Paradox. (Working Title)

By Lee Wilson.

Prologue.

Time is broken. From the dawning of man, time flowed like a stream. One direction only, heading from the past to the future. The flow of a river that can only run in one direction: from the tip of the Big Bang to the estuary of the future. One way, that is, until it was smashed.

A glass, iced sheet of transparent perfection started to ripple. A shimmer of what was, what is, and what will be. Nobody knows where it began, but a chink was created, and from that the universe fractured. Bending, breaking even, the laws of the universe is enough to change the very fabric of existence. What was then becomes now. What is now can become what is yet to come, and what is yet to come vanishes into the then.

Snowballing from that starting point, like veins running along a leaf or the rivers on a continent, the world of man started to fall, and like so many things, once it started, it couldn’t stop. Cracks grew into chasms, and those chasms became oceans of nothing. The shards spread and become islands and crash into one another. An island of time hits another and then another, breaking itself and its victim apart. The timelands become smaller, ricocheting from one to the other and breaking apart as they do so. As if making a choice, many of the fragments moved vertically for the first time to avoid the carnage. Can time be sentient? Many think it could be, and just as many disagree. Some say it was a choice, and something it chose to do, and others state it was the first sign of the ending. The beginning of the end.

Actual spacetime, with three dimensions and millions, if not billions, of timelands jumping about and pinging off each other. This continued; one million became two million, two million became four million, four million became eight million, and so on. Building and building, like an avalanche. Smashing and crashing until only the tiniest atoms of the universe remained.

The sands of time from the hourglass of existence shattered and now scattered everything. The times that once were, colliding with what was never meant to be. The what is, smashed into what was yet to be. Time, what had once been linear, now was chaotic and jumbled.

With time in disarray, the worlds of the parallel could gain a foothold. Creatures that had evolved out of existence came back and grew. They changed and reworked as time split to become what they were never supposed to be. Creatures of darkness and light sprung back into being. Wars were flipped with different outcomes, and events long etched into the fabric of history ceased to be.

Being broken to the point of nothingness, with the universe hanging in the balance, the crumbs of time started gathering and reforming. A defence in part of a grand design, perhaps, or the last dance as time held on for dear life. Then, two grains collided and stuck. Joining together places and times that were never meant to be. They hit and attached to others, recreating a flat plane in a confused and messy way.

Creatures and magic lost to the pages of legend and myth fought in wars born of man. The Witches of the Balethion turned the tides of battles. Women gifted with the powers of the elements and other forces. Who could meld the very atoms of existence. Power is enhanced with numbers; a few have pondered if enough women together could save the world and reset things to as they were. Even fewer have considered if the witches want to return to how things were.

But time keeps on moving. Sometimes forwards, other times backwards. It can loop in an ouroboros of paradoxes and universal inconsistencies. But it is constantly shifting and progressing. Rolling, moving, always changing, ever-evolving, and perhaps trying to repair itself. Nobody knows.

With the jumbling of time comes the blame game. The Mothers of the Balethion speak of that. Human-kind can point the finger and attribute blame to anyone and anything they say. It’s not true. All species are capable of blame rather than acceptance.

The period before the breakage was dubbed the ‘After-world,’ and the time after the “Now-world.’ With the Now came changes to the way people lived. The masses were banned from much of the After’s technology. Many firmly pointed the finger of blame at the technology of the world. “What else could have done it?” they said. Others would argue that even if the tech caused it, do you ban hammers because someone smashes a window? “Blame the user. Not the tool,” they said.

It didn’t matter. “What if” is one of the most potent forces in the universe and should never be underestimated. It can strike fear into anyone with an imagination. It controls and amplifies fear and causes people not to take chances.

What if I fall down the kerb?

What if I walk down that dark alley and get mugged?

What if I push that button, and it ends the world?

What if it was tech that created the Now?

There will always be someone who tests the what if. The people who lack the imagination to consider the consequences of their actions. Many will follow the crowd. They may not have a mind that can assess their actions, but they follow the leader. If one says it is dangerous, they must be right, right? With the what ifs and the complying with the majority, most tech has been long abandoned. But there is always one… 

Many, many moons cycled, and the cycles of time hopped, skipped, tripped, and slumped around, as it was now apt to do. Towns became cities, and then towns once more. Names changed, and the islands of the world became born anew. As with time, things often change in ways you don’t expect. The randomness of a confused universe leads to changes that could never have been predicted.