Fiction logo

Crack

Story Time #7

By Adam WallacePublished 3 years ago Updated 3 years ago 9 min read
2

“Dammit!”

Victor slammed his head against the keys on his typewriter, breathing heavily. He looked up to see a jumbled mess of letters on the otherwise clean sheet of paper. Groaning with irritation, he got up out of the chair to which he confined himself for the past two hours and stepped out the front door.

Victor immediately regretted stepping outside. It was January in northern Alberta, and there was just shy of two feet of snow just off the front porch. He was sure that renting an isolated cabin right by Lake Athabasca would be a smart move to get the privacy he wanted to write, but his brain didn't want to cough up any ideas. He almost wanted to hike down to the frozen lake and test the ice's thickness with his head. It took barely five minutes of staring at the nearby mass of ice before he realized that the Irish coffee he drank earlier didn't warm him up enough to be standing outside without a coat; so, he trudged back inside and closed the door.

Victor had almost no distractions inside the cabin. There was no TV or Internet. Cell service was spotty at best. Getting to Fort Chipewyan for supplies required traveling forty miles in a Sno-Cat. The only diversions from the typewriter were sleeping, eating, and sitting by the fireplace pondering his failure as a writer. The thought of skipping the coffee and just drinking the Irish whiskey straight was tempting, but he ultimately decided to go to sleep, hoping his brain would be more cooperative in the morning. He wrapped himself up in three heavy blankets and lied down. As he started to doze off, he caught a glimpse of a weird greenish light coming through the window. Drowsily dismissing it as just aurora borealis, he fell asleep.

~-~-~-~

Victor woke up to the sun shining in his face. Unfortunately, wracking his brain, it seemed like no ideas came to him in his sleep. After quickly cooking and eating breakfast, he decided that a walk by the lake would do him some good. He bundled up, opened the front door, took a step... and accidentally kicked something.

Victor looked down at his feet. There was an unmarked package wrapped haphazardly in brown butcher's paper on his porch. He was confused. No one made deliveries to that cabin normally, and it wasn't there the night before. He picked up the rather heavy parcel and set it on the table next to his old typewriter. After checking all over the package for markings and finding none, he tore open the paper. Inside was a box taped up on one side. The box had an arrow pointing to the taped end with just one word in block letters: “Open”.

Grabbing the knife he used for his breakfast, Victor sawed through the packing tape where the arrow pointed. He opened the box and reached in, pulling out a binder full of paper with an envelope stuck to the front. The envelope had “Read Me First” in the same block letters as the box. He pulled off the envelope which was held on the binder with a wad of Scotch tape and slit it open with the knife, pulling out one folded sheet of paper, a letter. Victor read:

Dear Victor,

You may not believe this, but take my word that this is true.

I am you thirty years in your future.

I finally finished the novel that I always knew I could, but I am now too old and feeble to enjoy the success from it. However, in Lake Athabasca, I found a weird portal that connects back to your time. I know because I looked through it and saw you outside the cabin. I sent this back to you so you can submit it early and enjoy the profits while you're young enough to enjoy them. Have fun!

Sincerely,

Victor

Victor stopped reading the letter and tossed it into the box, missing the postscript.

P.S. Whatever you do, you must return to Lake Athabasca in thirty years to send the manuscript through the portal again. Don't forget!

Victor was already thumbing through the four hundred pages of Killer Reef, a novel about a hunt for a mythical megalodon off the coast of Indonesia. He was transfixed. He had never considered writing about a hunt for a giant shark that should've been extinct, but the characters his future self conceived were fun to follow, reminding him of the Marines from Aliens.

By the time Victor finished reading what his future self had written, it was already nightfall and he had missed lunch. He packed the manuscript back into the box and practically jumped for joy.

“Yes!” Victor yelled loudly enough to cause an avalanche.

Victor got out the Irish whiskey and drank, ignoring dinner. He went to bed, ready to dream of all the fame and money coming to him once he takes Killer Reef to his publisher. The long forty miles in the Sno-Cat would be so worth it, he thought, smiling.

~-~-~-~

Returning home, things worked out better than Victor could have imagined. His publisher was gobsmacked at how exciting Killer Reef was and rushed it to publication. The fifty thousand dollars Victor got initially was pleasant enough, but the subsequent royalties when the book reached the top of the New York Times Bestseller List were a dream come true.

Even better was when Hollywood came to Victor a year later. Selling the rights to the book to turn it into a movie would've been profitable enough, but he raked in more money by writing the script and setting up a profit percentage in the contract. Being a creature feature, the movie version of Killer Reef made him rich beyond his wildest dreams.

Any thoughts Victor had of writing more were thrown by the wayside. With shrewd business deals, he literally never had to work again. For the better part of two decades, he lived it up. He traveled abroad whenever he felt like it. He got himself a beach house in Malibu. He partied with supermodels, not caring that they were only with him because he was rich. His life became the very definition of “carefree”.

~-~-~-~

Thirty years after that day in Alberta, Victor was in his seventies and relaxing at his Malibu beach house. Suddenly, he was hit with a throbbing headache. It felt as if someone had shoved ice picks into his temples. He slammed his eyes shut, trying to clear his mind. However, he saw flashes of green light (like aurora borealis) in his mind. Soon, other images entered his mind...

A crack in a frozen lake...

A weird vortex...

The image of a cabin in the winter...

A man in his forties standing outside...

A binder with a manuscript...

Victor rushed inside to the closest bathroom and splashed cold water on his head, confusion overtaking him. He remembered how he got the story. Why were these things coming up all of a sudden? Then, some new images started to appear...

The binder being put into the box...

Second guessing...

Typing up a letter to add to the package...

ADDING A POSTSCRIPT...

Victor collapsed onto his bathroom floor. How could he have missed that? Fighting searing pain, he stumbled to his study and pulled the manuscript out of his safe, thanking his paranoia for hanging on to the original copy. While checking to make sure it was still intact, he found the crumpled letter that he tossed carelessly into the box and read the postscript.

Victor slapped himself, partly to clear up his head and partly for his stupidity. He finally understood what was happening. His older self messed with the flow of time for profit. He sent the manuscript back to make it profitable for his younger self. If he doesn't send it back again to complete the cycle, it would create a time paradox.

Downing some pain killers, Victor sealed up the box with the manuscript and the letter (including a note to his younger self to read the postscript) and bound it back up in brown paper. Bundling up and packing a small suitcase, he called for a taxi to get him to the airport as fast as possible.

Eleven painful hours later, Victor was driving a Sno-Cat from Fort Chipewyan, cursing how slow the vehicle was. Forty miles to the cabin felt like a hundred, and his brain felt like it was splitting in half with flashes of the portal, cabin, and green light invading his vision. Just as he felt ready to pass out, he saw the cabin. He made a beeline straight for it, fighting his deteriorating vision. He was going to make it...

Suddenly, Victor heard a sound that made his heart stop, a series of crunches outside the Sno-Cat loud enough to rival thunder. He also realized that, despite the fact that he was flooring the gas pedal, the Sno-Cat wasn't moving forward. Instead, it looked like it was sinking below the horizon. He rolled down the fogged up window, looked out, and screamed. In his haste to get to the cabin, he accidentally drove the Sno-Cat into the lake, and it was falling through a crack in the ice!

Victor struggled with the door, but it wouldn't open. The Sno-Cat fell through the opening in the sheet of ice, taking him with it. Fortunately, the window was still open. He swam out the window, grabbing the package with the manuscript before he did so. Climbing back onto the ice, he was ready to collapse from hypothermia. However, another blast of pain in his head pushed his chills aside. Squinting, he looked toward the cabin and spotted the portal. It was on the other side of the lake. However, he couldn't stand up on the ice; his legs were numb from being in the freezing water. He started crawling, pulling himself with his arms. The portal was inching closer...

Flashes of the past...

He had to reach it...

Pain...

Losing strength...

Couldn't pull anymore...

Saw green light...

Nothing.

Enjoy this little bit of temporal trouble? Want to see more? Let me know, and take care!

Sci Fi
2

About the Creator

Adam Wallace

I put up pieces here when I can, mainly about games and movies. I'm also writing movies, writing a children's book & hosting the gaming channel "Cool Media" on YouTube! Enjoy & find me on Twitter!

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.