❝In class, you said I reminded you of someone. Who is she?❞
❝My wife. You remind me of my wife.❞
━━━━━━━━━━
When an accidental time travel brings twenty-seven-year-old William eight years back to the pas...
The bald one, who happened to be the truck driver, was tall and well-built with a round face while the other one was the opposite - thin, lanky and squared.
They looked at him, at his dishevelled and distraught appearance, at his torn clothes which were somehow clinging to his body. He looked at the men and they stared at him, amusement and something else plastered on their faces. The bald man stepped towards William who almost tripped trying to reach him. Before William could hit the ground, face first, the man held his arm, shoving him and supporting his shoulders to help him stand up.
"Who are you, mate?" he asked in a thick British accent.
"I...uh..." William began but his throat ached and it felt like he had swallowed needles that were now lodged in his throat. "Where..am..I?" he said instead of answering.
"You're in Lunavale," the other man spoke.
Lunavale. That sounded so familiar. He had heard that name, heard it very often. He closed his eyes as the other man came forward and joined the British guy to help him stay in balance.
Eliza
Lunavale was Eliza's hometown. The town where she wasn't born but grew up. She often told him stories which he pretended not to hear but her husky voice and the sight of her lips when they curved at each word fused with her sexy accent made it hard for him to ignore it. He could listen to her talk for hours even without understanding anything. Even Harvey Scott spoke about the town, he spoke about it when he talked about his invention.
With a sudden realization, William opened his eyes. He looked at the British guy and opened his mouth to search for the right words. Something that wouldn't creep the guys out.
"What date is it?" William asked.
The men looked at him with a scrutinizing glance and then the bald one said, "5th of December, mate."
William sighed. The 5th of December. That's the right date. It was the 5th of December when he last checked the calendar. His heart almost filled him with joy but then he remembered something else, something scarier. He turned to look at the British guy again.
"And the year...what year...is it?" William fought hard to get the words out of his mouth. His heart was beating faster than it had been before. The man looked at him with wide eyes.
"How drunk are you, mate?" the man asked.
"Please... " William urged. "Please tell me what year it is."
"It's 2011," the other guy answered.
The revelation came crashing down on William's head like Thor's hammer. He swallowed a deep gulp. His knees gave out and he was now completely at the mercy of the two people holding both of his arms. William couldn't comprehend what he had just heard which made him want to scream and wake up from this nightmare.
"No..no..." He gasped, trying to breathe in as much oxygen as possible, to calm down but he couldn't; he must have heard it wrong.
"Please tell me you are joking."
"No, he is not."
"But it isn't possible. It was 2019. It was 2019." William was now sitting on the road, his eyes were shut as he tried to recall Harvey's words.
(Wherever you go, find me!)
"Harvey Scott," he breathed out. "Take me to Harvey Scott."
"You need to go to the emergency, mate," the man suggested.
"No," William pleaded and then asked, "Does Harvey Scott stay here?"
"Yes. He sure does," the other guy said, "He is the crazy scientist who lives a mile away from here. You know him?"
His daughter is my wife — He wanted to say that but instead thought the better of it.
"Yes, I am here to meet him. I was mugged on the way here," he lied, finally finding his sanity back and for the first time in his life, the lie didn't sound bitter but life-saving. He had lied just once in his life, to his mother after she had asked him the reason for his broken nose. William had answered that he had fallen instead of speaking the truth about how he had beaten up his classmate after the latter teased him for being 'weird'.
"You should go to the police."
"No, please. Take me to Harvey Scott, it's urgent," William begged again. He needed to find Harvey. Maybe Harvey would explain it. Maybe he was not indeed in the past. He wanted to believe himself but he didn't doubt that Harvey Scott had indeed made a Time Machine for there was no way his father-in-law would leave him in a forest to die.
He needed to find a way to go back. He couldn't lose his mind.
"Sure, mate," the British guy said. "Get in my truck."
William stood up with the help of the two men holding him. He wanted to thank them but was not able to speak anymore. He just watched as the two men helped him up on the passenger side of the truck and then he saw the other guy move towards the car behind it and get on the driver's side. William leaned back and closed his eyes as the truck came to life and raved through the lone road towards his destination.
He was desperate to see Harvey Scott, twice in one day. Except this time, he might not be William's father-in-law.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
