stepped closer, he spoke. “I have been waiting, you took quiet long” his voice quivered as he turned to me. I was at surprise again. It was me for sure. The future me I finally met. However, I lacked a complete face. All I had was one side of it, my other half - nothing but a stitched mess of skin and tissues. “I am Dr. Rick Dawson” he said. It pissed me even more. I dashed forward and jabbed right across his remaining face. He didn’t move a bit - A hologram. “If its you Rick, I am sorry to say that we won’t be meeting again. I used my life force to bring you here and how its upon you to change what’s done.” “Why did it turn out this way? How could I become a mass murderer?” “This machine will allow only a counted more travels. Save your name, save the people I couldn’t” saying this, the hologram dismissed. Recording ended. I was to travel back again. This time to another timeline for uncover the truth first. The machine was at a pause. The energy was active. I had to go back through time, once again. For her. Without any delay, I rushed to the station beside the machine. Its second destination was already set - 24th August 2021. It had no trouble starting once more. I stepped in and began disintegrating yet this time the thumbing of my body increased drastically. I opened my eyes once again. Once again, I travelled back through time and my nerves were at their verge of bursting. I should have considered before - the consequences. Time travelling comes with a cost that must clear by the traveller’s body and mind. As soon as I woke up, I spit out blood. It was cold. It was frightening how my entire body shook for a while like it would decay and crumble down to the floor. At this rate I realized how limited my turns of travelling would be. Probably once or twice more. I arrived at night, inside a closed lab three floors below mine. I sneak out; my body had already become a hindrance yet still I drove everything at its limit to reach my Tanaka. I climbed the tedious stairs, which never seem to end. It was my only chance to save her no matter what the cost. There was absolute hope of success I became definite. I stumbled to the top floor, heaving but with a short smile until, I heard GUNSHOTS. Everything stopped for that moment, I ran again towards the entrance and it opened. I had failed already. What lay in front of me was Tanaka as her blood flowed out. I fell on my knees knowing nothing more. How cursing and terrifying it was to see her dead. I wanted to scream but my throat didn’t make a sound. As known, the machine began disrupting too. A drop of tear rolled down my cheek as I spoke her name for the last time before the machine exploded. It’s wave blew away everything into atomic particles under its huge range. Wasn’t this supposed to be the end? Yet I still could hear Tanaka calling my name again and again. I didn’t want to be remembered as a murderer, as a killer. I could smell blood, the sound of my heartbeat - dying. I wasn’t dead. I returned to 2026 - empty-handed and failed. I lay in that barn as images of my past kept me amused. I was yet to stand; my body was ready to give in but not my soul. The case wasn’t solved yet, I didn’t save her yet. If I had to rescue her, the truth behind had to open. Why did I do it? What made me do it? The questions were critically necessary and only if I get their answers, the future would alter. However, a major hindrance stood was my physical endurance. Travelling twice more raised the chances of me dying, massively and still two more was left. I didn’t fissure, I mustn’t. This time, the answers prevailed in a year after the incident. When I was still alive. I altered the timeline destination against it s will. All that I cared was of my Tanaka, not me. The machine began heating and converging energy slides. I stepped in and the disintegrating began. What could be worse than my entire body dying out at ease? The cost of finding the truth. The cost of saving my love and my name. I woke up at THAT abundant building. This time I had to sneak out because that’s where the incident happened a year ago. I slowly walked to the barn once again. I sneaked in, saw him working over the scrap as expected and at the first glance, I knew I wasn’t ready to face the truth. What could have made me do such a thing? He turned back at me with shock. I only managed a few more steps ahead before I collapsed to my knees. I arrived way before he ever planned of having me arrive so he realized the reason behind it. Maybe, that was it because he told me soon after, he told me everything. “Tanaka killed herself.” It was the last time I was closing my eyes. It was the last time I woke up from time travelling. It was the last time I felt pain. It was when I returned to my own time. Nothing more could I do. The sun was till shinning bright, nothing had happened till than. All I could hear and see was the last words of my future self. “Our every action opens a loop of possibilities but what affects more is always the end of it.” “The resource key we thought we GAINED from a huge company was nothing but a political fluke. It was a time bomb meant to destroy everything as soon as it activates. I activated the key. Tanaka absorbed the key’s reaction and shot herself.” “It’s okay” those were her last words he said. She smiled at him before dying. How shattering would that be? I was slowly climbing the stair, unaware of the dripping blood from my mouth and my nose. The time had come for me, its certain but all I had to was one last thing. Stop the trail. Destroy the resource key. The last of my soul ordered me to move against the will of my body. I did it, at last. Finally I made it to our lab. There she was. There was my Tanaka, waiting for me over the station. She was alive. My Tanaka was alive. “ Just a little more” I yelled at myself and entered the lab. She saw me but I didn’t stop until I reached the key. She caught me crying my name but I was not to stop. I grabbed the key and crushed it under my feet, the stone inside broke. The key broke. I did it. I finally saved everyone. I cleared my name. “Tanaka” that’s all I said before I fell. I gave in, at last. “Rick! Rick!” I could hear her voice from afar. Those gentle words crying in worry. No! I must not make her worry. I slowly opened my eyes again but this time there was no pain. I looked up and there she was - my beloved. She was smiling with tears. She was relieved and happy. I saved her. “Hey, Tanaka?” “Y-Yes?” “Let go somewhere. Somewhere away from time.”