Astro Cipher

"Shut up and just drive! If I were you, I'd be a little less concerned with the gun in my hand and more worried about who it is I'm running from, hunny. Or should I say what?" Her eyes went wide with tears, and she hit the gas pedal as hard as she could. Tires spinning, she felt the car pulling hard with the torque. He kept checking the rearview like he was expecting something to be behind them. She knew that there wasn't because they were out in the middle of the Mojave Desert in the middle of the night in the heat of the summer. Nothing lived long enough in the day here to be this far from civilization and still have it's life when night fell. The only thing she wondered really was how the heck he was this far out without a vehicle in sight and alive. What she knew from traveling through this region her entire life of thirty-two years, gave her enough insight as to know something was extremely awkward about that particular bit of information. The other interesting bit was clutched tightly between the thumb and all four fingers of her recently acquired passengers right hand with remnants of what appeared to be blood on the cover. A little black notebook. It was bound by a heavy thick leather which did not appear to be from a cow or any other animal she could recall. As far as the blood, it was obviously fresh, but to say it was his or someone else's was not something she was able to do. The first thing she noticed when he jumped in front of her car was the blood. She had thought she hit him and is still not sure that she didn't. When she had last looked at the clock on the radio, it was reading 11:34 p.m. His impact on the car jarred her awake and the time had read 1:11 a.m. She panicked because he'd come out of nowhere, and she didn't want to leave him for dead. Now, she wished that she had just kept going.

He'd been through this about a thousand times already. He'd thought at some point, she would have remembered him, but not once. He used to attempt to explain as she drove, but the idea of alien lifeforms and time travel was too much for some people. So, he began to make up stories about why and how he came to be in the middle of a sweltering desert without any type of transportation or lifesaving provisions. A few times, he had acted like she hit him, just because he thought it may change the outcome. Though, it never does. His partner died at the hands of the creatures on the other side of the wormhole as they were escaping. That's what makes this repeated event so difficult for him. That's why he was drenched in blood, his best friend of forty years blood. He would cry, but it was many trips ago. One thousand, three hundred and fifty-three trips to be exact. The only way to undo everything that had taken place and return to the correct era of time was to break the cipher in the book. The book inside his sweaty, shaking hand. The one made from extraterrestrial animal hide and soaked in the life of his mate. Somethings never take the memories of that moment away.

The past few trips, he decided to change how he treated the woman, and he had noticed a completely unexpected turn of events since, so he planned on doing something a little more compassionate this round. The more of a positive impact he made on her each episode, the closer he got to finishing the code that would shift his life out of this trap and back into his dimension. Looking up from the notebook to peek at the woman, he realized that he was still pointing the gun in her direction. Seeing her lip quivering, he wondered if what he was about to do for her would be enough to end this nightmare, or if he would have to remember to put the gun away once he got her to 'shut up and just drive'.

They drove for about two and a half days before coming to a place he believed was safe enough for her to get out. Each time before, there was some horrible circumstance that affected her badly, which in turn, made it worse on his return through the wormhole. Approximately, eight trips ago, they'd come across an old couple in the foothills of the Smokey Mountains. He had become quite fond of them and knew without a doubt she was safe with the two of them. Before the creatures sucked him back through the last time, he'd done something illegal, but knew it would benefit them in the end on this trip. Objects could remain the way they were left in one realm when you were pulled through into the other and still be there upon your return. It was only memories and living organisms that could not be altered unless you returned to your accurate day and age.

Though, he knew they didn't remember the two of them, he always found a way to get invited into their home. He took his time to nurture the girl's emotional state once they had gotten to a comfortable place . There's no point in doing it and traumatizing her again just to have to help her through it again. After a couple more days, he knew his time was coming to an end, and he hiked up into the tree-filled hills to retrieve the gift that would change the universe as he knew it. Or so he hoped and prayed. That evening, he'd prepared the table as the elderly couple sat in their rockers on the front porch and the woman tended supper in the kitchen. Once he was done, he heard the noise. The screaming voice of his partner coming through the book. It was about to open, and he knew what he had to do. Running upstairs, he snatches the metal box containing the twenty thousand dollars that he robbed from the bank last time. Quietly he sets it in the middle of the table where the candles had gone before. Then he's swept up into the whirlwind of space and time to repeat the sequence until he gets it right.

He begins to feel the sensation of cold throughout his body as it transcends to another world, and he imagines what wonderous outcome lay on the other side of his journey with the Astro Cipher.