To Save a Friend

Part Three

When Orlina awoke, she thought at first that she was in her bed, having slept till fairly late in the morning. But when she opened her eyes, and saw an unfamiliar woman in strange, white, flowing clothing sitting before her, typing at a furious pace on an odd-looking keyboard, she knew something was wrong. She looked around, but the room seemed to be perfectly white, and she could not even distinguish the walls from the floor or ceiling. The woman's chair and the bed on which she lay were both scarlet.

"Where am I?" Orlina asked, panic rising in her chest.

The woman arched a brow. "That's a difficult question to answer, considering you just ensured you no longer exist." She sighed, and rubbed a temple. "You've created quite a mess, my dear."

"Is Flynn alive?" Orlina asked desperately.

"Alive and well, yes," the woman replied.

Orlina relaxed back onto the bed. "Thank God. I'll take it."

"You'll take it?" The woman raised her voice. "Orlina Ray Halfon, you have created a paradoxical timeline. That can't be." She stood and began to pace, running an anxious hand through her hair. "Something must be done," she said, perhaps only to herself.

Orlina furrowed her brow and blew a puff of air through her nostrils, but said nothing.

"Besides," the woman halted her pacing for a moment, "have you counted the cost of killing yourself off at sixteen?"

Orlina sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. "Look," she said, willing her voice not to shake, "I get the paradox thing is a problem and I'm sorry. But I've known all along that I would've traded my life for Flynn's." She swallowed the lump in her throat. "That's what I did, whether it was my intention or not."

The woman pursed her lips. "All right, then. I'm going to give you a little tour." As she spoke, the light dimmed and Orlina realized they were in the nurse's office at school. It seemed odd that she hadn't noticed before.

"Who are you?" Orlina asked. "Why are you dressed like that?" She wore flowing sort of robes and something that looked like a high-tech monocle.

"My name is Candace," the woman replied. "I'm from the future. I'm sure you can relate. Now, come on."

Orlina climbed off the cot and followed Candace out of the nurse's office.

"This is a sort of simulation," said Candace. "We're looking at a single moment in time, a moment related closely to the moment after you set that time machine in motion. That instant is being quarantined for now, and my team is figuring out how best to fix it. This is your proposed reality."

Orlina was still processing the first part of Candace's statement. "You're like a mechanic for the space-time continuum, then?"

"Sure," said Candace. "Something like that. Now, look." She pointed to the schedule of events on the bulletin board outside the secretary's office.

Orlina looked. She tended to glance at the board at least once a week, so she noticed what was missing. "No band concert? What happened there?"

Candace sighed. "If you hadn't strong-armed all your friends into staying in band till your senior year, the program would have fallen apart."

"Oh," said Orlina. "I suppose it really might have."

Candace gestured again for her to follow, and they exited the front door, where an unfamiliar bench stood. Carved into it were the words, In memory of Livia Steinmann.

"No," said Orlina.

"Unfortunately, yes," Candace replied. "Remember junior year when you worked up the courage to report your friends for smoking weed at that little park outside of town? That set in motion the chain of events that led to the diagnosis of her depression and ultimately prevented her from taking her own life."