Todd Ivory kicked the clump of dirt in front of him, sighing. What a rotten weekend. He had so far successfully ignored anyone who might ask him any questions regarding the whole mess, but for the most part, he felt that he had managed to keep it for the most part under wraps. Only a couple of people had to know, right? Fortunately, Derrin was one of his best friends, he was sure he would keep it under wraps. And of course, there was Trishia.
“Don’t think about it, don’t even say it,” he muttered to himself under his breath as he came to the train tracks out in the middle of the woods. Right now, all he wanted was a little privacy, just to sort out his thoughts. The old steam engine would be an excuse for coming out here. It only came by every two years, he could just say that he didn’t want to see the crowds. That’s it. Looking out on the tracks, he saw that he made it just in time, as the old steam engine was just now rumbling past. He sighed, relaxing and taking a swig of his Mountain Dew, when he realized that he wasn’t the only one in the woods that day.
“Oh great, perfect timing guys,” he muttered to himself, heading in their direction to make sure they didn‘t do something such as hurt themselves.
“Wow, we left the Vortron without even realizing it!” the strange dog creature said in glee. His name, Creature, fit him to a tee. At least, Todd could see where it came from.
“Strange, I thought it would be harder then that,” the larger of the two, a pure white horse with wings and a horn returned. The two of them talking like that still unnerved him, there was something very un-earth about it. Of course, as far as he knew, they weren’t from earth. He was also curious as to their chosen topic this time. Apparently, this time around had been an accident. Fortunately, Creature wasn’t upset about it, so the two of them should be in good spirits. On the contrary with himself.
“Do you have any idea where we might be?” Creature asked his winged horse companion, her name being Splash. She called herself a unicorn, but from what research Todd had done since he had first met them, she defied most laws that govern a way Unicorns should act.
“Just a world full of giant beasts of metal,” Splash returned, looking out where the train momentarily had been earlier.
“Hmm, I guess they don’t realize they’re on good ol’ Earth,” Todd muttered to himself. He decided maybe he should help them out. Once they saw him, they would know immediately. Of course, they hadn’t seen a train before, at least one that big. It was perfectly acceptable to be confused under the prior circumstances. They weren’t able to associate trains with earth yet.
“They’re called Trains,” he said, interrupting their conversation. “In fact, you came just in time. That’s a turn of the century steam engine. It comes by here every few years or so.”
The reaction he got out of Creature was not what he expected. Creature spun around and jumped up in shock. “Cripees! Natives!” he barked.
“Natives?” Todd asked himself. Why in the world would they call him a native?
“Splash, what did the Ancient text say about meeting Natives!” Creature asked Splash quickly.
“Er, I think it said to avoid them,” she replied.
Todd thought to himself quickly, trying to make sense of what was going on. “Why would? Of course,” he muttered, kicking himself. There had to be a first time they had ever met him, he had come to the conclusion of that a long time ago. And so many things concluded that this was the case. “Yes, it would make sense that eventually I would meet them when they first met me. This is, what the fifth time, unless of course you count that one incident where I obviously didn’t know any better. And the obvious state of hysteria, although not necessarily unusual in Creature’s case.” Todd ran his hand over his head. The blue LA Dodgers baseball cap was still there, turned backwards like it generally was. “I guess I need to introduce myself then.” Turning toward them, he noticed that they were in the middle of a mild discrepancy, probably regarding him.
“Well, it’s a little late for that, isn’t it?“ Creature said lowly, latched onto Splash’s mane. Creature had never fully grasped the concept of personal space.
“You’re overreacting, get off my face,“ Splash muttered in return.
Todd sighed and decided to take this opportunity to interrupt. He stuck out his right hand in formal greeting, not really knowing how else to do it. “Hi, I’m Todd.”
“Aack, what’s he doing now!” Creature howled, glancing at his hand as if it was a feared enemy that might attack him.
“I think he’s casting a spell, sheesh,” Splash returned sarcastically. Good old Splash, she was never intimidated by anything.
Todd sunk his head in his hands. First Friday night, now he had to deal with two visitors from an unknown dimension in what was obviously their first time on earth. “Why me?” he mumbled to himself.
“But, he’s seen us? What do we do?”
“Well, judging by his relatively laid back reaction,” Splash began to deduce, “considering he hasn’t began to freak out over our presence, perhaps we stumbled onto our home world?”
Great, Todd thought to himself. They are clueless. “Er, not exactly.”
“What?” they both asked him in shock.
“Well, believe me, the closest things that you two compare to doesn’t have functional vocal chords on this world. Or wings, for that matter,” he said in afterthought. Unless of course you counted Mr. Ed.
“But, you don’t find us strange?” Splash asked sincerely.
“Well,” Todd began. Of course he did find them strange, he just didn’t find them as strange as he had before. “Actually, it’s a long story. Let’s just start over ok?” again, he extended his right hand out to shake hands in greeting. “Hi, I’m Todd.”
“Aack! He’s casting spells again!” Creature shrieked, jumping toward the nearest thing for comfort, which happened to be Splash’s front leg. She didn’t appear to be amused.
“Look, I’m not magical in origin, I can’t cast spells!” he muttered to them, getting only a tad bit frustrated, which didn’t help matters, he was frustrated in the first place.
“Don’t be such a ninny, Creature, it’s obvious he’s trying to make some form of introduction,” Splash continued.
“Oh,” Creature said softly. “Wait, but you said. . .”
“Yes! An introduction!” Todd said quickly, finding that he had gained some common ground with them after all. “My name is Todd and it is now traditional for you to state your name and then we shake hands!”
“Oh,” Creature said, extending his own hand shyly, hesitant on what to do.
“Or claws,” Todd remarked, noting the sharp angles that made up Creature’s hand.
“Ok, my name is Creature. . .” Creature began, then taking a closer look at Todd’s hand and grasped onto his thumb with excitement.
“No, you see, that’s not how you shake hands,” Todd began to state, only to note that Creature wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention.
“Wow, five fingers! Isn’t that something Splash? He’s got Five fingers!” Creature said with much enthusiasm.
“Well, what do you know?” Splash remarked.
“The first time he’s obviously been to earth and the most exciting thing he’s found is five fingers?” Todd remarked in disbelief. Now that the whole introduction part was over, perhaps they could just make a little small talk. That would make it a lot easier to lead up to explaining to them how he knew them. “So, what brings you to, umm, well, Earth then?”
“How did you know?” Splash asked curiously.
Todd shrugged. “Deductive reasoning I guess, I just kind of pieced the clues together.” He took another drink of his mountain dew, then noticed that Creature had been eyeballing it.
“Do I need a cylindrical tube as well?” Creature asked with curiosity.
“Huh?” Todd asked.
“Well, to feed my voice I guess. I don’t know how speech works in this world. To I need to keep it nourished?”
“Well, you see, I’m just drinking ‘dew man,” Todd said simply, trying to figure out how difficult that concept could be.
“Drinking dew?” Creature asked, still completely clueless.
Todd sighed. having to resort to the textbook definition for it to make sense. “To drink, when you ingest a liquid substance through your mouth in order to hydrate your body, where your digestive system then breaks down the above mentioned fluid and transfers it throughout your entire body through your circulatory system in order to create energy. Such as in this case, Mountain Dew, which has extra Caiffene for that extra kick!”
Creature cocked his head slightly to the side, slightly confused. “You mean you do more with this oral contraption then communicate?”
“You learn new things every day,” Splash responded.
“What in the world have I gotten myself into?” Todd sighed. He felt like relaxing a bit, he had walked quite a way on the path to get to this location and he didn’t mind giving his feet a break. That, and it would put him at eye level with Creature, which might make the conversation a little easier. He sighed and planted himself against the base of a tree and decided to try to continue their little conversation in a more enlightening manner. “So, this is the first time for you then?”
“First time for what?” Splash asked.
“visiting Earth, I mean,” Todd continued, clarifying for them.
“Well, I’m guessing this world is called Earth, then. Actually, this is our first world?”
“How did you know?” Splash asked earnestly.
Todd just stared at them in dumbfounded bewilderment. “You mean to tell me that this is the first world you have ever been too?” he asked them.
“Yes?” they answered in unison.
“Ever?” he probed.
“Well, unless you count our homeworld, of course,” Creature replied innocently.
However, Todd found that he could barely contain himself. All this time, their meeting with him had been an accident? He had been certain that for some reason they had been staking him out since his childhood, maybe even earlier, when in fact the entire time they had merely stumbled onto him by some fluke circumstance that found them out of their little sanctuary for the first time. Everything had been a flippin’ accident?
Instead, Todd found himself keeled over in laughter, tipping over the mountain dew bottle as he howled in glee. Creature and Splash were not amused.
“Something does not look promising here,” Splash said to herself.
“Did I miss the punchline?” Creature asked.
“No wait!” Todd said, trying to control himself and contain his laughter yet still snickering slightly. “I’m sorry, really I am! Let’s start over.”
“From where?” Splash asked, slightly impatient. She had a point, they never really started to begin with.
“Look, it’s a long story but I shouldn’t take to long. . .” Todd began, only to be interrupted by a loud ring coming from his cell phone, which he noted wryly, took Creature by surprise. “Dang, left the cell phone on, just a . . .” he left it hanging, as he noted that Creature had taken flight onto Splash’s face in sanctuary from the evil ringing. The caller ID on the cell proved to be from his mom, he couldn’t ignore it. “Just a sec, K?” he told them, clicking the phone on and greeting his mom on the other end. “Hi mom.” he said unenthusiastically.
“Todd, where are you?” she asked him. He glanced quickly at his watch, it was a quarter after 3, he would have been out of school for the last 45 minutes. The train had come by about ten minutes before, it worked as an alibi.
“Checking out the steam engine. I wanted to avoid the crowd so I came into the woods.”
“Is Derrin and Troy with you?” she asked, slightly worried.
This puzzled him slightly, why would his mom be calling him asking about Derrin and Troy? It didn’t make much sense. Perhaps she just didn‘t want him to be in the woods all by himself, even though he just turned 18. His mom was paranoid like that. He sighed and grabbed his drink, which he noted must have tipped with his sudden outburst. “Well, no, but those two friends of mine from out of town are, why do you ask?”
“Mrs. Miller called me looking for them,” his mom continued, referring to Derrin’s mom. “Those two friends of yours aren’t on anything, are they?”
Todd glanced over to where Creature and Splash stood, Creature still clinging precariously onto Splash’s face. “I think that if the ringing noise’s intent were to hurt you, it would have done so by now,” Splash said moodily, implying that if he didn’t get off her face, that she would cause him more harm then any ringing noise would have.
“You think so?” Creature asked, still shaking.
Todd sighed, turning the mountain dew bottle upside down and noting that it was indeed, empty. “Just the same thing they’re always on, mom,” he returned. He really didn’t have the time to help his mom try to help Derrin’s mom babysit Derrin, it was a known fact that Derrin was a big boy and would likely take care of himself. More likely that he and Troy had ran off after school to do what they usually do. That was one of the things Todd had never really approved of regarding Derrin and Troy’s relationship. Troy was Derrin’s girlfriend, and had been over the past year. Todd had trouble trying to see if their relationship was based on anything else other then sex. Besides, Derrin hadn’t tried out for Baseball this year, which made Todd curious about missing practice.
“Look, I’m sorry mom, I have to go,” Todd returned, trying to get back on track. “If I see Derrin, I’ll have him give his mom a call.” The last time he saw Derrin was Saturday morning, and he didn’t have that much of a desire to talk to him right this minute.
“I wonder what that thing is,” Creature whispered, his fear overcome by his undying curiosity, Todd finding himself trying to talk to his mom and meanwhile trying to keep his two friends from going ballistic on him. He wasn’t in the mood.
“Well,” his mom continued, “they found his car running in the parking lot of 7-11.”
Now that was odd. Todd found himself only able to mutter out the words, “oh.” Derrin wasn’t to stupid to leave his car running like that.
“Be careful, honey,” she continued, getting into that worried motherly tone she often went into. “Their might be a fruitcake running around. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Hmm, he calls it mom,” Splash whispered to Creature. “I wonder what he means by that.”
“A magical device to communicate with beings called mom! Fascinating!” Creature returned.
Something else was puzzling Todd however. “Why would anybody in their right mind leave a brand new Toyota Celica in a parking lot and take the occupants?” It just didn’t make sense, this was distinctly unlike Derrin.
“I wonder if he’s using our powers to make it work,” Splash said curiously.
“Hmm, that would explain how he knows about us.” Creature added.
Great, Todd thought to himself, trying to get off this conversation with his mom. He didn’t need these two trying to get the wrong idea about him now. That would be disastrous. “Look mom, I really have to go.”
“I heard rumors that there was a fight during in school during lunch today,” his mom continued, not letting him off the hook. He flinched at those words. He had no idea what happened at school that day.
“I think I missed that,” he kind of mumbled, hoping his mom didn’t hear him.
“The principal called Mrs. miller and told her that Derrin and Troy had a squirmish in the cafeteria. You didn’t hear about it? You and Derrin have calculus together after lunch don’t you?”
Todd tried to avoid the question when something struck him. “Wait, how did you know that Derrin and I have calculus after lunch?” he asked. He admitted after Lunch was a bad time to have calculus.
“Todd, I’m your mother,” his mom replied patiently. “It’s my job to snoop behind your back and find out all I can about you.” Todd sighed, that was very typical of his mom, she was always trying to find out stuff about him that he would rather she not know. “I hear you sighing Todd, but you’ll completely understand my point of view when you have kids of your own.”
Todd went ashen with the mention of those words. That was the last thing he wanted to hear at this moment. “Ok mom,” he said, laughing half heartedly. His mom sensed something was up.
“Todd, did you skip school today?” she asked him matter of factly.
Todd avoided the question, only to note that Creature had in fact been eavesdropping onto the entire conversation and was now leaning against Todd with his right ear pressed against the phone. “There’s a voice coming from this strange device!” he said in awe, then clutching onto Todd’s left arm to completely support all his weight on Todd’s left side. Todd was only to grateful that he hadn’t tried to do the same thing to his right arm at the time, but Creature’s thick long claws digging into his skin wasn’t helping matters. “Amazing!”
“Is that Scott I hear?” his mom then asked, her mind momentarily diverted by the fact that he had been playing hooky. “You don’t think, I mean, he’s always been a little on the loopy side?”
Todd sighed, his mom was now accusing Creature of the possible kidnap of one of his best friends and his girlfriend. The thought was ludicrous. “No mom, Scott didn’t do anything, Honest! I’ll talk to you later tonight, I gotta go!”
“Who’s Scott?” Splash asked Creature curiously as Todd hung up.
Todd sighed, pushed Creature gently off his shoulder and got to his feet. He should probably head back home to keep his mom from worrying excessively, which had gotten him in trouble in the past. Keep her from worrying to much, maybe she wouldn’t find out about the other night.
“I’m sorry guys, something just came up.”
“What is that thing?” Creature asked, taking the cell phone from his grasp before he could turn it off so nobody else would call him.
Todd merely sighed. “A cellphone. You talk to people over long distances through it.”
“Interesting,” Splash said, looking at it over Creature’s shoulder, which, Todd noted wearily, was busy pushing buttons.
“Can you talk to anyone through this?” Creature asked.
“Well, yeah,” he shrugged. “Just as long as they have a phone to receive it on. Watch out, you might call. . .”
To late, he heard the voice on the other end. “Hello, Todd?”
“. . .somebody,” he finished lamely as Creature jumped about three feet in the air.
“It speaks!” he gasped, then proceeded to place it against his ear as Todd had done earlier and answering it as he believed it would be done. “hello, Mom?”
“Scott?” the caller on the other end asked. “What are you doing using Todd’s phone to call your mother? You called me instead. This is Tempest!”
Todd cringed, barely able to make out the words on the other line but undeniable about who it was.
“There’s a storm on your Cell Phone, calling me Scott,” Creature said, obviously confused.
Of course, there was only one thing to do, Todd realized as he then made a mad dash for the cell phone, practically pouncing on Creature to get it. The last person he wanted to talk to was Tempest, she would likely ask him questions, probably related to his weird behavior at church the day before plus the fact that he totally ditched school that day. As soon as the phone was in his hand he clicked on the ’end’ button, stopping the call before he fully realized what he had just done. He then noticed wryly that he had even done so much as to jump out of his shoe.
He stood their stunned for a few moments, not doing anything, Creature and Splash staring at him as if he had just gone mad. “I just hung up on my girlfriend!” he said in awe to himself.
“Is that a bad thing?” Creature asked innocently.
“Funny, I could have sworn that was your intent,” Splash told him matter o’ factly. Haha, leave it to Splash to find sarcasm in any circumstances. However, he couldn’t get over the fact that she was right. So he chose to ignore her for now as he struggled to get his shoe back on his foot.
“What a week,” he sighed to himself.
“Sounds more exciting then what we go through,” Splash countered. Of course, she had no idea what he was talking about.
“Believe me, you don’t want any of it,” he muttered.
“And why does everyone insist on calling me Scott?” Creature asked, completely bypassing the current subject, which Todd was welcome to, however he wasn‘t to keen on answering Creature‘s question either, because that would raise more questions that he wasn‘t sure he should be answering right then.
“Because I can’t just call you Creature,” he said, trying to avoid saying to much.
“And what’s so bad about your life?” Splash then asked, a question in which Todd pretended not to hear.
“Why not? What’s wrong with Creature?”
“Well, nobody names their kids Creature on Earth,” Todd replied, adding the mental note that unless they wanted their kids to go through a traumatic childhood with low self esteem nobody would.
“Diving through the mud for no apparent reason sounds more fun then sitting in one spot for all eternity,” Splash then mentioned, seeming to talk to herself more then either of them.
“But what does it matter? I’m not some kid, I’m a dog!” Creature insisted. “And how do these people know who I am anyway?”
“Not that standing in the middle of the forest by yourself sounds all to thrilling either, but still, there is a nice surrounding environment that seems to speak peaceful things. . .” Splash continued, completely ignorant of what Creature was saying. Not that Creature was really listening to Splash either.
“Are you two on different Wavelengths or something???” Todd yelled in exasperation. He couldn’t stand it when he tried to hold two separate conversations with these mutants from another world, it was as if they didn’t communicate amongst the other. Well then again, that was true.
“Look, I guess I better come clean to you,” Todd muttered, deciding that perhaps he should break the truth to the two of them and maybe clear a few things up. “Let me start from the top. This is not the first time I’ve met you.”
“It’s not, but, that doesn’t make any sense!” Creature insisted.
Of course, Todd had had plenty of time thinking this over. “Sure it does! It makes perfect sense! The first time I had met you, I didn’t know you but you knew me. I thought this was a little weird, but it turns out that you had met me in my future, only it turned out to be your past of the previous times you had met me. The time portal, or how you explained it to me, isn’t linear. We never meet at the same conjunction in time, but at different intervals, your first time being unusual to you, since I don’t react to you in the way that you would assume I would react to something that doesn’t exist in my world, however the first time I met you, you had known me for a while and had an advantage over me and how I would react. It merely turns out that we have met each other at different times in our respective times. The time portal has arranged for us to meet at times that do not coincide with each other and hence, we meet yet never meet at the same time. However, because you have met me now, I know things about you since I have met you before this time, and hence, can react appropriately but as you meet me, you will learn more and more about me, and for your future meetings with me, will have an advantage over me in that you will actually know more about me then I do about you. Does that make any sense?”
After rambling for an incredible length of time, Todd came to realize that he had lost Creature and Splash in his little spiel, their mouths were hanging wide open in astonishment. He doubted they had absorbed a thing.
“My head!” Creature whimpered, Todd sighing and popping out his little pack of pills.
“Here, have an aspirin. I’ve been carrying them ever since I first met you guys.” A true statement, the visitations of these two bizarre beings often left his head spinning. Once again, he tried to go over what he knew about the Vortron and how it worked. He wasn’t sure he did any better the second time but knew eventually, well, they would get it. They had explained the same thing to him, and had lost him before.
“So are we up to par?” he asked the two, hoping perhaps they understood an inkling of what he just said.
“I’m not sure, we’ve met you how many times?” Creature then asked.
“Oh no you don’t!” Todd said quickly, anticipating this coming up earlier. “You see, I can’t give you that kind of information, or even tell you things about you that I already know.”
“And why not?” Splash insisted.
“Well, see ever since I met you guys, I’ve been reading a lot of time travel books, and watching things like Back to the Future.” And getting a lot of harassment from my friends for becoming a major geek, he added to himself. “I can’t break up the space time continuum, can i?”
“The what?” Creature asked, greatly puzzled by the word.
“And why not?” Splash insisted.
Todd had to break it down to them in words they could understand. “Alright, look at it this way. Hypothetically, if I knew that the third time I met you that you were going to die because I had experienced it, you would probably avoid coming to see me, therefore I will never experience your death and the first time we meet I will not have the experience of your death to share with you which places a gigantic hole in the space time continuum, and the time portal might implode on itself, which would be disastrous as all of the realities that are related to the time portal would also blow up and we would all cease to exist.”
“We’re going to Die!?!” Creature immediately exclaimed with a panicked look in his eye.
“Impossible, we can’t die,” Splash countered, skeptical.
Todd sighed and went to the next best thing, looking for something to write with and try to explain the portal to them on paper. He had nothing, so he went to the next best thing, a stick laying on the ground, and the dirt path. “No, you’re not going to die, that was just an example I was giving to you,” he muttered as he drew a straight line in the dirt. “Alright, this is my timeline.”
“Ok,” Creature whispered to himself, grasping this simple concept relatively easily.
“Every moment that passes offers infinite amount of possibilities, so each moment leads to infinite new realities. Each of these realities carries me,” Todd continued, drawing little branches off of the original timeline.
“I guess that makes sense,” Creature returned.
“Ok, when you enter the picture, this stops, because there can only be one keeper. If every reality with you on the world broke off into infinite more realities like before, suddenly, there would be infinite amounts of keepers. How can you know that you, as you stand here, will return to the Vortron or another Creature from one of these various realities were to return there instead, leaving you here stranded on this world?”
“Huh?”
“And because the Vortron has foreseen you visiting me, so it kind of created a loophole, a destined pathway. Hypothetically, during this time, no new realities can be created, just the same one we are following now. Fate steps in, unfortunately. The Vortron foresees everything.” And is smiting me by destining me to screw up, Todd added silently.
Splash caught him though. “Unfortunately?”
Todd chose to ignore her. “So you see, that is the simplest version of the Vortron I can offer you.”
“How do you know all of this?” Creature asked in awe.
“Through a lot of sleepless nights. And then again, you explained it to me.”
“But who explained it to us?”
“Well, I did, just now,” Todd returned.
“But who explained it to you?” Creature wondered.
“Enough already!” Todd yelled in exasperation. That’s all he needed was a debate on what came first, the chicken or the egg.
“Well, I don’t know, that’s an awful lot to take in,” Creature wondered out loud, scratching his head.
“So, how do we know what to say to you?” Splash asked casually.
“Just say what comes naturally. Go with the flow.”
“Go with the flow?” Creature asked, not quite grasping the concept of the metaphor.
“But what about the space time continuum?” Splash asked.
“Don’t worry about that, I’ve experienced it already, it will turn out fine, for the most part.”
“But what about this time? I mean, telling you future meetings with you?” Creature asked.
“You don’t get it, do you?” Todd muttered.
“Not really,” Creature replied innocently.
Well, that left that then. He didn‘t know if he had the patience to try to break it down with Creature one more time, eventually the little demon dog would get it. Todd sighed and rubbed his hand under his hat, scratching his head. He had gone over other factors with them in the past, it would break the timeline if he told them now. “Well,” he began, “I thing that‘s about all I can tell you this time. There really isn‘t any more for me to say.”
“But we do come back?” Splash asked.
“Yep,” he returned, taking off his hat completely to give his head a nice scratch, which led into a result from creature that he wasn’t entirely prepared for, as Creature obviously assumed he had removed the top of his head. “You’re head!!!” Creature exclaimed, completely shocked.
“Please, Creature, it’s just a hat. A piece of harmless clothing used by humans to clothe their naked hairless bodies.”
The concept wasn’t fully grasped by Creature, who jumped to his shoulders to get a closer look at his head. “But, there is hair on your head. Why do you where a hat?”
“You get the idea. . .” Todd muttered, not wanting to go into more details, he had gone over enough with these two already in one day. However, he noticed that Splash was staring intently at his hat, finding deep interest in it. “You however. . .” he started, only to be interrupted by Splash.
“I like your hat,” she said simply.
Todd found he couldn’t do anything now to stop her from accomplishing what she was bound to accomplish. It had happened already, it wasn’t up to him to stop the time line, besides, regardless of what he said, it wasn’t going to stop Splash from stealing his hat. “No use stopping the inevitable,” he sighed to himself.