When the truck came to a stock, I unbuckled myself and hopped out. Dad did the same. As soon as we were near the front of the house, I put up my hand to stop him. He raised an eyebrow.

  “Better to do it outside,” I clarified. “It might get messy inside.”

  Dad nodded.

  “Alright,” he said. “Let’s see what you wanted to show me.”

  “Magic’s coming to the world, Dad. I can use it now—and in a few years—so will everyone else. This whole time travel thing has been me trying to make sure it’s not a complete disaster. It’s still going to absolutely suck, but it should be mostly survivable.”

  I held up a hand to stop him from cutting in.

  “Now, I know you probably have some questions about what I just said. But I think a quick demonstration will help answer some of them.”

  I pointed my finger towards the nearby grass before casting Create Water. Water slowly coalesced into an orb about the size of my head just past the end of my finger. I moved my finger around, and the water followed. I brought it to my face and drank some of it. It tasted like nothing. It was just water—pure water—and nothing else.

  “Want some?”

  Dad shook his head. I let the water fall onto the lawn. It flattened the grass where it fell before soaking into the ground.

  “Well, that’s just a taste of the kind of magic that’s coming. I know it isn’t a fireball or something flashy, but I didn’t think that would be a good idea.”

  “Right,” he said. “I never did like those kind of stories… but I can’t deny what’s in front of my eyes. Is that why you can walk around easily after being in a coma for two weeks?”

  “I used magic to heal myself, yes.”

  “I see…”

  “I didn’t want to use that as an example. I don’t think you’d have like me injuring myself to give you a demonstration.”

  “That… would have been bad. Good thinking, there.”

  Dad took a deep breath and ushered me inside so we could continue talking there rather than standing in front of the house.

  “So,” he continued, “you mentioned something about magic being a disaster?”

  “Right. So when magic comes, there will be monsters—”

  “Like yetis?”

  “Yes, like yetis. There will be monsters that will arrive at the same time. And a few years after that, there will be aliens coming with the intention of taking control of our world.”

  “That sounds rather fantastical,” Dad said with a raised eyebrow.

  “I’d much rather it was fantastical. But it’ll be real—as you can see—and it’s coming. To help people handle it, I’ve been working on something to help us deal with those threats. It’s incomplete still, but it’ll be done by the time that happens. That has been the main reason for all the time travel.”

  “It seems like you have a lot on your plate. What can I do to help? Do you need help? I should have asked that one first.”

  “I need to not go to school. There simply isn’t time. Then I need to talk to Mom and Grandpa Joe. For as much as your parents are wonderful people, Grandpa Joe’s got the seed money I’ll need to get the word out about what’s coming. The people will need a bit of a primer about how the system I’m building will work. So I will be funding stories and comics and stuff. As long as it’s in the public consciousness, I’ll have done my job.”

  “Ok, so school, your mother, and Grandpa Joe. Got it. Can you give me any tips or hints?”

  Dad asked the question while rubbing his fingers together to indicate he meant money in particular.

  “Yeah, don’t worry. I’ll help you out. Mom too. The less you two squabble, the more I can focus on saving the world and stuff.”

  Dad and I continued to talk. I explained my plans for the system—insofar as I’d thought them through. He had many questions—many of which still didn’t have answers. While that might seem like a bad thing, I felt that was good. It meant I had plenty more to do before the system was fully finished. I had the experience to do it, I just needed to do it.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  He planned to call Mom and Grandpa Joe to set up a time to meet with each of them. I agreed, and suggested the sooner, the better. After dinner that night, I went up to my tiny, formerly-a-closet bedroom.

  I dreamed of flames, of burning ships. Waves of monsters and aliens falling to an insidious plague. All that I had done to greedily collect the experience I wanted so badly haunted me. I knew—intellectually—that no one remembered what I had done. Nobody but me. And yet that didn’t matter.

  I woke to Dad rushing into my room. I realized I had been screaming.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Are you ok?”

  “Nightmares,” I said.

  “Do you wanna talk about it?”

  “Maybe not right now. It’s a very long story and I am tired.”

  “Ok, kiddo. I’m here if you change your mind.”

  I gave him a hug and laid back down. My heart was still racing, so sleep came slowly. As I waited, I plotted out the system in my mind. It helped with calming down. I could not sleep, however. I tossed and turned. Each position less comfortable than the last.

  The next morning came slowly. My intention of sleeping the whole night had been a failure. I was exhausted. In that exhaustion, I was finally able to sleep. It was a short nap, but at least I wasn’t a complete zombie. While I could have purchased the Sleep skill, I did not want to become dependent on it to rest.

  When I finally awoke, it was nearly lunch time. Dad had come to check on me in the morning—so he told me—but let me sleep in. He figured I needed it. Right after lunch was when Grandpa Joe’s car rolled down the driveway and stopped right behind Dad’s truck. I sat on the porch when he did, my eyes following the car but my head not moving. I waved to him when he got out of his car. Soon enough, he sat next to me on the porch.

  “Your father said it was urgent,” Grandpa Joe said. “Is everything alright?”

  “As well as can be expected, given the circumstances,” I said. “Like I told Dad—and what I’ll tell Mom whenever I see her next—magic is coming to the world. And with that magic comes danger. I’ve been looping back in time again and again trying to make sure we can survive. You’ve been fairly helpful, which is why I wanted to talk to you. The laptop and the crypto you have hidden away are exactly what I need right now.”

  “Back up a moment. Magic? Time travel? That’s a heck of a story!”

  “I think you’ll understand when I show you.”

  I cast Create Water over my hand. A sphere of water formed with a small air gap between it and my hand. I moved it around and offered for Grandpa Joe to touch it.

  “It’s water,” I told him.

  He poked a finger into the water before retracting his finger and drying it off on his pants. I turned my hand over and let the water fall down. It splashed against the concrete, getting my socks wet.

  “I see,” he said. “Magic, huh. Well, that makes it more believable. But be careful who you show that to.”

  “I know, Grandpa Joe. This ain’t my first rodeo.”

  “So what’s the plan? You said you’ve been doing this a while.”

  “Well…”

  I told him about my plans for the system. Like Dad, he had some questions that I couldn’t answer. Unlike Dad, he had some ideas for the parts I hadn’t fully thought through. That didn’t necessarily mean I would take his ideas wholesale, but they were starting points for what I wanted to accomplish. I decided to set aside time to think through them before I solidified my choices for the system.

  The time I spent with Grandpa Joe was a breath of fresh air. As much as I wanted to tell him about the past—and the coming future—I couldn’t bring myself to do it. What I had done would make him look at me differently, and telling him that he had fewer years left than he hoped… well, that wasn’t helpful.

  In fact, one of the things I wanted to do was have the system—through the tutorial—heal people so they could face the apocalypse at peak health. If I did that and brought the date forward by a few years, Grandpa Joe would be able to live. With the increased stats from leveling—and skills supporting him—he’d live a long time. Even if we were approximately the same age now, I valued his advice. There was much he knew that I didn’t—and the same the other way around.

  I thanked him for his help and saw him off. He promised to return in a day or two with the laptop and thumb drive. Despite starting late, I remembered enough of the market fluctuations to get more than enough money for my purposes by the end of the year. If the idea of cutting the preparation time short was going to work, I would need to blitz the changes to cultural awareness.

  I had ideas for how that would work. Even if the methods were scummy, they had a proven track record of success. People were far too naive about the power of bot networks coordinating a message. When combined with the writing, comic, and TV efforts, it would work. It would take money, but that was a small price to pay when it meant saving humanity in general.

  Mom came with Grandpa Joe the next day. Like with Dad and Grandpa Joe before her, I went through the whole song and dance around the magic and time travel stuff. Her reaction was more mixed than the others had been. Maybe because she realized that the time with me as a child was effectively gone—I was an adult inside—or maybe the whole apocalypse thing was too much to handle. Regardless, I was glad to get through the explanations.

  I still held a grudge against her from all those years ago. Time—it is said—heals all wounds. But that was a lie. It only deadens the emotions somewhat. Being in a child’s body meant I felt every emotion acutely. Her thievery among them. As much as I tried to remind myself that the mother in front of me now was different than the one who had stolen so much from me, I couldn’t see it. I knew that she still had the seeds of betrayal in her. It was hard to trust her when I knew that.

  That didn’t mean I would give up, though. Intellectually, I knew that working with my parents would be the best way to survive in the future. The biggest problem was that I had been alone for so long. Seeing people as temporary copies of the real thing for many years was a hard thought process to change. The people in front of me now were the real ones. There would be no more resetting of the timeline.

  Even if I couldn’t feel any connection between me and others—yet—I was content to pretend it was there. Like a psychopath, I had a choice. I could do as I pleased simply because I didn’t care, or I could make conscious choices to make the world better—even if I didn’t feel rewarded in doing so. Building the system—at this point—felt much more like a chore I needed to complete than a goal I strived for. I was just so tired. Burnout didn’t come close to describing how I felt. And yet, I had to keep going. I would keep going and see it through. I’d sacrificed my sanity, so what were a few more years?

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