Chapter 1: The End is only the Beinging
"Confirmed detonation of the HK-944 over Paris. That's the 878th one."
In life, we all make mistakes. Mistakes large enough to make you wish you could go back in time to fix them.
"Confirmed detonation of the HK-347 over New York City… That was the last major evacuation zone apart from this one."
Mistakes can before born from many things. But the ones created from following your dreams hurt the most.
"What is the condition of the U.N.S.S. Last Hope?"
I sat next to a radio, busy with panicked chatter. It was hardly surprising, as the world was ending. I sat in a cold room with my head hung low in shame. Infighting had taken its toll within the military, and everyone, confused and lost, started killing one another while a certain few stood tall and acted as a light to keep those who remained sane.
"Not so great, I'm afraid. Rebels have seized control over the ship. Any military or political figures are being gunned down on sight."
"Those ungrateful, useless pieces of shit. We are out here fighting to ensure they can survive, and they spit in our faces?" A man with a deep voice shouted through the radio with what sounded like gunfire in the background. Anger was not a justified word for his feelings, but I suppose that does not matter. We are all gonna die in a few hours, anyway. "Find the seven responsible for the creation of the Human Killer Project. I will execute them gruesomely before we get blown to hell-"
I turned off the radio. My mind was filled with nothing besides wishing I could return in time. I laughed slightly as I reached for the pistol I kept at my side. It was an impractical weapon made pure out of steel and nothing else. It was custom-made for the sole purpose of being too heavy to use freely. I loaded a magazine into the gun, and a voice called out to me.
"Are you really gonna use it?" A hand grabbed my arm. I kept my eyes locked on the gun. "You cannot be serious right now." The person then grabbed my shoulders and forced me to look in their direction.
A once elegant woman with fair skin is now tainted with cuts and bruises. Her long brown hair was stained a crimson red while a potent scent of gunpowder and iron came from it. Her hazel eyes were distant. I could tell she was in a lot of pain without even looking at her blood-soaked uniform or the red bandage wrapped around her left arm. Ariel was her name. A dependable woman raised by wolves, as we would joke. She was strong-willed and worked closely with us as a bodyguard and an assassin whenever someone dug too deep.
Why would a group of researchers need a bodyguard? Well, it's simple. We seven were a small group of researchers with the noble goal of creating a cure to cure every known disease known to man in one quick treatment. The goal was to develop a way to rewrite the human DNA system to create an all-powerful immune system. Many people saw this as a threat. If this plan saw the light of day, they would lose billions. Unfortunately, we were blindsided. To create a way to fix something, we must first destroy it, and destroy was what our project did. Someone stole our research and used it to make a nuclear bomb infused with nano spores containing Anti-Human nanomachines. They then massed produced and sent these bombs worldwide, ravaging the population.
"Are you really gonna use it?" Ariel repeated her words, testing my determination.
"Of course." Guilt filled my chest. I tried my best to hide it. But end the end, I was fooling nobody. She saw through me.
"Not the gun. The machine." She slapped me in the face. "That look in your eyes was all I needed to know. You plan to play God and rewrite the past, aren't you?" How ironic of her to say that with that face. Faint tears streamed down her scar-ridden cheeks. We already assumed the role of God by creating a nanomachine that served to rewrite the very foundation of what humans are. Attempting to return in time is nothing more than a shrimp in a sea of problems. As she stared deeply into my eyes, I pushed her away.
"I made my choice." I said. I had no other choice. Dying, a meaningless death, was out of the question. When given an opportunity to make a difference, one must take it. That's how I was raised.
"A...and so have I." Ariel spoke with dread.
With a solid hit to the back of the head, I blacked out. I don't know how many hours had passed while I was out cold, but it was clearly enough time for Ariel to take us to our laboratory. A large machine stood before me. To put it bluntly, it was a time machine. We created it to undo our sins committed during the creation of our cure. A way to just go back in time and just hand our past selves the data and notes on creating it.
With my mind in a daze, I looked down at the ground; my pistol sat beside me. It was warm as if it were used. I pulled out the magazine and checked the chamber. Two bullets were left. Next to where I found the gun was a trail of blood. The trail led to behind the machine. With my pistol in hand, I followed it. The sound of someone typing away at the keyboard echoed faintly.
"Ariel…" My voice was faint at the time. I did not know why. Many emotions filled my head. Some I personally thought I was incapable of feeling. But I suppose it proved I was human. Ariel, a woman who bravely fought many battles, sat before me in a gravely wounded state.
"I'm sorry, Barman, I won't let you…" As she spoke, she coughed up blood. She leaned on the top of a small control panel connected to the machine. She knew her time was near. Even in this state of pain, she kept typing on the keyboard as quickly as possible. As she did that, I pointed my gun at her back. She heard the clicking of my safety disengaging and flinched a little. She stopped typing and turned to face me. Her eyes were red as she had been crying nonstop for hours. "So this is the path you have chosen to walk? You're gonna treat me the same way that man treated us?" Her words meant nothing to me. Going back in time was my only goal. Even if she were to hate me, I needed to do this. She turned her back to me and resumed typing. "If you have the balls to kill me, then do it. I gonna die soon anyway. Even if you do, I will not hate you for it. I will stand by your side even if you hate yourself. You should know that I will. You have a blackened heart, a heart stained by sin and betrayal. But I still believe that a small glimmer of light is left inside of you to make a difference." Her voice grew weaker by the second. She fell over, her body too weak to manage. "Just don't let her fool you again. She is on her side."
With a pained look in her eyes, she stared straight at me. Saying nothing, she begged for death. She was strong; her pride would not allow her to ask of it. But I knew her for years, which might have been the reason I broke. I answered her plea for death. With the sharp sound of the bullet firing, tears fell down my face.
"Heh…" Shame and guilt tore at my heart. "Heheheheheheheeh!!!!!" I don't remember why, but I laughed for hours. I had finally lost it. After years of experimenting on live subjects, watching them cry out in pain did nothing to my psyche. For years I had thought I was not human purely because I had felt nothing. But watching my best friend lie before me in a pool of her own blood with a smile on her face broke me. 'A glimmer of light.' that is what she had said. Whatever light I had before now was lost.
All I wanted to do now was die. Going back in time meant nothing if I were to go back as the monster I had become. While I was in a fit of crazed laughter, I pointed my pistol to my head and squeezed the trigger.
I had once heard from a coworker that the human mind flashes your life before you in an attempt to find a way to prevent death. It's funny; all that flashed before me was a few hours. My face lay on the cold floor, wet with my blood. A horrid pain shot through my head. I wanted to scream, but I could not move my mouth. The thinking was the only thing I could do now.
*Tip tap tip tap*
The sound of someone walking came from behind.
"How dare you try to take the easy way out, Barman?" The voice belonged to another scientist whose intellect rivaled mine, Sophia. A sharp-tongued woman who I loved and respected. "She had a point, you know." As she spoke, I felt a sharp instrument dig into my neck. The feeling of something being injected into me filled me with a sense of happiness. She was releasing me from this world with pentobarbital. It shouldn't have felt this good, but it took the pain I had felt away. Soon my heart will stop. "That glimmer of light will grow into the star that guides humanity." She said as everything went dark.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone