Tick Tock
Written by: Aniket
“Hey! Watch where are you going?”
The man who had pushed his way through him didn’t bother to turn back. He just flicked him a finger as he kept running.
A hand rested on Will’s shoulder and he turned to acknowledge the person it belonged to.
“Now what the fuck do you want?” said Will as he shrugged the strangers hand off his shoulder.
“You manage to piss off people quite easily, don’t you?”
“Look. Whoever you are, I don’t want to buy anything. I just want to quietly wait for my train.”
“Trust me, you do want to hear me out…”
“Look I’m trying to be polite here. I seriously don’t have the time for this.”
The stranger chuckled, “Funny you should say that. For I have all the time in the world. But you’re right. There is no point in talking. You would’ve never believed me in any case. Its better if I just showed you. Look at that clock” He snapped open his umbrella and grabbed Will’s shoulder.
In a flash of a second, they were standing on the road amidst heavy rain.
“What the hell just happened? How did… how did we…get here? You.. you did that? Who are you?”
“You sure want to talk now, don’t you?” Will could tell that the stranger sported an evil grin under the hood of the umbrella as he continued, “As for who I am, the answer is that I am a time lord. In simple terms I control time. And as for how do I do that, well there is no way I can put it that your bean-brain would understand.”
“Where are we?” Will stammered.
“Oh, come on you know this place. You do recognize that watch tower don’t you? The correct question would be when are we? The answer to that is the watch tower there. We haven’t traveled much. In fact, its the same day. Just nine hours after I met you at the station.”
“Why did you bring me here? What do you want from me?”
“Can you see a man lying near those steps? Thats you.”
Will choked on his each word as he uttered, “Me? Why am I lying on the ground? What happened to me?”
“Well, you’re dead of course. Otherwise I would have been to all this trouble for nothing.”
Will was drenched in rain but one could still identify his tears. “How did this happen? How…?”
“You get murdered this day at 8:44 pm”
“So that’s why you came to meet me? So that you can prevent my death?” he looked at the time lord with hopeful eyes. “You can take me to the time I get murdered right? And stop it?”
“Umm. Yes I CAN. Of course. But then, what would be the fun in that?” Will stared at him, open-mouthed in horror. “You see, being a time lord, I am an immortal with an eternity to live for. And when you’ve got all the time in the world, the world gets, well – boring! So here I am to add a little spice to it.”
He snapped the umbrella shut and placed a hand on his shoulder again. They snapped back to the station, will still soaked in water.
The time lord spoke softly this time, “You have till 8:44 in the evening to save yourself, if you can. I’ll be watching.”
“Wait. Who kills me?” Will pleaded.
The time lord snapped his fingers and was gone. His words still lingering behind him, “If not sooner, you’ll find out in another nine hours”
Ever since I took the red pill, life's been an ongoing mission to find out how deep this rabbit hole goes. I'm mostly harmless, unless... arrgh... unless you do THAT!