A Cold Sense of Déjà Vu
Even time-travelers need consent.
He felt as if he had seen this woman before, in a thousand moments exactly like the present, as he lay dying on the tundra among the corpses of his men.
The rustle of her heavy coat with its fur trim; the way her hood framed her face; her thin-lipped smile; even the way she crouched before him and her every word felt like she was really saying: are you going to give me a different answer this time?
And this time he did, asking in a voice chilled by the arctic air and the man's impending death, "We've had this conversation before, haven't we?"
"We have," she replied, lightly tugging his coat—too light for the weather, but not the ultimate source of his demise—back over a weeping wound. "But it feels like an echo of an echo of an echo, doesn't it? And the more I have to come back, the stronger that feeling gets. But you won't remember the words."
"What do you want with me?"
Her brows arched in surprise. Finally, something new.
"I want to save your life."
He was dying. How could anyone save him from that, where bitter winds blew and his only shelter was an overturned lifeboat?
He reached out to the stranger, grasped her coat and hissed, "I do not want to die here."
She smiled.
"You won't, Captain—I'll see you in the morning. You'll make a fine Traveler."
He lost consciousness, his mind reeling.
What have you done to yourself, Fitzjames?
About the Creator
MissieKatjie
Loves Star Trek, cats, tallships, lost expeditions, and macabre things. Adult with ADHD. Wrangles vintage graphics into digital products and sells vintage stuff. Knows many things, finds it difficult to apply them.
Keep reading
More stories from MissieKatjie and writers in Fiction and other communities.
Halonic Kitchen Witchery With House Dzemael
[ Author's Note: I'm attempting to participate in this year's FFXIV Write challenges in an effort to kick my ass back into writing on a regular basis. I'll be trying to explore characters other than Aurelia. Shocking, I know!
By MissieKatjie3 years ago in Fiction
Six Feet Under
Buried alive. What a horrible way to go. Yazz lay there, in her own thoughts. What else could she do? She was hungry, thirsty, tired, mentally, and physically exhausted, and more than anything, she was bored. She hoped she would die of boredom before anything else, anything else would've been more painful. Like many people had, she and her friends had talked about what they reckon the worst ways to die were, it was a morbid subject, but it came up every now and again. Yazz had always been one to argue her point on drowning, others had mentioned burning alive, slowly and painfully bleeding to death, hung drawn and quartered, and being starved to death. It was strange that none of them had considered being buried alive, it had never come up. But now, she was thinking back to those conversations her and her friends had had, how could they have not thought about it? It took a lot longer than the others, you were completely confined, you couldn't move or do anything, you just had to wait, until your body was physically unable to support a life system anymore, which could take up to four days. Four! By far the longest out of all of them. She recounted some of these conversations just to try and pass the time, anything to pass the time. It was difficult to know how much time had passed since she had been underground, it was difficult to know anything. There were many things that Yazz didn't know, she didn't know where she was, she didn't know how she'd got into the coffin, she'd just woken up there. Yazz also didn't know what time it was, or even what day it was, she guessed at Tuesday, it was Sunday evening when she'd been buried alive, intentionally, and although it had felt like weeks had passed, she was still alive, which means she hadn't died from dehydration, and therefore it couldn't have been more than four days.
By Liam Storm6 days ago in Fiction
Comments (1)
Oooo, is this a historical fiction? Loved your story!