This war has been raging on for 9 years now. Hundreds of thousands have died needlessly for powerful men’s greed. Could this all have been avoided? All the death and pain, the hate that’s grown from these past atrocities…
“Rumor has it that a super weapon’s been built that could kill every man, woman, and child who chose to oppose it.”
Chuck has been reading all the garbage that gets published. Probably another piece meant to scare us into more violent action against our fellow men of a different nation.
“They say this thing’s supposed to be deadlier than all the nukes on earth without all the fallout and radiation…”
“Who’s ‘they’, Chuck?” I can’t stand hearing him yammer on about rumors and lies as if he knows anything that’s going on.
“Well you know…” he paused. “The ‘they’ that know what’s going on. I mean, this stuff doesn’t just come outta nowhe-“
All the tv sets in our barracks played a loud warning sound at once. Everyone started to move to see what was happening. After several alarms, the President appeared on screen sitting at his desk with some papers in hand.
“Nation, I have grave news…” The room started buzzing with hushed voices, all concerned by what was coming. What could have happened?
“We’ve been issued an ultimatum: Cease our participation in this war against China and give them complete control of this country or be destroyed.”
Some people sighed, others looked angry, a few laughed at the notion. How can we be so easily destroyed? Clearly this was a bluff only an idiot wouldn’t call.
“We have received news of a weapon which has recently been completed” he continued. “We’ve known about this weapon for some time and we chose to hide its existence from you. I thought it would only complicate this situation, and instead had our own constructed in secret.”
Many of the soldiers cheered at the fact we had a weapon of our own, but some of us sat wondering why, then, our President looked so defeated.
“Unfortunately, we could not finish it in time. China has a fully functional weapon and we seem to be powerless against them. I have no choice but to-“
Everything started to shake. It didn’t feel like any earthquake I’d ever been in. I looked around and noticed something in the room. Blue particles floating around, some fast and some slow. People started panicking, some yelling, while others struggled just to stay balanced. A loud crackling noise started and the strange lights moved faster. Maybe this was the weapon that they had. A deafening crack could be heard and then… Darkness… Silence… Then something warm, I could feel it around me. I opened my eyes and it was bright. I could see the sun in the sky. “Where…” I looked around. I was lying in the grass. It looks just like my brother’s back yard. Suddenly I heard a scream and jumped up. I saw the back door to the house was open and sprinted towards it. “What’s going on” I called out. I saw my sister-in-law standing in the kitchen looking around, visibly confused. My brother stood just a few feet away, also looking around as if he was searching for something.
“What’s going on?” Mike asked, looking from me to his wife. What was going on?
I was just on a carrier listening to the news on the radio and now…” Mike paused to look around again. “And now I’m home?”
I was just at the base I was stationed at watching the President break the news and then everything started shaking-“
“And that blue light!” Mike cut in.
“Yeah” I said, “and that terrible noise…”
“Where’s John?” Jenny finally talking , and with a raised voice. She looked around in a panic and started to search the other rooms. Mike turned away for a moment and then moved closer.
“What happened?” he asked in a hushed voice. “I thought for sure the Chinese used that weapon on us.”
“I did, too. Are we really at your house right now?” I asked in disbelief.
He scanned the room again. “Well this sure looks like my kitchen…” he trailed off.
Jenny frantically burst into the room.
“Mike, I can’t find him!”
“What do you mean?” he turned to her quickly. “Where could he be?”
Mike and Jenny had a son named John just before the war started. Jenny, like any mother, was very protective of him. It seems bizarre that she’d even let him out of her sight, but stranger things were happening right now. The sounds of the two tearing the house apart in search for him could be heard through the walls and floors. I could hear something else, though. Noise coming from outside. I moved to the front door to check it out. Through the window, I could see Mike’s neighbors congregating in the street. They were waving around papers. I went outside to see what was happening. As I got closer I could see they were holding newspapers.
“Hey!” one of his neighbors called to me. “Take a look at this!”
He thrust the front page at me and pointed to the date. He and the others looked at me, like they were expecting an answer. All I had were more questions. The date was old. It was a paper from 10 years ago, but it looked brand new.
“What is this?” I asked the man with the paper.
“It’s the newspaper I found in my old chair. I only keep the mornings paper there, but…” He looked at it again. “It can’t be right. A 10 year old paper in a chair I haven’t seen in almost 7 years! This whole city was evacuated, but here we all are now with no sign of war.”
This was insane. What happened to everything? And what was that light and sound? I decided to go back to Mike’s house. I headed straight for the tv and turned it on. I couldn’t believe what I saw.
“I don’t know what happened” the old President said. “But we should view this as a second chance.” Mike walked in behind me and saw the tv.
“He’s been dead for 6 years…” He whispered to himself.
“I advise everyone to stay calm in this strange hour as we try to understand what has happened. You should all know that, as far as we can tell, we are no longer in the middle of a terrible war. We can only assume we are years in the past as crazy as that sounds…” He looked around his office for a moment. “That is all I have for now.” The broadcast stopped abruptly. A tv show resumed as if it hadn’t been interrupted. Mike and I looked at each other for a moment.
“Honey!” Mike called out to Jenny. “I think I know what happened to Johnny…”
Hours passed as we all tried to understand how this was even possible. Mike was constantly consoling Jenny over their not having John yet. Such a crazy night…
3 MONTHS LATER
“I can’t even believe this.” Mike said. “9 years of fighting and some insane time travel is all it took to get the world powers to sign a treaty!” He nudged me with his elbow. “Yeah.” I said. “Crazy stuff.” “And after all that craziness, I get called back into a job I haven’t even thought of in what feels like a lifetime! Do you know what else?” He asked, looking at me with a flustered look on his face. “What else, Mike?” I asked. “Jenny wants to have a kid AGAIN!” he yelled, throwing his arms in the air. “Don’t you want to have John again?” “Well that’s the thing” he said, leaning close to me. “What if it isn’t Johnny again? What if we have a kid who looks completely different? What if we have a girl this time?!” He looked stressed. “Jenny doesn’t care about any of that, though. She keeps insisting that it’ll be Johnny again. I just can’t imagine how she’ll react if it isn’t…” He reclined back into his seat. “It’s a lot to think about.” I sighed.
6 YEARS LATER
Everything has gone to shit. People couldn’t handle it anymore. All that time passed, just to have to come back and pretend it never happened? Mike stopped talking to many people. He acts like some sort of crazy conspiracy theorist now, shutting himself away and distrusting everyone. He was right about John, who is now a Kelly. Jenny couldn’t handle it and has been on pills to try and help, but we all know she’s snapped. It’s not like any of our personal problems matter anymore, though. Every world power built one of those monstrous weapons in secret and unveiled them all around the same time. Things got tense everywhere. None of us really have freedom anymore. Police that look like soldiers patrol the streets daily, and it’s lights out at 9pm across the nation. If you’re caught outside after that, you’re lucky if you end up dead. What happened to this place? What happened to this world?