r/shortscarystories
7 yr. ago
Beelphazoar
Time Travel Is Real
Time travel is a real thing that exists.
But it only ever exists very briefly.
For several appalling reasons, time travel is only ever developed in extremis, under conditions so nightmarish that nobody would go anywhere near such a project if there were any alternative other than extinction.
So that’s when it gets developed, every time.
When humanity is on the very brink of guttering out entirely, someone finds the last, desperate way to change things.
The first time travel mission is always the same, and it always works.
Which is why there’s never a second.
Once the timeline’s been changed, time travel never gets developed.
And the change is always the same, because as humans we like to personify our problems, so changing the timeline involves finding the person who’s to blame for what went wrong.
Our timeline, with neither time travel nor apocalypse, is the result of thousands upon thousands of these interventions.
The time travelers are all selfless, all desperate, all willing to do the unspeakable if it means saving the world.
Most of them wink out of existence instantly after completing their mission; of the few that briefly persist, none stick around to try to explain themselves.
What could they possibly say to people maddened by loss?
What justification would a grieving parent possibly listen to?
Time travel is a real thing that exists; but Sudden Infant Death Syndrome isn’t.