Chapter 3: The Specter of Regret

My name is Zara Quinn, and I used to be a time traveler. No, not the kind you see in movies—there were no sleek suits or futuristic gadgets, no portals that appeared out of nowhere. Time travel, in my world, was far more… personal. It was a curse wrapped in a gift, and I had been born into it.

It all started when I was twelve. I was at the grocery store, staring at a box of cereal when my world tilted. My vision blurred, and before I knew it, I was standing in a street I didn't recognize. The sky was dark, the air heavy with the scent of saltwater and smoke. The ground beneath me rumbled, and I realized I wasn't in the future, but the past.

I had no idea how I'd gotten there. One moment, I was in the cereal aisle, and the next, I was a century too late.

I stumbled down the street, panic clawing at my chest, trying to piece together what had happened. But all I could do was watch as history unfolded before me. The buildings crumbled, people screamed, and the world felt like it was tearing at the seams.

I don't remember how long I spent there—days, weeks, maybe even months. Time didn't work the way I understood it anymore. I had learned to navigate it, to avoid the past I didn't belong in, but I never could escape the constant pull. The constant temptation to fix things, to change events that had already been written in the fabric of time.

Eventually, I found a way back to my own time, but nothing was ever the same. I had the ability to jump, to twist through the threads of time like a puppet master pulling strings. But every time I returned to a moment, I changed it. Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. I couldn't tell which was which anymore.

There was one particular time I returned to. It was a day I could never forget—the day I had the chance to stop a tragedy. A school shooting, one that I knew would happen if I didn't intervene. I stood in the hallway, watching the students pass by, listening to the hum of lockers being opened and closed. I knew the shooter's face, his name, his story. I knew the weapon he would use. I knew everything about that day.

It was simple. I could stop him. I could save lives. But when the time came, I hesitated.

I stood there, frozen in the hallway, watching the boy slip past me. He didn't look like a killer. He looked scared, confused, lost. I could see the pain in his eyes, the years of bullying and neglect that had shaped him. I knew what he would do. I knew he would make the decision to pick up the gun. But I didn't stop him. I couldn't bring myself to.

It was easier to let fate play out. Easier to watch the events unfold, to let the future run its course. After all, time was fluid, wasn't it? Maybe this was how it was supposed to happen. Maybe this was the only way to keep everything from unraveling.

I was wrong.

When I returned to my present time, everything had changed. The tragedy had happened, but in a way I hadn't expected. The shooter had been caught, but the ripple effects were worse than I could have imagined. The aftermath had caused a deeper, darker divide in society. People were more divided, more fearful. The changes I thought would heal the world only made it worse.

I kept trying to fix it, jumping again and again, but each time I did, I made things worse. Every time I tried to stop something from happening, I only created a new disaster in its place. It became an endless cycle, one that I couldn't escape.

I'd been warned about time travel. That it was dangerous, that it would cost me more than I was willing to pay. But like everyone else who plays with fate, I didn't listen. And now, I was paying the price.

One day, I found myself in a moment I never expected. It was a quiet evening, the world calm and still, and I thought—just for a moment—that maybe I could rest. Maybe time could heal itself if I just stopped trying to fix everything. But then the doorbell rang.

I wasn't expecting anyone, but when I opened the door, I saw him—the boy from the past, the one I hadn't stopped. He was standing there, older now, but still haunted by the same pain in his eyes. He didn't speak. He didn't need to. I knew what had happened.

It wasn't just the tragedy that had changed. It was me.

I had tried to be a hero, to fix the past, but all I had done was become part of the chain of events I couldn't undo. I had become the villain of my own story.

"I didn't mean to," I whispered, more to myself than to him.

His eyes softened, but he didn't say anything. He just turned and walked away.

And in that moment, I realized that no matter how much I tried to change the past, I couldn't change the person I was becoming. The more I tried to fix things, the more I unraveled myself.

I didn't know if I would ever be able to escape the curse of time. I didn't know if I would ever stop jumping, trying to make things right. But I knew one thing for sure: in the end, I would always be the one left behind.

Zara Quinn's story is one of those that proves the folly of believing you can control fate. She had the power, the ability to change history with a single decision, but in the end, her greatest flaw was her inability to accept what was beyond her reach. Time is a beast, a force that can't be tamed. And Zara learned that, too late, in the harshest way possible.

But even so, there's something tragic about her story—something that sticks with you long after the pages have turned. Because in the end, isn't that what we all do? We try to change the past, but we're always left with the consequences of our actions. And we never truly know whether we've made things better… or worse.