Time is Fixed

Time is fixed, he had always said; even if a person could go back in time and tried to change the variables of a specific event in the past, the outcome would always end up being the same.

And even if you did manage to change the outcome of a specific event in time, resulting in a change in the history of events, the future version of the time traveller would then have no need to change events leading up to the event, thus the trip back in time would never have happened to change anything and the outcome would then of course, end up being the same.

He had always said that, that is until the day he had stepped out of the time portal and into past; trying to change the outcome.

All he had to do was to stop himself from leaving the house that day and everything would be fixed. None of the terrible things he had gone through after that day would have to happen and the world would not have to suffer from his mistakes.

It had taken so many years to pinpoint exactly when and where things had gone wrong, obsessively back-tracking events through the timeline until finally, he was certain that this one day, one ordinary moment, would set in motion the chain reaction that would bring about the destruction of the entire world as we know it.

Then there was only the impossible task of creating the ability to open the rift in time and space to be able to go back and undo all that he had done to contribute to the world's end.

Yet, he had done it, almost stumbling upon it, he had uncovered the way to shift the fabric of space-time and open a portal to the past.

Now, after so many lost decades, he was through and standing in front of his old home; looking just as he had remembered it, an unassuming house on the wooded street of an exclusive neighbour in western end of the city.

At that moment, he knew the past version of himself was just making his way down the stairs to the kitchen to make himself breakfast before heading to work at the lab only a few short minutes away down the road.

However, this time, he would make sure he never did.

Looking like a gaunt and ghostly version of himself, he gripped the handle of the pistol tightly to make sure it was still there and started to make his way to end things before they ever began.

As he went to step away from the shimmering portal, a hand grasped his arm from behind and he jerked around to see who had grabbed him. A familiar looking arm was protruding out from the portal and he looked up from it in shock to see a cleaned-shaven and healthier version of himself staring back at him through the portal.

"I'm sorry about this." His other version said in a sincerely apologetic voice just before he heard the squealing of car tires to his right.

He was barely able to comprehend that the driver of the car was also him, though an even more dishevelled and crazed version then himself, before the car struck him and he flew into the air like a ragdoll.

Screaming like a madman as he swerved the car wildly, he watched as his other self landed with a sickening thud, his neck twisted and broken, onto the pavement in his rear-view mirror.

Looking back ahead, he saw another version of himself standing in the dead center of the road and he yanked hard on the steering wheel to swerved and avoid hitting himself on instinct. The tires skidded out of control on the wet road from the previous night's rain, and the car careened off the road and crashed headlong into an old, unyielding oak tree.

The other version of himself stood calmly in the center of the road and watched the car crumple and explode with the impact, then turned to see the past version of himself coming out of his house to see what all the commotion was about.

As he rushed out of the house in his housecoat, he saw the flames of the wreck in the trees just to the east of his front yard and then scanned back along the road to see himself standing there looking back at him from the middle of the road.

He nodded at himself just as he faded out of existence, as did the other him laying prone on the pavement a few steps away from the first. The noise of the fiery wreck suddenly stopped and looking over at where it had been, he saw only the tall trees standing undisturbed as the birds chirped their morning songs to each other.

Stunned, he went back inside and sat down on one of the kitchen bar stools. After a long while just sitting, thinking about what he had just seen, the toaster on the counter dinged and popped out two well-done pieces of bread, startling him from his thoughts.

What had he been thinking of? He could almost remember, but it slipped away from him. Oh well, he was going to be late for work at the lab if he sat around too long. No time to waste!