Classified Information for PSI Agents
Authorized Personnel ONLY
“Regarding the Stolen Time Machine”
Note: This document was recovered during a raid on Delilah ██████’s home by ██████. The raid was conducted on October 5, 20██, seven days after the “time machine” was stolen.
After an extensive examination at ██████ Prison, it was determined that Delilah was not involved in the theft. She has since been released to the public, though her movements are still being monitored.
As of December 2016, the time machine has still not been located.
September 28, 20██
Beloved Delilah,
If you are reading this, then I have already departed for the past. I never told anyone this story before, but I think you deserve to know the truth.
When I was young, I killed a stranger who broke into our home. The police could never identify his body, so he was buried in an unmarked grave. But I’ll never forget he had a striking resemblance to pictures of my missing father.
Throughout my adolescence, I could never escape the reputation of committing patricide. It haunted me all the way through high school and college. I only became more convinced that the man I killed was indeed my father.
I was never able to form close friendships. Very few people understood my actions were in self-defense. Sometimes I felt the only one who could understand was the ghost of the man who attacked me.
I continued to visit that grave. I erected my own tombstone there, since it lies outside the cemetery. I often brought flowers when I paid my respects. Sometimes I sat and conversed with the unknown man.
After college and a few odd jobs, I began working as a cryptologist for certain government agencies. My superiors often trusted me with highly classified information. After all, I had no one in my personal life to share it with.
As I worked my way up the ranks, I became familiar with some of our government’s darkest secrets. I was elected to be the lead scientist for a top-secret military project – a time machine which could visit the past.
We had one year to prove it could work. Building the time machine was a race against time itself. Fortunately it was a success, and we were able to transport objects weeks and months into the past.
On my 30th birthday, I received a phone call. It was my father. He was alive. He had traveled the world, and was now living close to my hometown. I visited him for the first time in my life. He didn’t seem to know about my past. I didn’t bring it up.
Now I must travel back through time and deliver an urgent message to my younger self. I have to let myself know that I never killed my father.
And I fear the man I shot that day was not a stranger at all.
It was me.
If I successfully deliver this message, then I will be radically changing the course of history. Then my current self will cease to exist. If I’m not killed by my younger self, my current self will also cease to exist.
But if I fail and get killed by my younger self, then I will live the same grief-filled life with no change. And that may be the worst outcome of all.
I must tell my younger self the truth before I die, or simply cease to exist. What life could I have lived if I never felt such pain and sorrow? This may be my only chance to find out.
I have lived a quiet life, and few people will notice any changes in the spacetime continuum from my disappearance.
I am sure you will notice it least of all.
I must go now. Goodbye Delilah, and thank you.
– R█████ ████████
End of Document
Declassified: December 12, 2016
Author’s note: This was originally written as a premise for a video game that travels backwards through time.
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