Why I Destroyed the World
By: Chelsea Jo
Tags: Creative Writing, Writing, Short Story, Fiction, Short Form

Why I Destroyed the World

Photo by La Victorie on Unsplash

I gripped the porcelain sink, doing my best to stay upright. The wound in my side was worse than I’d thought, of course, running through downtown didn’t help. Not running through downtown would have been worse. “One more time,” I think to myself, trying to drum up enough energy to travel. It was, after all, the only way to escape, to fix things, to correct what I’d done wrong. Looking in the mirror, I focused on my destination, “Just one more time.”

To really understand what’s happening here though, we need to go back to when I was fourteen. That’s when it all started, not that I had any clue what was going on at the time. Which is why I’m going back — we’re going back — you know what, let’s all just go back; you’ll figure it out on the way.

~18 years earlier~

I left the Alley Cat, a small bookstore that I went to when Mom thought I was at debate club. The area was questionable, but I looked like an Amazon since I was so freakishly tall, people tend to avoid Amazons. I adjusted my school bag on my shoulder, it would be more comfortable on two shoulders, but I figured it was easier to get off one shoulder than two. While people tended to avoid Amazons, this wasn’t the best part of town, and I was a 14-year-old girl out by herself. Precautions needed to be taken.

As I passed by an alley, a hand — covered in blood, mind you — reached out of the darkness and grabbed me. I almost managed a scream before another hand, also covered in blood — I know, gross right!? — covered my mouth.

“Kelly, it’s me,” said the woman behind me.

I froze because the voice was very familiar; my mother used it regularly. Oh god, how did she find out that I didn’t go to debate club? About the Alley Cat? When I stopped struggling, the woman released me, and I turned around slowly, “You’re not…who are you?” I asked, seeing that while she wasn’t Mom, there was a strong family resemblance. When the woman’s only response was to grab her side and slump into the wall, I remembered she was covered in blood. “What happened to you?”

“I don’t have much time, so I need you to shut up and listen.”

“Did you just tell me…”

“Shut up and listen…”

“Oh, Hell no…” I said as I turned and started walking away.

“Crackerjack pasta!” said the woman with a pained voice, “God, I can’t believe you made me say it. That’s the dumbest thing we’ve ever thought of.”

Okay, a quick pause on this scene. When I was young, younger than fourteen, I’d say around seven-ish, I was deathly afraid of time travel. Afraid that if I went back in time, my younger self wouldn’t believe my older self. To solve that, I came up with a password that only I would know and could only be used in the event of time travel. There are other passwords for various events, but they aren’t important right now. Crackerjack pasta is the formerly mentioned password. Now that you know this embarrassing fact about me, we’ll return to this scene.

“No freaking way!” I said, denying what I just heard, “That was just some nonsense.”

“Then how did I know? We never wrote it down, and it’s too stupid for anyone else to fathom.”

“And yet effective…” I said before looking down at the serious injury with new-found horror, “What happened?”

“No time,” the woman, me — older me — said, “just listen. Take this,” she handed me a book, our journal, though more worn than the one I had in my desk drawer at the moment, “and remember never to trust Valerie.” She slid down the wall, and I moved forward to help her, but she waved me off.

“Okay, who’s Valerie?” I asked as I marveled at the journal. When there was no answer, I looked up to see the woman was gone.

“Woah,” I whispered, looking around frantically for any sign of myself. When my phone rang, I shrieked and jumped out of my skin. I gave my heart a second to calm down, a futile effort since it lept again when I realized it was Mom calling. “Hey Mom,” I answered as normally as I could, “I know, I’m late, sorry. Mary and I got caught up talking after debate,” I lied more easily than I tell the truth.

“Oh well, that’s nice, are you headed home now?”

“Yep, I’ll be there in ten,” I answered, figuring I’ll take a shortcut.

“Okay, dinner’s almost ready,” she said, already distracted by something else.

I ended the conversation and hung up the phone. Looking at the journal, I knew I wouldn’t be able to look it over until after dinner, so I stashed it in my bookbag and hurried home.