“Humanity Erased”

The concept of time travel was nothing new. However, the concept of it actually transitioning into a reality was! There had been rumors all over the internet of strange occurrences but the fact that some were evidence of time travel was not common knowledge… YET! What was the secret of how time travel worked? Who knew how to do it? What was their intent? Those are just a few of the questions everyone watching the situation were asking amongst their selves.

Many citizens were disappearing. There was no explanation at all and everyone seemed to not even notice. Everyone truly had no memory of them. It was like they never existed. One citizen who had never had any close friends or family and made it a point since childhood never to overly bond with others as a child discreetly raised in the foster care system since infancy had begun to notice memories that suddenly didn’t make sense. Many of the few casual acquaintances from the past there were no record of! Was it an issue of confusing dreams with reality? Had they entered some kind of identity and relocation program?

Then one night the citizen was walking around the city streets noticing how there were suddenly fewer and fewer others. The amount of others was becoming glaringly apparent. There was no way to ignore the situation. Just then as the citizen was pondering the odd situation a strange feeling of being watched and followed was so overwhelming that an observation of a shadowy figure while deciding to run back home was the final clue needed. That figure had been something the citizen had noticed before but the glimpses were just so fast the citizen thought it might just be a shadow or imagination.

That’s when the citizen realized the glimpses were so short because the figures seemed to move so much quicker than everyone and everything around it. Then each time others the citizen watched saw it someone else from the past was missing! The citizen staged an experiment! Taking a video camera the citizen recorded everything occurring in the immediate vicinity. Then slowed it down to an extremely slower pace. What was revealed was shocking!

There appeared to be an entire second set of shadowy figures with one behind each citizen. He watched each video and how repeatedly after each time another citizen just faded away after a first and final obvious recognition of and interaction with one! That’s when the citizen began to scream and share the information with others who quickly replied with their disbelief. The citizen became very discouraged until one reply to the many posts some of which started disappearing too directly used the citizen’s name. The other poster seemed to affirm everything the citizen was experiencing while also asking a lot of questions about the citizen’s past much of which the citizen didn’t remember or even know.

If the other poster was not asking questions about the citizen’s past the questions were about if the citizen was happy with life. Each time the citizen replied with how satisfying life was. Suddenly during the online chat there was a knock at the citizen’s apartment door. Looking through the peephole the citizen saw one of the shadows! It was a humanoid shape but an undulating shade of black. The citizen didn’t open the door and hid! The figure eventually moved on and the citizen went back to the computer to find an ominous message from the other poster. “Soon you will be making a choice! We know/no you were home. Why didn’t you answer the door?”…