A Stable Loop In Time

Chapter 4

Somewhere in Laurentia, in the Cambrian Period…

Xan, Destiny and Alan had traveled to a beach. There was yellow-gray sand near the water, and nothing but gray rock otherwise. It was cold, and a little windy.

“Cool! A real, live trilobite!” Xan exclaimed as he looked into the ancient sea. “And look, some little fish-worm-things. What are those, I wonder?” He sat down next to the edge of the water and fished through Destiny’s backpack to try to find info on the unknown water-dwelling life form that looked like a worm with fins.

“The sea is pretty much the only interesting thing here,” Alan remarked, standing on top of a small rock formation. “I don’t even see any plants…”

“Correct. According to my research, there was no life on the land at all in the Cambrian period,” Destiny explained, also climbing up onto the top of the rocky pile. “The continents are pretty much just rock as far as the eye can see. But in the water, there’s tons of life.”

“Hey, I found out what those fishy things are! They’re called Pikaia, and they’re probably the world’s first chordates,” Xan yelled to his friends. “That’s your distant ancestor over there, Alan. A worm.”

“Okay, whatever. I wanna see some Dinosaurs,” Alan complained, jumping from the rock formation onto the sandy beach. “Let’s go see the Dinosaurs! It’s cold and barren here anyway. Nothing to see.”

“No, let’s go slower than that,” Destiny said. “Let’s at least stop in the early Carboniferous period. We can see giant bugs, and the oxygen level is safe there!”

“I say we should head straight to the earliest humans, and just go through human history only,” Xan argued.

“Wait a second. Did either of you go way over there?” Destiny asked, pointing to a location way down the beach.

Alan and Xan both said that they never went over there.

“That’s odd, because there are FREAKING HUMAN FOOTPRINTS OVER THERE!” Destiny yelled.

Indeed, there was a trail of footprints on the sand. They seemed to go in a semicircle, like somebody had walked off of the rocky ground and into the sand, and then back onto the rock.

“What does this mean?” Alan wondered.

“It means that somebody else time-traveled here recently,” Destiny answered. “Duh.”

“Hey, maybe someday we travel back here again, but just a little earlier. Those footprints could be ours,” Xan pointed out. “Let’s walk over there so we can see if our footprints match.

The three started jogging over to the unknown footprints, which was odd because they had all the time in the world. As they were running, though, Xan tripped very badly.

“Aaaaaaah-“ THUD.

“Whoa, are you okay, dude?” Alan asked.

“Yeah, good thing I landed in the sand,” Xan answered, getting up. “But what did I trip over?

“Me.”

“Wait, who said that?” Xan asked.

“Me,” said the arm that proceeded to shoot up out of the sand and grab at the time machine.

“Oh, crud!” Alan yelled, and he yanked the silver cylinder away from the hand and ran away a few steps

The sand around where the arm was protruding erupted away, revealing a black-cloaked figure that leapt up out of the sandy ground and rushed towards Alan. Destiny, however, just tackled the guy.

“Hah! Gotcha!” She yelled in triumph as the black-cloaked person fell under her weight. However, even before he hit the ground, he disappeared with a flash. She fell on the sand, but got back up quickly, whipping around, trying to find the mysterious man. “Hey! Where’d ya go? Where’d he go, Alan?” She asked.

“He disappeared, Destiny,” Alan answered. “I wonder who the heck he was, and why he wa- Argh!”

The tall, shadowy man reappeared right behind Alan, grabbing him around his torso and arms. Alan struggled, but the man’s grip was like iron.

Alan, who could barely move or speak, felt the silver cylinder that was the time machine pulling away from his hand, somehow. He struggled to hold it, but it was slipping out of his grasp.

“Here… catch…” He gasped as he threw the time machine vaguely in Xan’s direction.

“Got it!” Xan dove to the ground and caught the machine, but just barely. In response, the man picked up Alan, threw him into the nearby water, and grabbed at the time machine. Xan rolled away, time machine in hand, and stood up. As the man lunged towards Xan, Destiny ran up and kicked the cloaked figure right between the legs.

The man made no sound, but he fell to the ground, curling into a ball. He disappeared.

 “We have to leave here now before he time-travels back!” Xan yelled, starting to press buttons on the time machine. “Hurry!”

Destiny and Alan ran like hell towards Xan, almost tackling him just before he pressed the main button. The three of them flashed, the air crackled, and they vanished.

The man reappeared. He looked around. He disappeared again.