Before Time Runs Out

The sun was hot as its rays shone down on me. All I could hear were my feet crunching, slipping, and sliding on the sand. The howling wind threw sand particles in my face, in my ears, and in my mouth. The creatures lurked behind me and stalked me as I trudged on. And yet, I continued forward, crawling up steep hills of sand, and stumbling down deep trenches of nothing but dirt.

Personally, I always thought that the end of the world would have zombies, or maybe even aliens. What I didn’t expect where monsters. Not monsters like the old Frankenstein and Wolfman movies, either. These were far worse, and even after ten years, there was still no known way of defeating them. So, why did I keep walking? I knew that if I split from our group my chances of survival were slim. Monsters and the fact that I had zero survival skills were a deadly combination. And yet, there I was in the middle of the desert somewhere in the Southwestern part of the United States.

I had lived in Virginia when this all started. I was your standard every-day American, with my wife, two kids, and I even had the white-picket fence. I had everything I could ever want and more. Everything I had worked so hard for was finally in my grasp. Until, of course, the year 3020. I guess you would consider that the “future”, but where I’m from that’s very far in my past. We were as “futuristic” as the future could get. AI’s attending your every need, Universal Healthcare, and we even had flying cars. I don’t even remember how it started, but I know how my end of the world began.

As a dad, it was my civil duty to grill at least once a week, and that time finally came. I threw the raw hamburger meat onto the hovering grill – everything hovered in 3020, it was the latest trend. The meat sizzled and spat at me, and it continued to shout at me as I ordered my grill to close the top lid. I glanced around my neighborhood, and my lawn. Kids were playing in the front yards with dogs, baseballs, and toy guns. It was peaceful, one might have even called it serene. However, nothing good ever seemed to last in my life, and my peaceful grilling days ended up being one of those good things.

“Open lid,” I said nonchalantly at my grill. It complied; I turned my back on my lawn and kids to flip the burgers. “Close li-”

I never got to finish that sentence; the siren cut through the warm summer air like that of a knife. Without hesitation, I dropped everything that I was doing and bolted down my steps and onto the lawn to grab my children. Before I could reach them, an ear-splitting screech besieged my eardrums. It was so shrill, in fact, that I collapsed onto my knees, hoping that my hands, which were covering my ears, would be enough to stop the noise. But, it didn’t; the scream wasn’t entering my ears, it was inside my head, and my entire body. My eyes were glued shut, and some of my teeth chipped due to me holding my jaw so tightly. Once it stopped, and I regained control of my heartbeat and breathing, I opened my eyes again, hoping that I would find my kids and take them to safety. But when I looked up, I was completely, and utterly alone.

“Sara! Christine!” I screamed at the top of my lungs for my children. “Aisha!” my wife was gone as well. I was the only person left in my neighborhood, and maybe even the world. I stumbled to my feet and sprinted to the spot where my children were moments before. The only thing on the freshly cut lawn was a golden heart-shaped locket. Confused and scared I snatched it up off of the lawn and examined it.

The locket read “M43V74”. The nonsense message on the locket only added to my fear and frustration. My daughters didn’t have a locket – they didn’t even wear necklaces; it was too constricting for them apparently. I threw the locket behind me and screamed at the top of my lungs for my family. I ran in the streets, I entered people’s houses, I yelled for what seemed like hours. I glanced at my watch, my throat burning. The clock face still read “5:05PM”.

But that was impossible! As I looked into the sky, I noticed that the sun hadn’t moved an inch, neither did the clouds.

“What!?” I exclaimed as I booked it for my home. Fate would prevent me from reaching my home, however, as I collided with an invisible barrier that stood before my house. I was thrown backwards violently onto my back. I landed on my lawn, with all of the air taken out of me. White-hot pain erupted in my nose and a warm, sticky liquid trickled from my nostril. It was blood, of course, but that wasn’t what I was concerned about at that moment.

The barrier wasn’t a barrier, like I had thought. I found that out when what looked like an opening slid open to the right, revealing a woman in tactical gear, like you see on those Army movies.

“Get in here, now!” She shouted at me, and motioned for me to join her on the disappearing thing.

Dumbfounded, I simply laid on the ground, frozen. I was in complete shock.

“Chris, grab that locket and get in here! You’ll be able to see your family again!”

Well, that spurred me into action. I rolled over, launched myself forward and grasped the locket. As I stood up, I made eye contact with the most grotesque thing I had ever had the misfortune of laying my eyes on. It was many, many feet taller than me, with arms that resembled a Praying Mantiss. Although God himself would probably run away from this monster. It was. . . moist. It had a sickening slime that covered its entire body and dripped onto the ground. It had bug-like eyes and a long body like a snake. In the brief moment that I saw it, I couldn’t make out a mouth. That is, until its entire head split in half, revealing a mouth filled with sharp, wet teeth. It screamed at me, sticking its teeth-covered tongue out at me.

“Holy smokes!” I managed to utter as I turned and sprinted toward the GI Joe lady. Anything was better than whatever that amalgamation was. I heard it slithering after me; in a last-ditch effort, I jumped into the barrier’s opening. I felt its claw clip the bottom of my tennis shoes before the door closed behind me and I fell, yet again, onto a floor.

“Welcome aboard, Chris, I’m Maria. I’m in charge here.” the same lady before hovered over me. Laying on the floor, I looked up at her with terrified eyes.

“What. Was. . . THAT?”

“We don’t have a name for it yet, but it’s not good, that’s for sure.” She helped me onto my feet and took me to a room filled with other people pouring over maps and decoding tools.

“Please tell me you have the locket.”

“Huh? Oh!” I was so shaken up I completely forgot about the locket. It was still clutched in my hand in a death grip. “What does it mean? What happened to everyone? Who are you? Who are these people? Where’s my family?”

“Woah, woah!” Maria held up her hands, defending herself. “One question at a time, dude.”

I was a bit. . . much, the day that this all happened. Who wouldn’t be? But Maria and her team handled me extremely well. They were people who abandoned the government after they realized that something fishy was going on. With technology as advanced as it was, they were able to fly under the radar with an invisible vehicle, which is where I jumped into. They happened to be in the exact same place I was, which is how we were able to find each other.

It was tough in that place without my family. Years went by and we kept getting closer and closer to finding out what happened family and everyone else. We discovered that, somehow, the monsters had isolated us each individually and we were given identification – hence the locket. We were all in the same place, but on different planes of reality essentially. I still don’t understand it, and I likely never will. We think that the government created these monsters to keep the people on these specific planes in check, but of course that is all speculation still.

What did the locket say? Oh, well, like I said it was an ID, or an acronym, almost. “M43V74” - M: Male, 43 was my age, V: Virginia, and we never understood what the last numbers meant. Mine had two, while others had three or even five. One day, however, we finally cracked the code.

Time travel wasn’t widely researched; the government had restricted further research due to the sheer dangers of it, which is why it took us so long to realize what the numbers meant. The locket gave us the ability to travel through time. Greg found that out the hard way - he’s fine, don’t worry. The locket didn’t open until we pried his open, hence the unanticipated time travel. Nevertheless, the numbers meant how many years, and miles we had to travel. It didn’t specify if we had to travel to the past or the future, or where even to go once we got there, or what we were looking for. Which is how I wound up in that desert and now here, in 2021! The monsters were there in the desert. We have no idea how, but the government found out I had escaped, and they didn’t like that. I’m okay now, but I wasn’t exactly planning on traveling this far back in time. Huh. Time sure does fly.

Speaking of, I’m almost out of time, but, kid, that locket is the key to finding my family, I’m sure of it! And if – no, when I find them, I’ll bring them back to meet you one day, okay Maria?