The Future That Waits

In the tricky light, I walked up to the place. I didn’t go there often, but it was for Sam. “Meet me right before the sun goes down, in the station building of the old abandoned train depot,” he’d said. I’d never go if I thought I’d be alone. Nobody did anymore. I didn’t know if it was the smell, rust, and decaying wood, or the way it felt. It was just creepy. “It’ll be safer,” he’d said, “No one around, or anyone to freak out.” Just us. So, if it worked… If it actually worked, then I’d see for myself, and it’d be proof that Sam really did time-travel.

Honestly, if you’d asked me, I never thought it’d work. Time travel’s the kind of thing I’d always roll my eyes at. But not Sam… if anyone could figure it out, it was him. He ate, slept, and breathed numbers. Need exact measurements? Grams to tablespoons? How many gallons should I buy to paint the living room? Sam was “that” guy. Most of the time, he didn’t even need a calculator. It was all in his head. I wasn’t hiding it; I admired the guy. Maybe more than I thought. But this? Time travel was… I mean, come on.

So I stuck to what he told me. Waiting. Outside, everything was fading, the world slowly disappearing past the weedy field, and I kept my eye on the windows across the front. Before the sun goes down, he’d said. Just “before the sun goes down.” That’s it. Which, for Sam, was weird. He was never vague. Sam was exact, to the point of correcting anyone saying, “around five” and not “five-oh-four.”

Out there, it was way too still. Like when the crickets all stop chirping, and you know something’s coming. And your skin crawls. The grass wasn’t twitching. No sound of insects. Nothing. Same as inside; nothing creaking, nothing dripping… It was so quiet that I felt it press against me, until the only sound I heard was the little tgggt, tgggt, tgggt of my watch.

My weight creaked a floorboard under my shoe, and that wailed through the quiet. I seized up like I’d just heard a scream, grasping at my chest… what if it wasn’t me?

What if Sam… no. Sam wouldn’t sneak around. He’d walk right out and see who was here with us. He wasn’t afraid. Just like when he’d promised, holding that terrible machine, and turning the dials like it was some golden doorknob to another place in time. “I’ll be right here. No matter what.” His voice was steady. Not a tremble. Not a worried look in his eye.

Then, before I could even be worried for him, he was gone. One minute here, the next vanished. Like the air had unzipped itself and yanked him straight through.

And here I was. Standing here, staring at nothing, psyching myself out about ghosts and asking if Sam will come back. Or if he even can. Asking myself if something was going to happen… And then, something did.

The station bent sideways before I even realized what I was asking. It squeezed, like the whole building was suddenly imploding. My insides bulged. Shimmering flickers before my eyes like glitter was stuck on my lashes, despite blinking. And then, it felt open. Not like a doorway, or a tunnel. Something sucked the air into it. White flames, so bright it hurt to look at, like I was looking through a welding torch.

Next came the sound. A sharp pop, a lightbulb blowing out. What followed was the glass exploding. I thought that the entire front wall of the depot was shattered on the floor. I threw up my hands in instinct, useless against the shockwave.

And through that… Sam.

He slammed into the ground, his shoes digging so hard into the old wood planks they should’ve left an imprint. In that moment, I thought I’d heard bones breaking, and it didn’t make me any less afraid they were his when Sam’s knees buckled, his body hunched, and he staggered to the bench. He half-slumped onto it. He tried to speak, but instead of words, a raw cry broke out. His eyes were wide, frantic, unseeing. Scanning the corners of the room, like he expected something else to crawl through after him.

“Sam?” My breath escaped, my voice raw. I ran toward him but braced just before touching him. With a waving motion, I shoved my hands in front of his face, like I had to remind him he was here. Not… wherever he still thought he was.

His hair was wildly out of place, sticking up and forward. Ash streaked his face, the collar of his shirt. He looked like he’d run out of a fire. Still, relief washed over me. He made it. He was back.

I couldn’t stop. I wanted him to be Sam. The questions spilled out of me too fast to even hear myself think: “What happened, Sam? Did it work? Where’d you go? What was it like? Did you see flying cars?” I didn’t know how badly I wanted this to be true until the words tumbled out.

But Sam couldn’t give me an answer. His throat was probably dry, and he swallowed like he needed water. He kept trying to form the words, but nothing came. Still looking past me, reaching, like something else was more important.

“Okay, okay,” I said, putting pressure on his shoulders, trying to push him into the bench. That at least made him look at me. I had a half-smile. Did he recognize me now? “It’s me, your brother, Dex. You’re okay. You’re back.”

Yeah, he did. He had to. Or that’s what I told myself. That was before his head jerked side to side. “No...”

That wasn’t good. What if something snapped? Humans aren’t supposed to time-travel. I was so wrapped up in my panic that I almost missed something returning to his eyes. He sat up straight, shaking his head harder.

“No. It’s not like that.”

I crouched in front of him, desperate. “Not like what?”

Sam shook. Like I’d never seen him do. “We’re not ready.”

My mouth opened, but now, I couldn’t get anything out. Sam’s words were like a knife straight through me. He continued, staring me down. A haunted, knowing look that made me stop talking and just listen.

“It’s not what we think it is,” he said. “The future… It’s not something you’d ever wanna see.”

His truth was heavy. Suffocating. Clinging to me.

Sam forced each word out like they were shards of glass. “It isn’t a war. Or disease. It’s worse.” He grabbed me then, his grip bruising my arms. His whole body was trembling as he pulled himself up. “It isn’t what happens to us… It’s what we become.”

“Wait, Sam, wait…” This was making my head spin. I had so many questions. All of them I dreaded asking. Part of me didn’t want to know.

But he was almost to the door, his legs dragging to walk. His hand landed on the glass, fingerprints leaving a black smear. Out there, his eyes found the dark tranquil, with a sadness like it would all change any minute.

“We have to start now,” he said, finally, “Everything depends on right now.”

In my chest, I felt the bulging again. I couldn’t breathe. Start what? Whatever Sam had seen, it did change him. It broke him. This felt way more serious than he was saying.

“Sam, what do you mean? Start what?”

He was the darkness now. Shadows pulled over him. “If we wait even a little longer,” he said, “we’ve already lost.”

We did start. That night. Sam scribbled like his life depended on it in the journal he left on my dashboard, pulling it into his lap, and wrote by the streetlights on the drive home. He continued all the way inside the house, up the stairs, and to his room. I fought to stay awake, seeing him hunched over the desk in the weak glow of his little lamp. Sam’s room smelled faintly of old books. Shadows from the window blinds projected on the walls in the light of passing cars, cascading as the night dragged on. I’d catch myself wanting to stay awake, but every time I cracked open my eyes, there he was. Writing. In a race against something I couldn’t see.

By the time the morning light seeped in, I was just waking up. I’d fallen asleep in the armchair and was half awake while Sam scratched the pen faster, still frantically in the journal, and I wanted to ask if he’d even blinked. I already knew what he’d say.

Sleeping hadn’t lifted the weight of it all, finally sinking into me. This wasn’t Sam’s equations or theories. What he saw was real. This action was a seed buried deep. This moment was going to grow, whether I wanted it to or not. It was going to change everything. And if anyone could lead the way, it was Sam. I’d always known that. I just never thought he’d discover time-travel to do it. I guess I underestimated him.

I was lost in my thoughts when his body sagged forward onto the desk.

“Sam!” I stumbled out of the chair, catching him before he slid right onto the floor. His head was heavy on my shoulder, his face pale against the smudges of soot still clinging there.

“You can’t keep this up,” I said, trying to sit him upright.

He mumbled against my shoulder, words slurring. “I can’t… I can’t risk going back again. Never going back.”

“Alright, alright,” I told him, even though I wasn’t sure what he meant. “Come on. You need to lie down.”

He did, but he needed my help. Pressing into me, I guided him across the room, staggered against his dead weight, barely standing on his own. The wooden floor creaked under every step. He couldn’t hold his head up, breathing shallow, body drained. What time-travel had done to him; I had no idea. We hadn’t thought about that. Like we hadn’t thought about a lot of things.

“Promise me…” His voice was broken, his lips dry. “Promise me you’ll help. Promise you’ll remember.”

I tightened my arm around him, my throat burning. “Of course I will. But don’t talk like that, Sam.”

At his bed, I eased him onto the edge. He just slumped back, hand shaking on my wrist. We locked eyes, and everything I’d never said swelled up inside my chest. I wanted to blurt out that he’d always been my hero. He was the best brother I could’ve ever asked for. But I stood there as the words stuck in my throat. They felt too final. Like goodbye.

Instead, Sam whispered, “We don’t have much time. Every choice matters. Starting now.” His gaze flicked toward the desk, where the journal sat, closed. The pen was laid beside it in that one final decision that he’d written enough. Then his eyes slid back to me.

That was all he had left before his head sank into his pillow, breath rising from his chest and falling, ragged from his partly open mouth.

I stood with him, my heart pounding against my ribs, but my eyes on the journal. I didn’t know what Sam had been through, or why it had shaken him so badly. I probably never would. But I did know this: all that I needed to know was sitting right there, in that journal.

And as morning continued to fill the room and Sam shuddered into fitful dreams, it was up to me. Whatever was coming… it started right here and now.

It started with me.