I was always a geek when it came to anything about science, expiriments especially. Since I was a child I’ve always had this fascination with time travel and for most of my life I’ve been trying to make that real. As a kid I did as much as anyone would suspect, constant research of materials I could never get my hands on but as I grew older it was easier. Whenever I moved out of my parents house, I started to expiriment in my own home. I bought chemicals and materials that should have been illegal and combined them to make a tiny machine.
First, I sent an apple through it. I typed in the year 2076 and sent it, or at least I thought it did. When it came back it was burnt to a crisp, charred and gray. I spend another five years working on it until I could eventually send a hamster through and back in perfect condition. I went as far as going into some black market on the web and purchased a chimpanzee, I figured it was the closest thing to human DNA and if it worked, I myself could go through. It did work.
After weeks of mentally preparing, I fired the time machine up. It was set up in what used to be the laundry room in my basement, nobody knew about it besides myself. I wrote every thing I did with it in my own journal, even printing pictures of my progress from my phone and putting it in as well. I waited five days while the machine fired up, I stood infront of it anticipation fueling every move I make. I put the year 2032 and stepped in after counting from ten.
When I went in, the machine lead me to my basement right where it was in the past. My house smelled odd, like it was burnt. I slowly made my way up the steps and I felt like I should have been relieved when I didn’t see my future self, or anyone at all in my old house but it felt eerie. I looked to my windows, they were boarded up as well as the main door. After looking for a bit I went out the back entrance, and looked outside.
The grass was dried and yellow as well as a thick smoke flooding through the streets. I put on a classic face mask before continuing to walk around. I heard screams, cries and sounds of coughing, Immense coughing. As I walked down the street I watched as a woman pushed someone else to the ground, and ripping chunks of skin out like a rabid animal. I almost threw up before I left, I decided to run to a nearby post office that was well abandoned. Stacks of newspaper laid neatly on the table. I searched through them until I found one from 2028.
“INFLATION CAUSES FAMINE.”
The headline was bold, drawing my attention to those words immediately.
“After World War 3, the government increased the value of everyday items to pay back to other countries-“
My eyes shifted to the next as they had as much context as they needed.
“THE WORLD HAS DIVIDED.”
The second newspaper explained how countries will no longer help eachother, what we have is all we have. This caused the famine to get to an all time low for everyone. Overtime people began to get angry and hungry, fighting eachother for crumbs until one day they decided to eat eachother. At first it was people getting arrested, again and again for assault until everyone in the city did it. The city turned into states, as well as the entire country. Newspapers said this was a wicked sign of mass hysteria and from what I seen I believe the writers gave up as well. There was a way to stop this, to change every outcome as long as I could get to my machine again.
I ran through the city, hearing the agonizing sounds of chewing. Meat being ripped off bone, as buildings sat on fire casually with nobody to put them out. I made it to the basement finally and went back to the present.
I went up the stairs and out of the door, yelling, waving my hands frantically to anyone willing to hear. I screamed that the end was coming and it was coming quickly. I could feel the eyes on me but could tell they didn’t care, they thought that I was on something when I’ve never touched drugs in my life. It got to the point where I was detained by authorities and ended up in a mental asylum.
I was sane and I knew I was, I seen it with my own eyes while nobody believed me, because of my state they luckily left me my phone to distract myself with but my journal will never leave my home.