7.

'Where are we going?' I ask.

'Where would you like to go?' replies Linda ...

... the nurse who is not a nurse, sent back through time by me to aid me somewhat illusively. Have I mentioned how much all this hurts my head?

'Back to the start' I answer quietly to myself though I know she heard me, she briefly looks at me and I continue, 'if only.'

She smiles once more. Half of me wishes that she would stop doing that while the other half hopes to see many more of these smiles. Guess you could say I have a weakness for smiling beauties.

Linda obviously already had a destination in mind, so I kinda don't get why she asked me where I would like to go? What if I were to have offered a destination as to where I would like to go? Would she take me there? Or carry on to where she intended to go anyway?

Maybe coincidence may raise its head again and any destination I may offer may just be exactly where she had indeed intended to go all along despite however long I may take to think as to where we should go and as to any possible destination I could come up with.

It is though, at this stage, getting quite late so Linda suggests that we find somewhere to spend the night before moving on to any sort of destination. This suggestion makes me quite happy. She soon also suggests that we spend the night separately. This suggestion does not make me all so happy.

The suggestion is understandable and also unfortunate. Despite the desire for company, I could use a good night's sleep. There haven't been many of those since the day I first came across that darned memory stick.

A good night's sleep is exactly what I get and when I wake, I go looking for that memory stick and it is not where I had left it. It has become such a part of my life that most mornings when I awake it is more of a gut reaction to go get it and make sure it is safe. I cannot find it and I cannot help but panic at that fact.

'She has it' I say to myself, 'damn, I have trusted her far too easily, how careless of me? I guess I can throw out the idea that I actually did send her back here from the future to help me out. She was after that memory stick all along I bet. Is this memory stick in itself the thing that I am supposedly meant to create in the future? Maybe it is something which within itself has the means, the capability to communicate with the past?'

I kick the side of the bed I had been sleeping on. A moment or two after doing this, there is a knock to the door of the most recent hotel room with which I have slept in.

'What?' I call out to which there is another knock to the door.

I open it to see Linda standing there. Maybe my initial reaction was a little too ... hasty.

'Bit grumpy this morning, aren't we?' she says, 'wake up on the wrong side of the bed?'

I pause for a moment, and she gives me a look of confusion.

'I seem to be missing something ...'

'Then I guess you are at least halfway to making your decision, but don't worry, if you change your mind, I am sure it will turn up.'

I am sure that I am the one who now looks confused.

'What decision?' I ask.

'You will see.'

I get myself ready, head down to the hotel lobby, check out and then head to the car park. Linda sits in the driver's seat once more and once more she asks ... 'so, where would you like to go?'

I'm sick of running, I'm sick of hiding. I have had enough of everything already, so I just reply, without it being in a manner meant for me alone, '... back to the start'.

'Good answer' she says.

Linda starts the car and off we go, I still have no idea as to what is going on. The trip takes almost sixty minutes, and it is a journey which takes place in silence. Again, I cannot help but think since I am left to deal with my thoughts. Can I trust this lady? Am I walking into danger? Maybe some sort of trap? I shall soon see, I guess.

We move into some sort of an industrial estate and a very quiet one at that and fairly soon we come to a warehouse. There is very little activity anywhere. I can't help but think that I am walking myself into trouble.

'Are you excited?' she asks as we both get out of the car.

'About what?' I ask looking around my surroundings. Looking at this rather large dull looking warehouse I ask another question, 'we are not going in there are we?'

'We sure are', she begins to move slowly towards the warehouse having already gotten out of the car. After having taken four or five steps, she stops and turns back towards me, 'c'mon, it is alright you know, you are and will be safe.'

She smiles that smile of hers once more. It is as trusting a smile as I have ever seen ... besides, I love how she looks when she smiles, and I am sure that she knows this as well as anyone else does at this point, so I do follow her right into the warehouse. Maybe this is the reason why I send her back in time, if I ever do that at all.

She enters first and disappears into the darkness within it, a darkness which would be a pitch-black darkness if it weren't for four torch like strands of bright white light shining straight down from different parts of the wide-open space. I hear Linda's footsteps get further and further away from me. As I begin to move to follow her, someone else steps out of the darkness and into one of these strands of lights.

I know that Linda had moved ahead of me and when this other person makes their presence known up ahead and to my right, all I can see of them at first is more of a darkened silhouette than anything else. I manoeuvre myself into a position which allows enough light to shine on this other person for me to make out who this other person is.

My heart begins to quicken when I discover the identity of this person. If you were to hazard a guess as to who it is I see, then I'd imagine that you guessed correctly. It is me, a much older version of me. Guess it looks increasingly likely that maybe I did ... or will ... send Linda back in time.

'Hello friend, good to see you, scar and all' speaks my older self almost wearing his scar proudly.

'What is going on here?' I ask half looking at that other me while querying as to where Linda has gone and as to why she hasn't stayed right here.

'Don't worry about Linda, she has work to do?'

'What? ... Hold on a minute, it her, wasn't it? At the apartment, my apartment, a place which is or at least was also your apartment once upon a time, it was her. The person who shot at me twice, it was her, wasn't it? You sent her there, didn't you? Then you sent her to be at that hospital too, right?'

'You are almost right, I sent her to the hospital first, she is actually on her way to the apartment now.'

'What? What do you mean by that? And what the hell is going on?'

'I have the ability to not only travel through time but use it to my advantage and it is this that others want. Some have the ability to travel already but none can control it like I can.'

'So, what you are doing here is experimenting? And not only that, but experimenting with me, your younger self?'

'Got it in one?'

What has gotten into me? The older me I mean. He may look like me, he may sound like me, but he is not the same person I am now. The way he holds himself, with a God like confidence that is not becoming. There is even a difference in his voice which is more than just tonal. He seems to be enjoying this moment. He probably even is taking some sort of satisfaction with everything that is going on, not only now but in general too.

It is one thing to cause harm or trouble for another but doing that to a younger version of yourself, that is more than sadistic, it is maniacal, it is insane. Where and when could such a change take place? How could such a change take place? Maybe, it has taken place already, or begun to at least.

All of this, it is just not me, though it is plain to see that it is. Who I see is what I am to become. Maybe it is just my current lack of understanding that has me feeling as I do about my older self. I don't know. It is all crazy, every bit of it.

'So, what now?' I ask.

'You want all this to end, right? ... go back to the start?'

'Yeah.'

'Well then, I am going to leave that decision with you.'

Before I could inquire as to the meaning of that statement I begin to feel a spinning sensation. The darkness becomes a total darkness and soon begins to turn to light, and it begins to get a whole lot warmer very quickly. Within this spinning sensation I see a number of things. As if I could ever imagine thing to become any more insane ...