The Shift Of Time

I ran through the winding streets, hoping to outrun him. Emma ran behind me, struggling to keep up. I heard his cries and screams of rage as he bayed for blood.

I crashed into a wall as I turned the road. I was winded but I kept running, but it was futile. It was a dead-end. We turned around to take another street, but he stood at the entrance.

The knife in his hand gleamed in the darkness. His hood had flown back during the chase. It was him indeed. I didn't wanna believe it, but he was right there. Me.

He prowled like a jaguar and just as he struck, I woke up screaming. I was at home, not in some dead-end street. Sweat was pouring down my face.

Emma, my wife, sat in front of me, still undressed, caressing my face in her arms. I met her eyes. She was just as beautiful as ever but her eyes bespoke concern.

"What happened?", she asked softly.

"Nightmare. Bad one. Seemed more like a premonition this time," I replied shakily.

"Oh, it's alright, love. I'm here now," she said, hugging me.

I took deep breaths and calmed myself. In barely a few seconds, my face was serene and my mind calm. "You recover frighteningly quickly," Emma said after she pulled away. I tilted my head, acknowledging it.

"What's the time?", I asked.

"Five in the morning," she said.

"Why are you awake?"

"You were screaming at the end, that woke me up,"

"I'm sorry,"

"Oh, it's fine. Don't worry,"

I nodded and stretched. My legs seemed sore, though that might have been in my mind. I went off to the bathroom to freshen up. I made breakfast as Emma freshened up herself.

Scrambled eggs and coffee was ready by the time we both sat at the table. We ate in peace. I tried to get rid of the dream but it was stuck in my mind. 

It was a Saturday that day, so we didn't have to go to work. We usually roamed different parts of the city we hadn't seen before on the weekends.

After a little light packing, we headed off to the southern district of the city. It was the older part of town, originally modelled after the original settlers.

I felt a strange familiarity with the place. It was the same as in my dream. "I have a bad feeling about this," I told Emma. "Why?" she asked.

"This was where my nightmare was based,"

"It was just a nightmare, chill out,"

I tried to chill out but I couldn't shake off the uneasiness. The day wore on and we stopped at a nearby cafe for lunch. We got some chicken sandwiches. They were enormous, so we didn't need anything else.

We paid and started our walk again. I found the dead-end where we were going to be killed. I told her that but she didn't seem all too concerned.

Nobody believed me when I said stuff. I had been right numerous times, predicting events days before they happened, but even my family refused to acknowledge my talent, saying it was luck each time.

I led the way from the dead-end, backtracking to wherever I came from. There were numerous roadblocks, hedging the paths in, outlining the path in my dream. That made me nervous as all hell.

For the rest of the daytime, nothing much happened. We found a bar we could hit after dinner. The evening had gotten significantly colder, so I purchased myself a black hoodie. The dream had mostly faded from my mind at the time, so I didn't realize the significance.

We headed to a nearby restaurant for dinner. Our legs were mighty sore as we sat down. I ordered some pasta while Emma got herself an entire pizza.

She managed to wolf it down in the time I finished my pasta. I always wondered how she ate so much and still stayed thin. I had to do weeks of exercise to lose even a few kilos.

After that, we headed off to the bar. There was hardly anyone there, which surprised me. I told Emma to hang around the bar while I went to pee.

I came out a minute later to find she was gone. The bartender freaked out after seeing my face. "A woman was standing here, blue shirt. Where did she go?" I asked.

He didn't take his eyes off of me as he pointed towards the exit. He was visibly shaken. I wondered what could have done that to a bartender as I walked out, putting on my hood.

I looked around and found Emma holding the hand of another man. I recognized the guy's clothing. They were mine, they were what I was planning on wearing that day before changing my mind. We still wore the same shirt though.

He looked back and I recognized my signature hairstyle which only I could pull off. He turned a freaked out and ran, towing Emma with him.

The streets were almost empty. I ran after them. I could hear frantic words being discussed between them both, labelling me as a killer. I was calling myself a killer.

I knew the path they would take, for I saw it in my dream. I was not the one running from the guy with a knife, but I was the guy with the knife, for I had my pocket knife in my hand soon enough.

I screamed and howled at them to stop but they didn't heed my words. Soon we reached the dead-end. I saw him crash into the wall and Emma help him.

I stood at the entrance of the street, staring down at them. My hood had flown off, revealing my face. My knife gleamed in the darkness. Emma looked mightily confused. She backed away into the corner.

I prowled closer and using a wall, leapt at myself. I took him down and pinned his arms to the ground. Unfortunately, I had trained myself for self-defence situations and he escaped the pin.

He stood up and we circled each other. "Why are you here?", I asked, almost growling. "Why am I here? You came to my world," he said.

"I didn't come to shit. You came here,"

"Did you have a premonition or not?"

"I did,"

"I was the killer there."

"I was running away,"

"Did you also face a bright flash of light when you woke up?"

"No. I didn't,"

All the fight seemed to go out of him then. He gave up circling and sat down on the ground. "So it was me. I got transported to this timeline. Not you to mine,"

"What?"

"I had come here a week back. I have been trying to figure out what the hell was happening. I came with an alternate timeline theory. If I-"

"Am not in the right world, I must be in someone else's version of my world and there would be another me out there somewhere."

"Exactly,"

"Why did you run away?"

"The premonition. I wanted to save Emma, be the one running away, so you would come after me, not her."

The knife slipped from my hand and clattered on the asphalt. I sat down too. "I don't have any way to go back," he said, on the edge of tears.

I scooched over and put my hand on his shoulder. He was me, so I knew exactly what I would have wanted or needed. Emma came forward and sat next to us.

She was at a loss for words, which wasn't very common. She took both of us in a wide embrace. The other me finally broke, crying his heart out.

He hadn't felt Emma for a week and now she was hugging him. My mind raced, thinking of all the possibilities of one more me. So much potential and so much fun was yet to come, but I just leaned into the hug.