Time travel is a joke. Time is now and has always been a one-way street, a mighty torrent of eons and milliseconds barreling forward in one direction. To even think you can reverse time is horse feathers.

On the other hand light travel is a whole different bailiwick. Light bounces. It reflects and refracts and gets downright wibbly wobbly. And at some point, a really bright pointdexter figured out how to skip along light beams, allowing light rocket ships to go back and forth in time.

The hows and whys of light skipping are above my pay grade. The bright boys and girls know the mechanics of the miracles. They do the research. Hynde and I just pilot the light rocket ship. Or at least we did until we died.

As you can imagine it takes a helleva lot of energy for the eggheads to light skip back and forth to not step on butterflies and watch those goofy aliens build Stonehenge. I don’t watch the news but Hynde told me the big wigs and the mucky-mucks were always jabbering about the ROI of light travel scientific research.

Hynde said that one of the nerds had come up with the bright idea of stealing unused energy from the past to fuel the future. Yeah, apparently the geniuses of the 20th century were always losing nuclear warheads.

Hynde explained it like nine-eleven time to me but her explanations of lost payloads and downed airplanes just gave me a tension headache. How could you lose a nuclear weapon once let alone ten times? The twentieth century must have been bananas. Long story short, instead of just transporting squints on our good ship Jemison we were picking up fallen arrows.

We plucked a Fat Man, 30 kiloton nuke out of the Pacific. Next we snagged two 4 megaton thermonuclear cores, easy peasy. But three wasn’t the charm. We messed up off the Georgie coast. Well I messed up. Hynde and I always stay with the Jemison, while the smart guys explore. They get all the fun. I wanted to explore an itty bitty bit. You see I’ve always had this thing about pirates. I know get your yucks out now. But I just like the idea of treasure and adventure on the high seas. I just wanted to see a real life lighthouse.

I swear it was just a peek. The lighthouse was rad. Black and white checked, the restored structure was picture postcard perfect. I skipped down took a couple of selfies and skipped back. Or at least I tried. A little boy saw just me. I saw him too just as the paradox ice started to form. Half in phase, half out, I was frozen on the refractor. Hynde was pixelated. Her angry face faceted thousands of times. Doctors Biddle and Obanyo were shadows and my beautiful ship Jemison was Fibonacciing into oblivion.

So this is how we die? I thought. Would the light poison pollute time travel to the point we never exist. What if I was supposed to see that boy and he was supposed to see me and his descendents discover the very technology we need to visit the past.

This was my last thought when something kicked me in the groin and I shattered in a jumble of shards.

“Quit it or so help me Ant next time I will leave you dead for good,” Hynde growled and headed for the bridge.

Obanyo shook her head at me and Biddle gave me the finger. Leaving the refraction deck, I apologized to the geeks with a shrug. What can I say? Sorry not sorry. Light bounces, time is one way street, and lighthouses are way cool.

Crystals floated around her and her skin sparkled in the light. I could see diamond tears covering her cheeks; she knew as well as I did that we wouldn’t survive this. The refractions hadn’t been in our favor this time.

It was a risk we ran, mirror traveling throughout realm, yet up to this point, we always outran them. Although we'd never say it out loud, we thought we were invincible. Mission after mission, we made it. Sometimes we were a little worse for wear, but we always lived to tell our tales.

Not this time though. This time, we traveled right into a trap laid out for us by the very entity we had spent our careers, our lives, trying to take down. Our stepping through the portal into the room planted with a sea of glass, mirrors, and jewels trigged an explosion that sent a wave of shards crashing toward us.

In the breath, the split second, after the explosion, the whole world slowed to a crawl. My head snapped to where I knew she was at my side. If this was going to be my last moment, I knew I wanted to spend it looking at her.

Her eyes were brimming with love - for me, for our work, for our life - and I knew for sure the same love was reflected in mine. It was far from easy and at times, certainly not glamorous. Our luck was bound to catch up to us, I suppose. But we had a hell of a run. We paved the way for so many other agents and missions in the fight to create the realm we wanted for us and for our future. I knew without a doubt that our team would carry on where we left off, and I was already so proud of them. And in this moment, surrounded by both my end and my reason, I was at peace. It was all more than worth it, I decided, as the split second ended and the world sped back up.

I was enveloped by glass, pain, and then darkness.

Crystals floated around her and her skin sparkled in the night Luminous, a beating beacon of energy, shining so bright I could see the diamond teers, covering all of her cheeks As I stood there, in disbelief, of her absolutely mindboggling and inexplicable mystique

Shard flew everywhere, in slow motion it seemed. It was so much easier before. I wished she never had kids and I wish she was never with that guy, Samuel.

I reached up and wiped away her tears with a shaking smile, and I pushed away the pain in my lower abdomen where a dagger had pierced in through.

“Don’t cry,” I said softly as I brushed her brunette hair away and the thick forest around us darkened, and thunder in the sky. I knew it was Viola and Zae going at it.

She leaned into my hand and sobbed, but she did not dare touch me as her wings shivered behind her. I closed my eyes and brought her close to me, and I rested my head on top of her head.

“Drop the act.”

“Thought you’d never ask.” She grinned shoving me away and I just stared at her blankly because ever since King fed her noticeable lies she grasped onto it like diamonds, and it disgusted me deeply when she pushed this dagger through me.

She offered me her hand and I took it without hesitation.

The diamond glass littered our bodies as we lay sprawled on the concrete.

Our blood flowing together into a nearby drain.

I should have done more, but I couldn’t protect her.

I couldn’t even protect myself.

How can I protect her from something I couldn’t see coming?

They say accidents happen, with the kind of flippancy we’re all just expected to accept.

I can’t accept death. I’m not ready to go.

But like they say death doesn’t discriminate.

Old, young, we’re all going to die.

That always terrified me. The knowledge of knowing that one day I am going to die.

I assumed it would be when I was old. In my sleep, next to my wife, peaceful.

Or perhaps something quick that I wouldn’t even notice.

Not like this.

Not in pain, not slowly, my biggest fear realised.

And that’s not even the part that sucks the most!

She has to go through it with me.

Why?

WHY?!

This isn’t fair! God if you are listening, please the this suffering. Release us from this pain. I’ve never prayed to you before, but I am now.

I may not be able to open my mouth, but I am manifesting your comforting light.

They say when you die you go into the light, but I know that’s not true. Eternal darkness awaits me. It awaits us and I’ve never been more scared.

I stared in amazement. Although this wasn’t the first time I had seen Arabella do this, it never got less mesmerising. The crystals spun around her in the cold, tight cavern, though somehow not shredding her skin, as if she were at the centre of a whirlpool. Spots of rainbow light danced on the walls and our skin making me dizzy. Bell was in a trance which had now become routine when on our quests. She was sat cross-legged in the centre of the room, with her head tilted upwards at the crystals. The rise and fall of her chest was so faint, I sometimes questioned whether she was actually breathing. She had told me that this was the only way to see what the crystals were showing her, I wondered that if I zoned out like she seemed to, I would be able to see what the shards were saying. But she told me that that wasn’t how that worked.

The swirling slowed, signalling that the message had been given, before it ceased abruptly and Bell was shoved into the wall behind her, sobbing and panicking. I ran to her side. “No, no, no, no, no. . .” She panted, “Hey, Bell, Arabella, what happened? Are you okay?” “May, oh May- “ her voice broke and she collapsed into my arms. I stroked her hair and tried to steady my breathing as instructed. The Crystals often showed her the horrifying scenes of her near future and was so dizzying that when it’s over, her body went into fight or flight mode. She told me that I should keep myself calm and keep my chest close to her so Bell instinctively tries to match my breathing pattern and to stroke her hair. It was something her mother used to do and it always managed to calm down. I was unsure whether it was working this time. She was still shaking and hyperventilating, her tears seeped into my jumper.

In the soft glow of the now still cave, I managed to locate my phone. It had fallen out of my pocket at some point and the screen was scratched, but still usable. I managed to send Aron a half-coherent message explaining the situation and that we might be longer than normal. He hasn’t been in our group for that long, I didn’t want him worrying.

“I-I’m sorry, I’m so sorry” Bell choked. “It’s okay, you haven’t done anything wrong. You did what was necessary.” “I saw. . . I can’t, I just-“ “Shh, don’t share yet, it’s okay. Aron isn’t here and I don’t want you to have repeat or hear it twice, you can tell us when you’re ready. Focus on your breathing and calming down.” Unfortunately, I already had my guesses as to what she saw. The last time she was this panicked, it was about 2 years ago on our second quest. To make a long story short, our other quest-mate, Salem, died. It was tragic although I don’t remember much of the details. I feared that on this quest, a similar event may play out.

I managed to ease her out of the Crystal Cavern and into the fresh air. Aron had a cup of water and her teddy bear out and gave it to her before we moved to a nearby patch of moss. The moss was warm even though it was in the shade of a large willow tree. How such a tree managed to grow into the small valley I’ve not the slightest clue. The drooping branches acted as a curtain around us, which was comforting, it was almost possible to forget the horrors we had faced, and were most likely about to face. Almost.

“I’m ready,” Bell croaked, her voice raspy from the crying, “uhm, it was kinda confusing but I knew what they was saying. They told me. . . They told me that the odds were not in our favour this time. There was a scale and, and there was us on one side and something of the other. I’m sorry, I don’t remember what. But, uhm, we outweighed it. It reminded me of the second part a soul’s judgment process in Egyptian Mythology, where the person’s heart is weighed against a feather, and if the heart is heavier then it was consumed Ammit.” “I hope it has nothing to do with that.” Aron thought aloud. Bell nodded, “Then, the scene changed. I was in my body, I was wearing my shoes, and looking down at you both. It was gory, I don’t want to describe it, I’m sorry-“ she buried her head into her knees and sobbed. Aron and I stared at each other in shock and disbelief. Tears welled in his eyes. I felt sick.

I tried to take my mind off my inevitable death by comforting them. I stroked Bell’s hair and gestured for Aron to sit next to me and I held his hand. We sat in a solemn silence.

Billy had never been any good at science.

His equations were okay, the math mostly right, but the chemical side of things never worked out for him.

Frustrated at the disasters the boy kept producing, the teacher set a simple task - crystals in a dish - for his exams.

“Even billy can’t mess that up!” The teacher snickered in the teachers lounge.

But somehow, despite only topping up water in a small dish that sat in the sun, something miraculous happened.

It grew a glittering tiny face. Then a featureless torso. Every day saw a thumb-sized limb grow on the crystal girl that mesmerised billy. He added a scrap of fabric for privacy, as the tiny girl outgrew her petri dish.

The teacher was too busy to notice the crystal that sat in the dish, staring out the window at the world. Billy thought no-one would believe him, and kept her secret; behind a plant pot…

Come the day of exams, billy had written his papers and gone to retrieve his project for the teacher, but the dish was empty.

“She was just there!” Billy said.

“She?” The teacher questioned.

Then the plant pot moved. Everyone turned to see the crystal girl who now wore a dolls dress and waved at the teacher as she climbed the leaves and vanished though the window.

Billy searched the school grounds for weeks, as did most of his class. But despite his best efforts, he had nothing to hand in.

“Sorry Billy. C- is the best that I can give.” The teacher shrugged. “Maybe if you had a crystal that wasn’t cursed with life and ran away you could’ve got a B.”

So billy went back to normality, often wondering where his creation went…

To be fair the whole point of asoul within a crystal creating a being made too silica conducting energy for life. Silica diamond hard and intelligent but fragile to touch. The refractions of her friends they will soon die but the soul will live long in a crystalline being. A crystal that stores human consciousness can nerves eye but shatter the thought and metres of ages.

…this time was different. I could tell in her eyes that this time would be the final time. We found ourselves clinging to what could have been. To a life we could have imagined. We stood there, embracing each other, ready to embark on our final adventure. We stepped back and took a look at our world from the outside of our worldly bodies. We saw our spirits rise and float through the diamonds. We took off, hand in hand, on our final departure.