This is a continuation of my story that I am writing for Blogophilia. Be sure to check out the other fabulous writers.
Ecrits Blogophilia Week 52.13 Topic: Melt Down
Hard Bonus (2 points): Incorporate a line from a Pablo Neruda poem “Death arrives among all that sound” from the poem Only Death
Easy Bonus (1 Point): Include a character from Dr. Who I went with weeping angel and time lords
All bonus attempts are in italics Marvin. I will guess Stormy for the topic and David Schrader for the picture.
Picture phrase guesses 1) mad scientist, 2) hair raising experience, 3) potions, 4) mixology, 5) Professor Snape, 6) weird science, 7) Dr. Jeckyl, 8) Chemical Romance, 9) hedgehog wig, 10) Breaking Bad
NSFW warning for language

She stood staring across the solemn landscape. Tombstones and other monuments to the dead as far as the eyes could see were periodically broken up by the occasional weeping angel. A slight smile crossed her face. She could never see those statues as anything else now. Not since Olaf introduced her to Dr Who so many years ago.
In a way she thought this trip would be like an episode of that show. They would be the Time Lords destined to change the past, in order to save the future. It didn’t work that way. It never did.
She thought back to that fateful moment. She had changed her actions. She didn’t try to reason with herself. Armed with her knowledge of the past, she ignored what her head told her to do and ran. Her younger self should have gone back to her partner. She should have saved him. She didn’t.
Since that moment she had been having conflicting memories. Those she knew she experienced and new ones. Ones that told her she stood stunned, unable to leave the restroom for way too long. Long enough for Olaf to go to the hotel for the phone call. Long enough for him to die again.
Her new memories hadn’t begun emerging when she had the melt down the day after the explosions. She had gotten a newspaper from the corner shop, intent on learning if their target had indeed died. He did, but strangely, not in his car. That claimed the life of a local hoodlum who saw the car as a payday. No, their target was found dead in the lobby, rather close to where Olaf was found. At least what was left of Olaf.
Her tortured screams woke Olaf from the next room where he was sleeping off his bottle of whiskey. It took him the better part of an hour calming her down. They were lucky no one thought her reaction anything else than that of one horrified at the terrorist attack.
She hadn’t spoken a word since that scream fest. Olaf knew anyway. That night they headed back to the hotel. As she placed a wreath of flowers in memory of her fallen partner, she caught sight of her younger self doing the same. She realized the sound of those explosions would forever haunt her. Death arrives among all that sound. She had thought death was silent. Now she fully knew better. Death reveled in letting itself be known.
They had turned away, scurrying along the sidewalk so as not to be seen by the distraught agent. That would complicate things more. They took random lefts and rights, not really paying attention, just intent on moving. Then, strangely enough the portal stood before them.
That stopped them in their tracks. The portal should have been gone. They had killed the creator of the machine. How was this possible? At that moment only one option remained for them. To go back to the future. So, they took tentative steps towards the unknown.
It was when they passed through the portal the memories began. They were starting to force their way into her consciousness when Anna spoke.
“I see you didn’t catch up to your target again? What the fuck are you two doing? If I didn’t know better, I’d think you two were just trying to stall so you could spend more time together.”
Their “What the hell?” response shut Anna up.
After what seemed like hours of back and forth, they finally pieced together what happened. It was a tiny statement from Anna.
“You have to hurry up and get this done. The guy who thought up this machine plans to go back to the past tomorrow morning. He wants to save his father from some bombing in Brighton.”
That was when they realized just how impossible it was to change the future by changing the past. Time does not want to change. Time wants to go forward. You may be able to change minor details about the past, but time will still find a way to achieve the same outcome. Realizing the futility of the mission, they decided to destroy the machine here and now. Anna was sent to kill the son of their original target. Neither Jenni nor Olaf could stomach killing someone with motivations so close to their own.
Now, two weeks had passed. Two weeks of Olaf, Jenni and Anna on the run. Alexie had the entire company after them for what was deemed a complete betrayal.
Only Jenni knew the full extent of the dangers of changing the past. At least dangers for those that travel back in time to change the past. Her original memories, though fainter, still remained. She also had her new memories. Memories that contradicted her original ones. Olaf didn’t suffer these problems. Perhaps because his past had not changed at all.
Every other person in the world had their memories completely rewritten instantly. They hadn’t been grounded in the past when the changes occurred. They hadn’t experienced it with the knowledge of what was supposed to happen. Which is why she only found true comfort in the silence of a cemetery. Only then would the memories stop clamoring.
She wondered if it would be best to stay forever.
~fini~