Chapter 4 - iv. blast from the past (before)

Annabelle Reyes thought about Johnny as she jogged around campus one overcast afternoon by the Tesla Science Building, an activity she had been doing since her days as a student.

There really wasn’t any way around it. Her path took her by the bench that Johnny proposed to her on the night they split up. The look on his face as his heart broke in real time before her was one of the reasons she was regularly seeing a therapist.

She had just reached the courtyard when she heard the first clap of thunder.

The sound and light scared her, so she stumbled to a stop, leaning on her solid knees, gasping for breath as her heart rate lowered and her lungs adjusted to the shift in exertion. She placed two fingers on her neck under her sculpted jawline, and held up the fitness tracker on her other wrist to check her stats. Looking good.

Another clap of thunder. Closer than the last.

Annabelle looked up to the dark gray clouds and witnessed a weather phenomenon she was erstwhile unfamiliar with, as the sky itself seemed to swirl with unknown forces.

Lightning crashed into the ground near Annabelle, smacking her with a bright flash and a force that launched her back several feet, onto the grass mound near a large tree.

Though her eyes were closed, she only saw a shimmering white, as her vision adjusted to the blast. Her ears rang at a high and steady frequency.

But through the shroud of extreme trauma, a familiar, muffled voice echoed: “Excuse me! Clear a path! I know CPR!”

Annabelle knew CPR, too. And she knew enough to know it wasn't necessary. Her senses were slowly coming back and soon she'd be left only with a headache and some back pain. But as her vision cleared, her would-be savior came into focus: it was Annabelle, only 15 years younger, when she was a student at the university. “Oh my God,” her younger self gasped.

Then, Annabelle fainted.

--

The EKG beeping woke Annabelle before she even opened her eyes. The moment she moved her muscles to try and reposition herself, pain and soreness tore through her body. She grunted.

The glass door slid open and a young nurse entered, carrying a tray with two small paper cups: one with meds, the other filled with water.

“Mrs. Reyes, are you okay?” the nurse asked as she set down the tray.

“Can’t move,” Annabelle said. “Really hurts,” she continued through gritted teeth, keeping her eyes closed. The lights were low, but her eyes were still extremely sensitive.

“If you can, you need to relax. We’re still trying to suss out what happened,” the nurse explained, checking Annabelle’s IV.

Annabelle chuckled at the nurse’s ignorance. “Not a whole lot to suss out. I was struck by lightning,” Annabelle said smiling, even through the pain.

The nurse stopped what she was doing and returned to the tray to retrieve the cups. She extended one to Annabelle. “Here, take these,” the nurse said.

Annabelle opened her eyes just enough to see and grab the cup, not ready to expose any more light to her already overburdened vision. She knocked back the pills and took the other cup to wash them down with water.

The nurse took the cups and tossed them as Annabelle sighed, eager to feel relief.

“It’s not quite that simple,” the nurse said after a brief silence.

Annabelle furrowed her brow, unsure if the nurse was referring to the lightning strike being the cause of her injuries or if this was the start of a new topic altogether. She opened her eyes to meet the nurse’s gaze. “What’s not that simple?” Annabelle asked.

“Can you tell me what year it is, Annabelle?”

“2019,” Annabelle answered, assuming it was part of a cognition test.

The nurse shook her head. “It’s 2004.”

Annabelle’s eyes went wide before she burst into boisterous laughter.

The nurse knew the reaction was coming, but was still a little sad she got the reception she did. “We thought you might react that way, so someone is going to come and talk with you.” The nurse rose to exit.

Annabelle’s laughter was slowing to a halt, becoming amused sighs as the soreness radiated through her rib cage and sides. She watched the nurse open the door and step aside.

After a moment, a slender, young woman entered the room and the nurse left, shutting the door behind her. The young woman turned to the door, as if she regretted entering in the first place. She then turned to Annabelle but due to the low lights, her face was still cloaked in shadow. As the young woman approached, Annabelle felt a sick recognition in the way she moved.

“Hey, Annabelle,” the stranger said as she stepped into the light and gave a shy wave. It was Annabelle, fifteen years younger.

“What the fuck!” Annabelle shouted. “What the hell is going on?” she angrily demanded, trying to back away but wincing and grunting when the pain shot through her muscles and bones.

“It’s okay! It’s going to be okay! I’m with you! I AM you!” the identical stranger tried to calm.

Suddenly, Annabelle felt a headache rise within her skull as a strange sense of deja-vu came over her and her memories suddenly felt like she was recalling dreams, both clashing against each other like waves in stormy waters. She screamed and held her head as her neurons sorted out the influx of new information.

Annabelle suddenly remembered the fateful day she met her future self. And now she was her future self. But what would happen from here, Annabelle could not say.

“Are you okay?” Young Annabelle asked.

“We’re going to need to figure out a way to identify ourselves,” Future Annabelle said, beginning to feel a confidence over her current predicament.

“Good idea!” Young Annabelle said. “How about since you came first, you’ll be Anna. I’ll go by Belle.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Belle,” said Anna. “Should we even be talking like this? Are we going to, I don't know, rip a hole in the space-time continuum or something?”

Belle looked around and shrugged. “Everything seems to be fine so far.”

“What about, like, the government? Shouldn’t they be here?” Anna asked.

“I figured we’d hold off before bringing in anyone like that. I wanted to get a moment with you first.”

“Fair enough,” Anna conceded. “So uh...what do you want to talk about?”

Belle thought for a moment then looked to Anna’s hands. “You’re not wearing a wedding ring,” Belle noted. “Are you seeing anyone? You know...in the future?”

“You mean are you seeing anyone?” Anna countered.

Belle blushed and chuckled as she lowered her gaze. “Can’t blame a girl for asking. Wouldn’t you want to know? I mean, obviously, you would because...you do.”

“I guess that makes sense,” Anna relented with a bemused chuckle. “No, I’m single right now.”

“Huh,” was all Belle said.

“You’re thinking about Johnny, aren’t you?” Anna inquired.

“Yeah,” Belle admitted, bashfully. “What, uh...what happened to us?” It was a difficult question to ask.

“He...proposed,” Anna revealed, hesitant. She wasn’t sure how much she should divulge about her past self’s future.

“He proposed??” Belle gasped, incredulous. “And you said ‘no’??”

“I had to! We just weren’t...compatible.”

“Compatible? What do you mean?”

Anna sighed. “It’s 2004, so you haven’t found out yet,” she realized as she looked at her younger self’s eager face, eyes pleading to learn more. “Johnny is...a feeder.”

“He what?”

“He’s into fat women. In a couple of years, he’s going to forget to close out of his browser before letting you borrow his laptop and, well, I...you...we find tons of images of fat women pigging out on vast spreads of food. Some of them chubby, some of them unable to even leave their beds.”

Belle furrowed her brow and leaned back in her seat, trying to process this new information.

Anna suddenly felt compelled to explain herself for her influence in her younger self’s fate. “Look, you don’t know that side of him yet. If I agreed to marry him, I’d be in this hospital for different reason altogether. I would’ve been brought here on a crane and unable to get up from this bed!”

Belle returned her gaze to Anna. “Yeah, but you can’t even get up from this bed now,” Belle countered.

Anna shifted in place and felt her aching muscles protest, still too injured from the incident to move much. “Good point,” she sighed.

“But you never met anyone else? After he proposed, we’re, what, in our thirties and still single?” Belle interrogated further, beginning to feel frustrated with herself.

Anna rolled her eyes back and sighed. “I guess after Johnny, everyone was kind of a disappointment.” Admitting it out loud, she felt a tinge of regret for the first time since she had turned down the proposal.

“Huh,” Belle said again, still trying to make sense of everything.

Anna was beginning to hate her younger self’s passive-aggressiveness, but tried to understand that this was a completely alien experience for them both and at this point, there was no “right way” to react to anything.

“Yeah,” Anna said, just wanting to fill the silence, desperately wishing she could know what her younger self was thinking, wondering why she couldn’t just remember. But it would take years of studying their current situation before any rules of time travel could be established or even discovered. Right now, Anna and Belle were just going to have to rely on each other.

“You’re going to need a place to stay,” Belle realized. “Thank God Angela is out of town for Spring Break. You’ll crash with me until we can sort this out.”

“Thank you,” Anna breathed, closing her eyes, already exhausted from the ordeal.

-- to be continued