What Kind of Day Has It Been

Something really strange happened.

I was cleaning up the around the central time portal chamber when I saw that someone.... or something left the door ajar. Now I checked the logs before I started freaking out to see if anyone was scheduled to be in here since the last time I came by. The logs were empty which means no body and I mean no body was supposed to be in here.

I started to freak out.

It's bad enough that time-travel is so mainstream these days with the travel agencies and all the different organizations trying to make a buck but now it looks like people are breaking and entering! I really don't need to tell you what can happen if some idiot goes spelunking through the ages and, oh I don’t know, stops America from entering WWII. Yeah, now you are starting to get the picture. You just cannot be messing around with this stuff.

I had a look around the lab. Not only did the perp sneak into here without authorization, he/she/it left a flask of water and some sort of key. Who the hell leaves their stuff in a place they just broke in to? It has to be one of those punks from X... or some other activist. The dials had clearly been tampered with so I figured the only way to cover my own ass was to go after the creep and drag some ass back here to the present....

...After a few minutes, I landed whenever I was and proceeded to throw up everything in my gut. Those damn Time Tourist people don't ever tell you about the side effects of traveling at the speed of light. Yeah I know it’s hard to believe, but the fact of the matter is that when you zap your particles like that, your stomach gets turned into scrambled eggs.

I found myself in some sort of wasteland. There wasn't a damn thing for miles. That stupid SOB jumped to nothing but a bunch of sand and rocks as far as the eye can see. That means we either went back to a long, long time ago or I was getting a sneak peak at my world a thousand years from now. After putzing around for a few minutes I found some footprints. Bingo.

I started walking for miles. The sun refused to move even an inch out of sight and continued to beat on me without mercy. I was trekking along in the desert and I started to ask myself why I felt responsible enough to follow this moron? Why wasn't I back home watching the game? But most importantly, why the hell didn’t I bring any water with-

I reached for the flask of water I found back at the lab. All right, that was weird.

Hours of walking and there was still no trace of any life. As far as I know, this whole time travel crap can take you any point in time but you're always in the same place. So if this is the future, it looks like I'm no longer an employee of Time Fighters. Good.

I finally came across something ahead, a small bunker in the middle of nowhere, some sort of prison from the looks of it. After giving the door a push I could see that it was locked from the outside. The footprints ended at the door so my friend had access to this cell or I was chasing Houdini. I remembered the key in my pocket, the key I found at the lab with the water. This can't be that easy...Can it? I pushed the key into the door, turned the handle and the door swooshed open. Turns out it is that easy and then I started to really freak out.

It was pitch-black inside. I'm not sure why I thought it would be any different in a place like this but I still hate the dark more than anything. Darkness combines loneliness with disorientation like a two for one special in the warehouse of uncomfortable crap. I kept telling myself that there is no need to panic; I just had to find a way through, or out. Forget about the sneak, I just wanted to be out of this cell, out of this desert and back home where I belong. Right before I completely lost it, I felt a button lodged into the whale. I figured this was my one play left so I took a deep breath and gave it a push. That’s when everything went white.

I was back in the lab. What the !@#$? I took a quick look around to try and make sense of everything. I could tell by the clocks that I was right back to where I started...Make that ten minutes before I started. To this day, I'll tell you right now that not all that science-fiction you guys read in whatever time you guys are from is accurate. I can tell you that you never want to bump into yourself when time traveling. No the universe does not collapse itself, but your ego does. I for one liked my ego a great deal on that strange day and knew I had to get out of dodge before I walked in on myself. I was about to bolt right through the doors when that little light bulb in my head started flashing its high beams. I put the key along with a refilled flask of water back on the table. This time though, I made sure to leave a flashlight and a note.

"Make sure to pass these on to the next guy."