139 Years to the End of the World

Future, Part Two

I had asked Pausa why he had not brought more water with him. He told me that there was no need, as the trip was one way. For both of us. I must admit that I nearly wet myself when he said that. It was the most ominous thing I've ever heard anyone said.

Ridge Valley was a city that existed before The Day of the Mist. According to history, it was the epicentre of the event, where the main bulk of the Mist had came from. Now, we knew why. It was the source of the portal.

The old city centre had succumbed to the onslaught of time and wind ages ago. Most buildings had long since collapsed, leaving our surroundings a pile of rubble and sand. Some of the base stood strong, like torn houses left after a hurricane. Wind cut through and twirled around us, the Mist swirling densely. A sandstorm of purplish-blue. A lone, burnt out neon sign jutted out from the earth, the words, 'HOTEL ALEX-" barely readable. But the most striking sight was the portal just an arms reach away from the sign, hovering ominously above the ground.

Pausa voiced out, "That's so sci-fi yo."

The portal looked like a whirlpool in the sky, spewing out Mist like cold air rushing out of a freezer. Spinning and turning, in the middle of it was a man-sized hole with a clear, albeit upside-down image of a tree on a hill. A picture within a frame. A mirror to Wonderland. Despite the crazy atmosphere, the two of us stood with just the clothes on our backs, the Mist seemingly wrapping around us like a bubble does air, but never actually touching us. My arm pulsing a soft glow the entire time, as if a generator providing energy for the bubble shield.

"Sci-fi," I repeated the time traveller.

"I've seen the portal before, but never up close," Pausa noted. He started to walk towards it, a maddened glint of excitement and familiar curiosity in his eyes.

"Hey!" I shouted for him over the roaring winds. He stopped in his tracks. "What are you doing?"

"This is what I came to do! I came to see what's on the other side of the portal."

Confused, I asked, "Why?"

"What do you mean why?" I wondered if it was becoming a common theme in our conversations, me asking questions and him answering. He continued, "It's a dangerous looking, poison spitting, spinning hole of death! If I don't poke it with a stick, who else is going to do it?"

I wanted to say that was not what I meant, but I felt my sense of the danger of the situation would not get through to the man. In fact, I had the inkling that his idea of a dangerous situation was so far off from mine I would be better off taking care of an alien. Instead, I asked, "Before you go, can I ask you one thing?" He nodded and turned to me, the portal backing him like a screen effect. "My descendent, Melissa Smith. If I go through with this, what happens to her? What's her future like?"

Pausa folded his arms in contemplation, and I could tell he was thinking whether he should reveal the information to me. There had to be rules to time travelling that even he could not break. From all the science fictions I've read as a kid, one of the most common one was to never tell people of their future.

"Come on!" I begged. "I'm about to die. You might as well tell me!" Which was true. No matter what he said, I would not live pass the hour to talk about it. I did not intend to, and I doubt if I could. "What happens to Melissa Smith?"

Instead of answering, he returned with a question. "Do you feel like a hero?"

"What?"

"Do you feel like hero?" he repeated with a steady gaze. For some reason, I felt tested, as if my entire journey had been for this one moment. This seemingly ordinary question. "Do you feel like the Hero of the Mist?"