There was silence everywhere, and there was nothing, practically nothing! The place where they appeared after escaping from the Aztecs was like this; all three of them stopped and looked around. They were looking for a sign to identify what time they were in, but they found nothing.
"Don't you know what time it is"? Graham asked John.
"As you can see, there is nothing; how should I know? It's better to check the remaining bottles and see where we are, and the only advantage is that some people didn't try to kill us here and we can easily go back to our time" John said.
John and Graham were looking for Jesse around, but he was not next to them. Suddenly Graham saw Jesse in the distance, moving to a point. John and Graham quickly ran toward him, when they reached him, they asked him, where are was he going? Jesse pointed out the front without saying a word. John and Graham looked forward. A tall and narrow tower was in front of them and at a far point. It felt better to see something in an empty world. They all moved towards that tower. When they reached it, they encountered something strange. At the top of the tower was a circular clock, but what was strange about the clock was that its hand was rotating at speed. Under the clock, the date was also written , but the date of the day, month, and year were also changing and running like a clock.
"Ok, it doesn't matter, it's true, it's a strange era, but nothing happened, it's better to go back to our time"! Graham said.
He asked Jesse to take out the remaining bottles from his pocket so that they could choose their own time this time.
Jesse took the bottles out.,and that was only one. He gave it to Graham, and Graham read the writings on it. it was written: World War I.
As if the world collapsed on Graham, his body was loosened and fell to the ground. John took it from Graham's hand and read it, and John started cursing and shouting. Jesse didn't know what had happened to them; he asked them about the problem.
John explained: I only wanted to travel to five era 1. Wild West, 2. Ancient Greece, 3. Ancient Egypt, 4, Aztecs, and 5. The World War. The sixth bottle was my era, the present era that I had brought to return.
"So what's the problem"? Jesse asked.
" This bottle that we have now, is for the World War, which means that the last time we were running away from the Aztecs, you poured the substance of our time into it, and now we are at that time, the present time"! John said.
"So why is there nothing in your time? Does that mean you used to live like this?" Jesse said.
"No, in our era, there was everything, including people, children, beautiful nature, various animals, modern civilization, tall buildings, different cars, and my family! What I feared has happened, we manipulated different times" Graham said helplessly while staring at the horizon. "Most importantly, you are a historical character who is not in your own time to finish your own story; that Greek soldier is not in his own time, and none of the Aztecs you killed could complete their story. That is why our present time has not yet been formed and is disturbed because you still exist because this damn collector took the spoon of the Pharaoh of Egypt to the Aztec era because he didn't follow the rules because... because.... because.... Long story short: history has been destroyed, and we are stuck in this barren desert forever!
For a while, they all remained stunned in complete silence to digest what had happened, just like a snake that sat still for hours to digest the large prey it ate, with the difference that they were digesting a bitter truth.
Graham asked Jesse how many bullets he had left.
"Three". Jesse said.
They all looked at each other and reviewed what Graham was thinking.
But John didn't like Graham's idea. He mentioned the last era was left. They could go to the World War era and start a new life in a new time. Although it was not an interesting era, it was better than dying. John's suggestion was accepted. They emptied the last time in the compartment, and they waited for 7 seconds. The powder scattered in the air and the last bang banged!. they were transferred to another time; as soon as they entered the last era they had, which was World War I, all three of them were immediately killed by an armed soldiers who saw them, and this how their story ended.»
The End
Written by:fatima obeid.