Untold Tales: A Collection of Short Stories

SS #1 : Reset

Genre: Science Fiction

Started: September 5, 2017
Finished: September 22, 2017

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Ruby red stained my shaking palms and painted my blue laced dress. Rivers of tears gushed out of my eyes as I wailed and grieved the body that lay before me.

"Mom!" I screamed again, trying to ease the tightening pain in my chest. It didn't work.

I went home late from hanging out with my friend Rebecca at Vintage Café. The waiter who spilled the coffee on my friend turned out to be a creepy stalker. He was a boy in the neighborhood and he killed my mother when I shouted at him for being incompetent and lack of training.

He cursed me. He wanted to see me suffer. It was him.

I was sure of it.

Blue and red lights filled the corner of my vision. The cops finally arrived. They rushed into the house and asked me questions but I barely heard them. Their words and voice went past me.

I looked at the blue eyes of my mother again--those lifeless eyes that stared back at me. Reflected in them were my own golden eyes that reminded me what I needed to do. I held her hand between mine and whispered, "I will fix this. You don't have to die."

I ended my mourning. I took a deep breath as my eyes began to shine with its own light. Clock lines that marked each passing hour surfaced on my golden irises as the hands of the clock replaced what used to be the dark center pupil. I gripped my mother's hand until my knuckles turned white and whispered, "Reset."

I felt a strong whirlwind envelope me as people came by around in a blur of gray. The police car and the cops left in a snap. The blood on my hands faded into nothingness. And my mother's body vanished from within my grasp.

I took a sharp intake of breath as the last gray lines exited and the whirlwind that surrounded me settled down to a mere breeze.

I didn't know exactly when but for as long as I could remember, I was able to reset the day. The time I could reset was always limited to a day and nothing more. I would always come back at five in the morning regardless of the time I did the reset. Five in the morning was like the mark of my clock for a new day.

The dimly lit living room told me that nobody was awake just yet. I stood up and tiptoed my way up the flight of stairs towards my mother's room right next to my own. In her bed lay my mother, breathing deeply and sleeping. A flood of relief rushed through me that I nearly stumbled. "Good night, I love you," I whispered.

I tiptoed towards my own room and took a quick shower. The droplets of water that ran down my bare flesh eased the tension in my muscles. I still trembled. My mother may still be alive now but one wrong move and what happened before may still happen again. The events that would unfold today rested in my hands.

I wrapped my beige fur towel on my body and stepped out of the shower. I changed into my blue laced dress and descended the flight of stairs towards the dining room.

I probably showered long enough because when I went down, my mother was already cooking breakfast--egg and Bacon with some toasted bread. I glanced at our wall clock and saw that it was ten minutes past seven. I guess I'll be staying a while for breakfast.

I smiled. I ran to my mother's side and gave her a suffocating embrace. "Good morning!" I said to her, beaming.

She chuckled. "Well, you're in a good mood."