“The Time Tyrant”

She couldn’t believe her eyes. In what felt like a second, her life was completely upside down. Even her surroundings were different. There was paint peeling off the wall, water leaking from the ceiling, boards missing from the floor and something that looked alive growing in the corner of the shower. What once was a townhome in the suburbs, now seems to be a run down apartment in the projects. Dazed; Jessali places her hands on her face, quickly realizing that she was no longer wearing glasses, but could see. “What’s happening? Where am I?” are just a few of the questions that were steadily racing through her head. Jessali gains her composure and stands up to further access the situation. “What happened to my home?”. She starts walking around her now run-down place of solitude in tears. “I don’t understand.” Jessali cry’s to herself. While looking for a clue, any clue, as to what could have happened she came across a mirror at the end of the hall. What she saw confused her more than anything. It’s one thing to wake up in an unfamiliar place, but now she’s realizing she isn’t even the same person she was literally a minute ago. “I’m crazy. I have to be going crazy.” she whispers to herself. “How can I still have the same mind, the same face but everything else about my life is different; what is going on?”. Jessali peeks out the window, to her surprise everything on the outside of her home appears normal. “I have to figure out what’s going on.” She says as she dials what she remembered to be her mother’s phone number. A mans voice comes from the phone. “Hello. You’ve reached ARC; Artificial Realm Coordination, how may I direct your call?” Jessali sits in silence; not knowing how to respond. Suddenly she hears “Jessali...how can I direct your call?”. “How do you know my name ?” She asks. *Click* the man hangs up. Jessali; now anxious as hell, what if they have my mom. Jessali decides to go look for her. “I’ll looks at her house first.” She arrives to her childhood home; again much more worn down than she remembers. Jessali knocks on the door and a young woman wearing an ARC shirt answers the door; “Jessali! It’s so nice to see you. How are you adapting ?”. After a short awkward stare; Jessali muttered “do I know you?”. The young ladies name tag read Ashlyn but that’s not ringing any bells. “No you don’t. But I’m here to help you. Well really I’m here to help the other you; but I can’t explain now” Ashlyn says with a smirk. “But I’m ecstatic that you decided to come here; I literally can’t do this without you”. Jessali has never been more confused; “What do you mean the other me?”.“Where’s your little black book? That will explain everything!” Excitingly yells Ashlyn. But Jessali had no idea what she was referring too. When she woke up in that apartment she didn’t see a black book. Desperate to figure out what was going on, Jessali takes off running back to where it all began, the apartment. She’s searching all over; looking in the trash, under the bed, in the couch cushions, and even in the fridge. There was no little black book anywhere to be found. Feeling defeated Jess punches the wall, to her surprise she broke through it with ease. Looking down at her hands Jessali realizes that punching the wall caused her no pain, so she did it again. Unfortunately; she didn’t punch through the wall. This time she almost broke her hand. In disbelief, Jess walks up to examine the wall and immediately notices a beam. Tucked between the beams behind the plaster Jess sees a little black figure. She pulls out her phone, shines a light inside the hole and lets out a sigh of relief. “And my mom says my anger would never result in anything positive. I would have never found the book without getting angry” Jess said sassily. Jess reaches in and grabs the book, immediately dropping it to the floor due to seeing what had to have been the biggest spider ever. It scurries along leaving behind the dust covered little black book. Jessali quickly grabs it and opens the book to reveal a map, notes and doodles. But none of it made sense. There were no titles. The dates looked sporadic and some outdated or dated for time that had yet to come. “So I’m back at square one; great.” Jess calls Ashlyn. She hears “the number you have dialed is not in service. Please check the number and try again” never having felt so defeated, Jess starts crying. Suddenly there’s a knock at the door. She opens it to see Ashlyn standing there “See Jess; I knew you could do it”. Jess looked back at her with what could’ve been the worlds most aggravating facial expression. This book has no direction. No context. She still has no clue what she’s supposed to do. Where she’s supposed to go. “Ashlyn why am I here. What’s really going on?” “Youre gonna wanna sit down. I’m going to grab you some water. You might need it” she replies. So Jess looks eagerly into the woman’s direction. “I’m ready” Jessali says with so much attitude. “Okay Jess. So; you’re not from this dimension. That’s why everything seems so different. You were sent here by a different variation of yourself to help this dimension's version of you. Things don't turn out well if they stay on this path so you have to fix that. Make life better so to say, but there are rules in place which is why you’re just finding out. Do you have any questions?”. Jessali stood there; blankly. “I do have one question” how can I get back home??” She asked Ashlyn. To which there was a quick reply of “ once you finish your mission”. They take a seat on the splintered floor and open the little black book. “Okay Ash. Please explain to me because none of this looks of this earth. Where does this map even lead me and what kind of letters are those?” “Drink this and all will be revealed”. As soon as Ashlyn gave those directions a notice from the bank slid from under the door. “Hurry it’s already starting.” Ashlyn screams at Jessali. Without a second thought Jess took a shot of the strange liquid. She immediately got dizzy, vision blurry, hands shaking and her legs were weak. Jess passes out. When she awakens, she’s in Ashlyn’s car heading god knows where. “Ashlyn where are we going?” “I don’t know. I was just driving until you woke up. You passed out back at your past persons place and they came home and almost caught you. Which CAN NOT HAPPEN! Now that you’re awake tell me which way to go” Ashlyn tosses Jess the book from the front seat. “What’s the point. I can’t understand any of it” Jess whined. “Shut up and look again” Ashlyn barked. As Jessali looks at the pages in her little black book she notices everything becoming clear. The map had legible and recognizable landmarks. The notes not only were in English but made total sense. “How did my life end up this way; seriously? “Jess!! Focus. We need to be centered on getting you out of this, not how you got into it. That’s not your problem ; now tell me which way to go”. “Okay. Okay. I’m sorry. The map is leading us a few towns over. Take this interstate on your left.” Ashlyn heads them in the direction of Hope, an insignificant town about 45 mins away. As she’s driving Jessali is reading this mysterious little black book from cover to cover. “It looks as if we are looking for something. It says it will be embedded in Hope and found with with team work.” They finally arrive to The town of Hope; and it was safe to say that the people that reside there lost hope a long time ago. All of a sudden; Jess noticed there were 6 other people accompanied by ARC representatives, all searching the grounds of Hope. “Hey Ash; am I not the only person on this mission?” “I guess not. Which means we really need to hurry or you’ll be stuck here” Ash exclaimed. Jessali took off; following the directions perfectly which landed her in this underground bunker. “Everyone was searching the ground so maybe looking underground is what we are supposed to do”. They climb inside and find that someone had already beat them to this spot. There were holes dug all in the floor of this basement like room. Ashlyn started visibly displaying her discouragement but Jess was determined not to give up. She had to get home. So Jess pulls out her little black book again and skims all the pages looking for a clue; any clue. Upon further inspection she noticed what appeared to be one letter on each page whited out. She starts looking around for something to gently scratch it off with. Jess walks over to Ashlyn and snatched a bobby-pin from right above her ear. “This should work!” Jess yells as she starts to remove the whiteout from every page. Jess begins to type out every letter in her phone as she uncovers them. After about 5 tedious minutes of trying to not rip any of the pages; Jess’s message was finally complete. “What you are looking for will be found in the shadows of time.” “Think Jess, think. What does the shadows of time mean.” She starts to look around the bunker trying to avoid all the holes in the floor. Jess’s eyes scan all over the room, she spots this old clock; and it just clicked. “Shadows of time. Ash. What we are looking for is in the clock. Come help me.” The ladies open the grandfather clock and Ash grabs the pendulum and holds it to one side as Jess reaches her hands into the “shadows” and finds and envelope. Of course it was covered in spiders so she quickly dropped it, revealing money inside. Jess grabs the money filled envelope and empties it into a nearby table to find a code written on the top bill. Jess thought nothing of it and begins to count the money. Jessali had to have counted that money four or five times. “Jess; how much is it??” Inquires Ashlyn. Still in utter shock, Jess replies “ Twenty. It’s twenty thousand dollars.” “Holy cow. That’s definitely going to fix everything”. Ashlyn grabs all the money and starts putting it back in the envelope. Jess grabs the book and turns to the very last page.“It reads that now I must use the code to place the envelope and attach a note stating to leave town and start a better life.” Ashlyn grinned. “Perfect. Thanks girl. I couldn’t have done this without you. Well I mean I could have but it would’ve been a lot more effort on my part” she then takes her ARC shirt off revealing a dirty, worn out shirt. “ You see; I caught on to ARCs little game to help the poor a long time ago. My other dimension savior was too dumb, I guess, because I was still stuck living in the slums. I finally was able to find a rep weak enough to kidnap and impersonate. Then you came along; so nice and gullible. I knew it wouldn’t be too hard to get you to find me that money. Really; I appreciate and I’m sorry that things had to turn out this way.” Before Jess could comprehend what just unfolded, Ashlyn pushes her down and runs out the bunker locking her underground. She didn’t think her plan would work but Ashlyn just changed her life forever. She took that money and moved away just as the little black book suggested and was never heard from again.