Provoking Alternate Time Lines (W|W cast version)

In the future 3

Alex, Liz, Peter and Sam faced a two-meter wide square wall made of wood. Peter collapsed to his knees as Liz noticed the change in their surroundings. She turned around to see more of the cabin in which she stood. She saw a mattress in a corner and two people in front of her. Despite the small amount of light in the room, Liz could tell that one of them was the leader of the sight-seers. The leader stood in the middle of the room in a long stained white cotton robe and the person beside them wore similar clothing with holes. From Liz' view, there seemed to be only one other room in the house and only one entrance about twenty steps from her.
"What happened?" asked Liz.
"Way ya hai?" responded the leader.
"What?" replied Liz.
"Wo yai?"
The other robed person stepped between them signalling them to wait, then went to another room. Liz wasn't sure what was happening but went along with it noticing that the leader seemed to understand the other's intention. While waiting, Liz thought about what had occurred to Gwen and Rose and how the person in front of her was so different from whom she had met a day ago. In addition to the difference in clothes and shelter, the leader's face showed a dissimilar person. Earlier, Liz had met someone hopeful to return the world to how it was meant to be but at that moment, Liz stared into the eyes of someone that had little hope for a better world and handled life one day at a time. Liz turned around to see the reactions of the other three but they were still immobile and facing the wall.
"Babe?" said Liz. "Babe?"
Peter didn't respond.
"Sam? Alex?"
They didn't respond either.

The other person returned holding a small glass rectangular device. They placed it on the floor between the three of them, then gestured to Liz to speak.
Almost forgetting what she wanted to say, Liz responded, "Right. What happened? To us? You? The forest with metal trees?"
The device blinked a small green light a few times, then verbally translated the phrases.
It blinked a blue light before the leader responded. "What are you talking about? Who are you?"
Having determined the languages in use, the machine translated as they spoke.
"You sent us here. You asked us to help save your time line."
"Save our time line? How? Our world's been in chaos for centuries."
"You told us everything was fine until a year ago. A man travelled from the past and created a war between your continent and the other." As she finished her sentence, Liz realized that another change in the time line could have caused the current situation.
"Very recently, I partially saw what you're describing. I dismissed it as anything relevant. Weren't there six of you?"
"Ya, ... we were." Liz wanted to tell the person more but couldn't get the words out.
The leader gently pushed for more information. "Can you tell me what happened? It could be the cause of all this confusion. I need to know."
Liz took a breath. She wasn't sure which information the person might need so she started at the beginning. "You sent a message to someone in our time asking us to come to the future to help you. We came and you asked us to find someone in the past who starts a war in your time. Someone from further in the past than me. You sent us back to that time to stop him. We found him but we were too late. He went through a portal and we followed him. We ended up in a forest in your time. Well, I assume it was your time. We were surrounded by people that wanted to attack us or capture us so you created another portal for the man we were supposed to stop. A portal to nothing you called it. It was only meant for the man from the past but Rose ran at him to push him in and Gwen tried to stop her. It happened so fast. The three of them fell into the portal. Into the nothing. Somehow, the rest of us ended up here. I think I saw something white come from behind me just before."
The leader said, "My condolences."
The other person repeated the same words to Liz.
The three of them remained silent for about twenty seconds. Liz absorbed her own words while the other two contemplated the meaning of the events.

The leader spoke with little confidence. "There's a chance this can be undone. No one has ever tried to fix damage from a portal to nothing but it might work."
"How?" asked Liz. She became excited and added, "The guy! You have a guy who can go back in time. They can bring us back."
"Who? Hugo? They can only go back a year or two."
"Everything just happened. Send us back to five minutes ago."
"I can't. That event no longer exists. That's why you were brought here by portal. My associates and I must have made it for you while our reality was changing for a chance to restore it."
"So what do we do? You said it could be undone."
"I said there's a chance. There's a saviour myth told over the past centuries to give us hope. It's said that one capable of going back in time will save us. This person will have the gift of altering realities in time, dimension, any plane. Their actions will end the apocalyptic struggles of our time."
"Let's do it!" exclaimed Liz wanting to bring back Gwen and Rose and to undo the apocalyptic world outside in that time and possibly in her own as well.
"I'm uncertain who this person is. The closest one matching the myth's description at this moment is Hugo but they can go back only a couple of years and only through time. Hugo would need an enormous addition of power to go back further, especially to cross realities."
The other person made sure that their leader was done talking before speaking themselves. "There might be a way. The other popular myth. Some have always suspected they go together."
Knowing what was meant, the leader responded, "I always hoped that wasn't the case."
Their colleague added, "It has to be. How else could it come to pass? Especially if the person is Hugo."
The leader replied, "I don't like it. Yet, we do need to try. We haven't had a good opportunity in quite some time."
"Try what?" asked Liz.
The leader answered, "A ritual."
The two people in gowns exchanged a look.
"Shall I perform it?" asked the associate.
"Yes, it must be done." The leader paused for a second. "Go and gather them. Tell them everything we know. Only take those who volunteer."
The colleague hurried out of the cabin.
"Where are they going?" asked Liz.
The leader answered, "We're going to help you. It's better if you don't know the details."