Dead at Dawn pt.2
“You are running out of time, hurry”
As I see the message trying to decipher what it meant, there was a knock on the door, the knock on the door cornered me into a panic zone. The dead Aamir’s phone started ringing, she already knows it's me who picked up.. I shakingly picked it up. There was a woman on the other side. Asking me to open the door, because it's one of us.
Without rationalizing what was happening, I continued to follow commands as a brainless hog. I closed my room door. and opened the main door. stunned, I stood there, as if looking into a mirror. A 2 years younger Aamir stood in front of me. without wasting time, he entered the apartment and closed the door behind him, already aware of the map of the apartment, and started looking for the dead body.
I stood there frozen at the door of my bedroom, the younger Aamir wrapping the bloody bedsheet around the dead body. I asked him “what happened?” My face perplexed, absolutely stunned, I repeated “What is happening?”
Younger Aamir: I am from the time when we had fallen in love with Aizra, I have traveled in the future because Naimal told us that you couldn’t save him. Pointing to the dead Aamir.
Me: I was supposed to save him? but he was dead. when I got here.
Younger Aamir: Yes, because you were too late, you were supposed to come home early. You had promised.
I stood there feeling guilty, listening to this information as if it was some kind of revelation. Having let myself and other me-s down. It felt disgusting to have murdered myself.
Younger Aamir: Don’t worry, Naimal will look into this. She is very good at time travel accidents and always finds loopholes to save us. The only thing she can’t find a loophole for is your drinking addiction.
Younger Aamir, set down on the floor by the bedside, dead Aamir's arm hanging low from the bed, younger Aamir, starts to play with the dead Aamir's arm, a watch-like device, flicks yellow light, younger Aamir modulates it to a time where Naimal is, in five seconds, the body dissipates into thin air, the blood in the sheets turning black. And in a moment, the younger Aamir stands up and instructs, “17th October 2021, look for one of us at the mall square. We will need you again.” and then also dissipates into thin air.
I lean on the side jamb of the door, confused than ever before, I pan out the time until the given date. Tears start rolling down my eyes, in grief of the dead Aamir, I move towards the kitchen cellars, take out all the bottles of alcohol and start emptying them into the sink.
I wipe my tears off of my cheeks and enter the room. Sit on my bed, both my elbows on my knees my fingers crisscrossed. I sit still, as I feel the sunlight on the walls shift upwards, the sun fading into the night, and moonlight illuminating the back of my room, with an empty stomach, I pass out.
I started researching about what time travel is the next day, and all of the traveling events that may have happened in the past, I have always been interested in this kind of stuff, but never found anything genuine, until now, I saw several accounts of time travel, where the person, similar to how I have ever looked, covered face have been shown at random places, a northern river, a utility store and a junior school.
The trauma of seeing myself dead brings many psychological issues from the past, I start my journey of mental health and see a therapist to help me with the trauma, perceiving the dead Aamir as a part of myself that I witnessed dying to hide the time travel from the therapist, so I don't get diagnosed with schizophrenia
Before October, an important event on the 11th of September occurs. A birthday party that I went to. Where everyone keeps asking me to drink resulting in me turning them down. “A perceived party pooper” that's what I am now to everyone, trying to mingle sober but finding it hard. I end up sitting on an ottoman bench in the lounge in the side, looking at everyone dancing and walking around. A woman finds her way and sits with me on the side of the bench.
Woman: What’s up poop face?
Me: Huh? — nothing.
Woman: My name is Naimal.
I look at her, surprised and weirdly joyed. She is Naimal from the current time, not knowing she is going to be a time travel operator into the future.
To be continued…
