Vatsal Parekh

Tragedy Crime Thriller

4.0  

Vatsal Parekh

Tragedy Crime Thriller

From time: To Time

From time: To Time

9 mins
140


Time: 11:45 am (2 hours to go) - Time Loop Started

Jim woke up to the sound of huge thunder in the sky. As the sound roared across, he remembered everything. All the past incidents slowly started filling up his mind.

He was at the filling station. Sitting next to him, his friend Alice just woke, looking equally alarmed. His thoughts broke by the honking of a car.

"Hey guys come on, let's move. Hey Jim, we need to finish our experiment.” His friend, Wally called out from behind the steering. 


Time: 11:55 am (1 hour 50 minutes to go) 

Jimmy throttled behind Wally's car. 

"I think we just bounced back where we were from the previous loop," he said to Alice.

"Yeah I remember everything," Alice said.

As he approached the exit, he halted. As expected, a Red truck just sped across from his car. He knew that would happen. In the previous loops, he had got hit by this truck, so in this timeline, he had to avoid it.

“You remember everything, Alice?” Jimmy asked as he drove.

“Yeah. We tried everything, but couldn’t stop the loops. We need to find a solution, as our health is deteriorating fast and hardly any time is left.”


Time: 12:00 pm (1 hour 45 minutes to go) 

As Jimmy drove towards the house, he remembered all the past events. They had started an experiment to physically reduce the mass of certain objects. Alice had done all the calculus right, and Wally had prepared the machine based on his knowledge and her calculations. However, the acceleration of the objects increased exponentially, causing the mass reduction to almost zero. Technically, no object can have zero mass, as it ceases to exist, creating a null void. There cannot be a null void at any given point in the Universe. Therefore, the machine altered the time and space in its premises, causing these time loops.


Time: 12:05 pm (1 hour 40 minutes to go) 

He knew that when any object forms multiple time loops, the physical bodies need to adjust to the changing times. In their case, the loops started affecting their health, causing weakness and fatigue.

Since Time loops were against the Laws of Nature, the repetitive loops caused Nature to respond in its way, in the form of huge Lightning and Thunder every time they started a loop.


Time: 12:10 pm (1 hour 35 minutes to go) 

Wally checked the apparatus. He rechecked the readings on the display laptop. With a confused look in his eyes, he went and again checked the readings. 

“What’s the problem, wally? "Jimmy asked

“I had reworked the calculus before we bounced back, “he said “I just altered some settings. But that didn’t work out.” Feeling fatigued, he replied back.

“But who started the loops and why can’t we just shut down the machine and stop the loop?” Alice, with weakness in her voice, asked.


Time: 12:15 pm (1 hour 30 minutes to go) 

“Remember? We tried finding this out in our previous loops. If we shut it down now, that will create a negative impact on everything, either in the form of negative gravity or huge natural calamity, killing us all.” Wally replied.

“How many times we’ve been here?” Alice, totally weak and looking ill, asked him.

“I don’t know. Probably numerous times. We need to check our Login data on the display computer. Perhaps that’ll help.”

“Can’t we finish the loop faster? That is, can’t one of us manually tune the time at a faster rate, finish the loop and then re-enter the next loop and warn all the others?” Alice questioned.


Time: 12:20 pm (1 hour 25 minutes to go) 

“No. It means you’ll go and caution your past self who’s already in the loop. It’s like you meeting yourself in that particular timeframe. In that way, you’ll alter your present as well as your future. That’s a Paradox.” Wally answered. “The machine takes readings every 5 minutes. However, as the rotation speeds are irregular, the time-lapse between two 5-minutes spans comes irregular, making time run faster.”

As they talked, Jimmy suddenly remembered they hadn’t rechecked their calculations in the past loops.


 Time: 12:25 pm (1 hour 20 minutes to go) 

“Hey, Wally, why don’t we check our past calculations? Maybe something went wrong in the initial setups.” “I don’t think so”, feeling absolutely weak, Alice replied. “Maybe in our previous loops we had tried reformatting them.”

Somehow managing to stand properly, Wally replied. “We need to find a solution quickly, Jimmy. Else we’ll bounce back where we started.”

“Let’s try them again. Let’s see if we can reorganize them and check the results.”


Time: 12:30 pm (1 hour 15 minutes to go) 

Jimmy checked the formulae and equations on the display laptop. Wally was right. There were no errors in the calculations of the setup. Every addition was accurate.

How’s that possible? I need to recheck it again. There has to be some error. I need to remember what had happened in the previous loops, Jim thought.

The loops were taking a toll on their health. He needed to find a solution, or else they’ll bounce back again to the start of the loop.


Time: 12:35 pm (1 hour 10 minutes to go) 

“Hey Wally, I think I found it..!! The objects are accelerating at an exponential rate. If somehow we try to reduce the speed, maybe we can stop the reaction.” Jimmy suggested. “We’ll check the past logs,” Jim replied, “maybe we’ll find something.”

As they checked the past data entries in the display laptop, they couldn’t believe what they were seeing.


Time: 12:40 pm (1 hour 5 minutes to go) 

“We have been here more than…100 times? So that means we encountered the same scenario these number of times? How come we hadn’t checked this in our previous loops?” Wally, unable to believe what he was seeing, said.

“Yeah, probably we were here these number of times. Still, we couldn’t find a solution”

“Wait...what’s this?” as Jim checked all the data entries, he exclaimed.

“Look, when the loops started, ‘someone’ completed the cycles more faster than the usual time length. It means that person manually triggered the usual lapses and made the machine run on irregular cycles, causing those unequal time gaps in between.”


Time: 12:40 pm (1 hour 5 minutes to go) 

 “But who could’ve done it?” Wally replied.

“All the data entries are saved with the individual names. So it has to be someone from us.” Jimmy said, checking the saved data. “How come we didn’t check this in the earlier loops?”

As he checked the data logins, he was shocked “I think it’s….ALICE?”

Both of them looked at Alice.

“SO YOU STARTED THE LOOPS! WE THOUGHT IT WAS A GLITCH IN THE MACHINE. WHY DID YOU DO THIS? WHY DID YOU MANUALLY TRIGGER THE CYCLES? EVERYTHING WAS GOING RIGHT. WHY DID YOU ALTER THE TIMELINES? ”Jimmy shouted, almost furiously.


Time: 12:45 pm (1 hour to go) 

“I never intended to start the loops. Our experiment was quite simple. Just to reduce the relative mass of an object. While making the calculations, there was a mistake. Because of that error, the objects rotated exponentially, causing them to become zero mass and that started the time loops.I KNEW we were in the loop. Manually triggering the cycles faster, I rectified the errors in the calculations during the initial cycles of the loop, hoping that it will reduce the speed and end the loops. But the loops kept coming. Now I seriously don’t know how to stop them at this stage” almost weeping, Alice replied.


Time: 12:55 pm (50 minutes to go) 

The other two were left awestruck.

“So from the start you knew every time we were in the loop!! Why didn’t you tell us then?”

“I…I...tried rectifying the setup. But I couldn’t come up with a solution..!!” stammering, Alice replied.

“You have to find a solution, Alice. I don’t want to get stuck here.” Wally replied, irritated.

“No one wants to,” Jimmy replied. “I am telling you, Wally, let's reconfigure the settings using the formulae and reduce the rotations. We have all the data already saved inside. I’ve also checked the past data entries. We tried everything but couldn’t succeed in any of them. Reducing the acceleration of the objects will slowly reduce their mass, relatively the matter will start existing because of gravity, and will start existing in this space, I mean, will start existing in time, gradually reducing the time loops.”


Time: 1:00 pm (45 minutes to go) 

“If we succeed, we’ll bounce back and forget all that has happened. ‘Cose we’ll bounce back in past with absolutely no memory of all that is happening or has happened.”

Without waiting for anybody’s approval, Jimmy started configuring the formulae. With his health worsening, somehow handling himself, he recalculated the calculus and fed the data inside. As said, the calculations worked. The rotations slowly started reducing.

Time: 1:10 pm (35 minutes to go) 

Jimmy, now satisfied with his work, said, “We have somehow stopped the loops from happening. But….” he stammered “The machine will still bounce back. Once this timeline is completed, the machine will reset itself back to the time it started, or probably, sometime before that.”

Time: 1:20 pm (25 minutes to go) 

Wally and Alice, of them, were almost totally exhausted. Alice, whose errors had started these loops, almost fainted. Jimmy, himself was absolutely exhausted. If they were unsuccessful now, they’ll have to start from the beginning in the next loop. He remembered this when they were preparing the setup. Fortunately, the machine slowly reduced its rotations, and slowly came to a halt. All of the knowledge in the earlier loops helped them to improve and gradually end the time cycle.


Time: 1:40 pm (5 minutes to go) 

“I am sending all of the data to myself back in time so that we could improve all our errors and start afresh.”

“We won’t start the experiment again”, glancing at Alice, Wally replied. “Even if she has all the data with her, I don’t want this experiment to begin again and cause problems everywhere in nature. We already had a lot of stress. Let’s not stress further. Let’s land back in time with no memory of anything”

“You sure, right?” Jimmy confirmed. Wally nodded

 “Okay. Let’s not repeat this experiment again. When we bounce back in past, all of the data will auto-format in this machine. This machine will practically not exist in our actual timeline. Since we’ll go back to start, in our actual timeline, we won’t have any memories of all the loops.”


Time: 1:45 pm (Time loop end) 

He woke up to the sound of enormous thunder. He was at the filling station. Alice, sitting next to him, was still in deep slumber What a big dream that was, Jimmy said to himself.


But, what had happened? Was that really a dream?

“Hey ...wake up buddy,” Wally, knocking on his car door, exclaimed. “You sleep just anywhere, right? Let’s head to the beach, we’re already late”

Saying this, Wally started his car and Jimmy followed him.

Together they headed to the beach.


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