[WP] You woke up in a bedroom and found a modern silenced pistol and an envelope. Inside the envelope there's three photos and a letter. The letter writes "You are in Vienna, 1913. The pictures attached are Leon Trotsky, Josef Stalin, and Adolf Hitler. Kill them or we will kill your ancestors."

My alarm doesn't go off. "That's strange" I think to myself. Normally that infernal blaring wrests me from my dreams far too early. I don't even hear the baby birds on the deck whose chirps are none too cute at 5:45am in the morning. Eyes still shut, I grope for where my phone normally rests on the floor by my bed. My fingers aren't greeted by the cool metal, but, even more surprisingly, they aren't greeted by carpet, but instead cool hardwood. That opens my eyes.

This definitely is not my room. Above me a ceiling fan depends from the ceiling, slowly clicking around, but I cannot feel it moving any air. My own bed is a queen sleigh bed, but the one I occupy is a four poster canopy. I quickly notice that all the furniture is antique, but at the same time looks strangely new. A more prolific man would wonder if he got drunk and went home with a strange woman. Unfortunately I know this can't explain my situation. I don't drink often, and it is rare a woman finds my melancholy that endearing. Whatever brought me here cannot be so easily explained. I feel fine though, so I know that unlike Charlie the Unicorn, I have at least retained both kidneys. I don't know why, but I always make terrible jokes when I am nervous.

Now I notice the windows are open but the curtains are drawn. I live in Alabama, if the windows are open, it should be hot, yet the room is comfortable. Still completely confused, but not yet panicked, I move to the window hoping a view of the exterior might be elucidating. Timidly I draw aside the curtain, afraid of what I will see beyond.

Now, I'm panicked. I'm an American. I'm not particularly well traveled. I know Europe when I see it. My view is down a street lined with well maintained but clearly historic buildings. On the horizon I see an bridge spanning a sizable river. Already the streets are bustling with people, but no one pays any mind to the stunned face gazing down at them a few stories up.

As I recoil from the window, I notice the dresser has a large envelope on it. Even it seems to be an antique. Rather than the metal brad of today's manila envelopes, it features a string wrapped around a sort of hook on the flap and the main part of the envelope. With my hands furiously trembling it takes me a few attempts to open it. Inside is a piece of paper which states the following:

 "You are in Vienna, 1913.  The pictures attached are Leon Trotsky, Josef 
  Stalin, and Adolf Hitler.  Kill them or we will kill your ancestors. Everything
   you should need is in the closet."

Behind that is the three photos mentioned in the letter. For some odd reason I think of McCoy from Star Trek and adapt his famous line to scoff "I'm a lawyer dammit, not an assassin!" Again, I blame being so confused and alarmed for my poor humor. That said though, I was a history major at UA. I love it more than anything and I know the significance of those names and this date. I know that, on the off chance this is real, to do this task would completely change history.

I move to the closet. I open the door and notice a neatly hanging outfit. The shirt is white, but the tie is remarkably wide. The suit is a tasteful grey, but the lapels are similarly wide, and the pants incredibly pleated. A modern Brooks Brother's narrow lapel, flat front pants suit this is not. I, for some reason, say aloud "I'll give you credit you really got the details down, this could be a suit from 1913, I'd certainly get laughed out of court these days." I notice there is even a hat on the shelf, something I wouldn't dream of wearing as no one but Matt Boemer can pull it off these days. My heart skips a beat though when I notice on the floor in the middle of the closet is a box. It is nondescript, really just an attractive wooden box like someone might use to hold cigars, but somehow I suspect that isn't what is inside. I kneel down, and crack the box. I do that awkward thing where I feel if I peek in I can mitigate the shock. I can't. Much like Pandora's Box, the mere crack was enough to let the contents out.

I know guns, and that peek had shown me a Walther PPK, suppressor, and two full mags. Somehow that gun seemed particularly appropriate for my task, should I choose to accept it.

That gun seemed to be a mistake though. Up until that point everything had been period appropriate, but that was not a 1913 gun. Nonetheless, I find myself donning the antiquated suit, and even putting the weapon in the shoulder holster I found hanging between the shirt and suit. Please don't consider these actions as my acceptance of the "mission" but simply the motions of a shocked and confused man with nothing else to do.

With my suit, gun, and yes, even the hat, donned, I leave my room and continue to the lobby. Everyone else was wearing period appropriate clothing, and the clerk bid me a genuine sounding "Guten Morgen" as I turned in my key.

When I step onto the street, I have no doubt that I am actually in Europe, but surely the prank couldn't extend past the hotel. Thinking myself very clever, I think I will cross a few streets, things would become more modern as I get outside the scope of the prank and I can even obtain a newspaper to confirm the date. As I wandered through the crowd, I become concerned at how this certainly seems like 1913. There are no cellphones, laptops, or Hondas. All I see is horses, Mercedes that should have looked like collectors items rather than brand new, and people going about normal lives. It is too grand to be a prank. Still, I hold out hope and move to a news stand. I pick up a paper that was in English. The headline reads "White Star Line in Financial Trouble One Year After Titanic Sinking" and an editorial has the headline "Is War Inevitable?" Then I see the date, 15 April, 1913, and I knew this was no prank: I have traveled back in time.

I stagger into a nearby cafe and seat myself at a table. The waitress asks me something in German, with a thick Austrian accent. I took a little German in undergrad, but in my shock I have no idea what she says. All I can do is stammer, "Wa, Wasser, bitte." Her quizzical look tells me that they don't get many people from Alabama pretending to speak German at this time, but she goes to retrieve it nonetheless.

For the first time, I look at my situation not as a prank, but as reality, and think of the text and pictures I found in the envelope. I, a middle class lawyer am tasked with killing three of the most important figures in modern history. "Why not a Navy Seal or someone good at this kind of thing?" I wonder.

About that time the waitress returns and I eagerly gulp the water. I have to admit, I've always thought I was meant for something more. I never wanted to sit behind a desk doing bankruptcies for people who would just be back in the same situation soon. I could make a real difference here. I could stop the Holodomor, stop the Soviets from seizing power, stop the Holocaust and WWII. I could be the most important person in history.

Strangely I think of Jurrassic Park and Ian Malcolm saying "your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, that they didn't stop to think if they should." "Should I do this" I ask myself. Truth is, I don't really know much about time travel. It seems like I once heard that time cannot be altered, it will always revert to it's original course. Maybe this won't change anything. More importantly, what if the outcome is worse? It is hard to imagine something worse, but it could happen. Maybe without these people the precarious balance of power doesn't tip until after everyone has nuclear weapons. Maybe all the people who died between 1914 and 1945 did so that the rest of the world would not. I simply can't know.

As I'm pondering this I absently stare across the street. For the first time I notice the artist there with his easel and brushes. He furiously paints the stunning cathedral nearby. But then my blood runs cold. The middle age weight is missing, the hairline not so far back, the iconic mustache much wider that it would later be, but I recognize him from the photo. As though an invisible hand guides this strange affair Adolf Hitler is across the street.

I feel the gun against my ribs with the suppressor affixed and a shell in the chamber. It would be so easy I think. As I waffle between what is the right course of action, he begins to pack up and move off. Unconsciously I stand up and my feet carry me after him. He turns into a small, deserted graveyard. Ironic I think.

Midway through the courtyard he hears me behind him and turns to me. He eagerly presents his painting and says something I cannot understand, but I suspect he wants me to buy it. I reach inside my jacket and pull out the gun. I point it at him.

Instantly, his eyes widen and he drops the painting and materials, half raising his arms. There I stand in the middle of a graveyard with the most infamous man in world history before me. With a simple pull of the trigger I can change world history, and save my own skin too. The truth is though, that isn't the man before me. Twenty years younger and in a paint smeared outfit, he's really just a terrified kid. If it is unfair to blame the sins of the father on the son, can I blame the unperformed sins of the adult on the teenager? My hand shakes, but my finger tightens...

/r/WritingPrompts Thread