But that's not what I...

Stacey was an average girl. She did well in all her classes and her teachers liked her. She wasn’t popular, but she was liked. She was pretty, as well. Pale skin, pink lips, dark brunette hair that went passed her shoulders and had gold and red in it in the sunlight. She was of average height and build and had the kind of confidence needed to be able to pull off just about anything. If you ever needed anything, Stacey was the girl to go to. She always had extra school supplies, gum, food, pads, hair ties, and different kinds of over the counter medicine that she’d share without a second thought. It didn’t matter if she knew you or not. Hell, it didn’t even matter if she actually liked you or not. If you needed help, Stacey would help. It was just as simple as that.

Stacey was in theatre, technical theatre, and choir. Anything that she had to do to not have to go home at night. When she didn’t want to be in a certain class, she was the type of girl to go to the office and tell them where they could find her until the next class period. Most of the time, it was the library. Sometimes, it was the auditorium where she could have been found cleaning up and organizing something. During lunch period, she would pay for her meal only to give it to someone who would otherwise have to go without. 

Stacey always cared about other people more than herself.

So, it came as a surprise to her when she traveled to the future and saw what she was remembered for.

Genocide.

The word hit her like a ton of bricks. No. No. No! That couldn’t be right! They had to be talking about a different Stacey McDonnahue! There was no way that the name whispered in the night to be given a fright was hers! None. Stacey couldn’t even kill an ant without feeling guilty about it. But she came from a small family and she never had kids. She had no siblings, no cousins, no aunts or uncles. There was no one left to pass on the last name but her. Which meant…No. She refused to believe it.

Stacey had no idea how this new technology worked. Not really. But she was good at figuring things out if she had to and libraries were still a thing. The librarian gave her the strangest look when she asked where the books were before leading her back to a hidden corner. A swipe of the other lady’s wrist had a door appearing out of seemingly nowhere, and then Stacey was walking through it. The door disappeared. How would she let the other lady know when she was ready to leave? Eh. That didn’t matter in the moment. She had to find out why whenever she heard her name, it was in the same hushed tones that people would use to talk about Hitler in her time.

The Biography of Stacey McDonnahue. It was the only book that looked worn. Well read. The spine had been cracked multiple times. She took a deep breath before opening it to the first page and reading the introductory paragraph.

Stacey was a brilliant young lady with a bright future a head of her. No one knew the darkness that lingered in the back of her mind, threatening to bubble over and spill out in to the world. Of her classmates and friends who survived, all of them said that she didn’t seem the type. Stacey was the type of girl to give away the clothes off her back if someone asked. No one could say for sure how much time and money she spent to help the people around her all throughout her school years. An anonymous source, close to her, said that he noticed a change in her when she went off to the local college that does not wish to be associated with her. It wasn’t the type of change, he said, that could ever lead to him being able to picture her doing something of that nature…

Stacey took a deep, shaky breath and rolled her shoulders before straightening up. She looked around the room, almost like she was expecting someone to pop out and scream at her for what she had done. She didn’t even remember doing it! It wasn’t her. It was some other horrid person who used her name. It had to be. Stacey started skimming. None of it seemed all that important. It was stuff she already knew. She lived it.

In college, Stacey began to experiment with chemicals and would feed her creations to lab rats. No one ever dreamed that it was her. It was blamed on the bloke unlucky enough to work in there immediately after her almost every single time. She was too sweet and innocent. He had a record and a fiery temper…

Okay. Was it bad that she didn’t care about whatever kind of person she might have associated with? Stacey needed to know what she did. Exactly what she did. When she got to the part of the book that explained that she had poisoned her parents with a compound that she had created herself before washing away the evidence into the water supply, she had to sit down. 

She had found a way to kill the only two people who had ever hurt her in as ugly of a way as she possibly could. She had wanted it to hurt. To make them hurt in unimaginable ways, the way that they had done to her. And then she doesn’t even dispose of the extra poison properly? She washes it down the drain. To a water system that feeds into almost the entire East Coast in one way or another. She killed millions. Millions! So many people died, bloody and screaming, because she had to dump the excess down the drain? Stacey knew better! There was no excuse.

She threw up in her mouth before swallowing thickly. The vomit burned and she gagged roughly on the putrid taste. There was a beeping sound that signified that it was time for her to go back to her own time. She had been in the future long enough.

When she woke up back in her own bed, she sobbed once before shoving her fist in her mouth to muffle the sound. Her entire body ached as she looked around the room for something. Anything. She had to stop herself from doing that. From doing anything like what that future had showed her. 

She could save so many lives just by taking her own. It was the only way to be sure.