Till The Clock Strikes Gone

34 | never leave my view

William hadn't locked himself up for two days as Eliza had assumed. He had been sick. The moment he got out after that argument with her, he had felt his feet stumbling and as soon as he entered his own house, he collapsed. His vision darkened and the familiar pain of migraine gripped every inch of his body as he fell face-first on the floor. Before he was completely unconscious, he remembered hearing hurried footsteps and the ground vibrating as Harvey Scott entered the room.

William was unconscious for seven hours and when he woke up, he had found Harvey sitting on his bed while he lay resting. He tried to get up but Harvey signalled him to stay as he was. He groaned and lied back down.

"What happened?" he asked, letting out a painful moan as his head still hurt.

"A lot of things," Harvey answered and William was afraid of why that might be.

"Is Eliza okay?" he quickly questioned.

Harvey stared at him for what felt like hours before he spoke, "She's fine. It's you I am worried about."

"What's wrong with me?"

"You are dying, son."

He froze when he heard that, his face displaying all kinds of emotions as he watched Harvey, perplexed.

"What do you mean?"

"The migraine you had been getting all these days, I heard and saw. You and Eliza in this very room, when she gave you regular massages. I knew something was wrong. Eliza was upset with you but she still helped you and I understood that those weren't ordinary migraines," Harvey explained.

"But why am I dying?"

"Because you're a burden." The grave change in Harvey's voice made William flinch and he saw the man get up from the bed to pace around the room, one hand on his back and the other rubbing his stubbled chin. He stopped, then sighed and turned to face William again.

"The cosmos," he began. "It doesn't want you here. The real you already exists in some part of this world. The you in this time is the owner of all the resources created for you, even the air you breathe and the ground you walk on. This you, the one looking at me with those confused eyes, is a ghost. You are a ghost. A ghost that has become a liability to the universe. There can't be two of you. There can be only one and that one lives somewhere else. You need to die and your body needs to be lost in oblivion. The migraines you get is just a warning and with each migraine, your time is nearing—"

"What's gonna happen to me?" William intervened before Harvey could continue.

Harvey let out a deep exhale, closing his eyes and then opening them as he searched for the words to let out.

"You are going to die but not like how normal humans die. Your death will be more like a disappearance and you will be lost in the doors of time until the time comes for your life force to mix with the real you after the real you turns the same age. You will then be one again and won't remember anything about this timeline. You will go on living your life but for that, you have to die. A part of you will have to disappear until the right time comes."

Fear engulfed his veins and William felt like a coward because he was afraid now...afraid of dying.

"I can't. I can't die. I need my Eliza. I don't want to forget her. I want to go back. I want my wife. You can't just come over and throw shit like that upon me Harvey Scott. It's not right," he yelled at Harvey and saw the latter's jaw tick.

"Calm down, son. You need rest," Harvey said calmly.

"What should I do?" William asked frantically. "What should I do so that everything returns to normal?"