Our Future
Chapter 20: The Test and Thinking

“It won’t matter if nobody knows, Nathan,” he whispers.

“They know I can stop time, what’s to stop them from thinking I can reverse it?” I whisper.

“Proof. Why would God cause an apocalypse only to have it reversed by one of his Nephilim? It wouldn’t make sense,” Gabriel replies.

“He was proving a point. That we need to appreciate what we have before it’s too late. We’re destroying the earth. And hardly anyone is lifting a finger to stop it. It would have continued had the apocalypse not happened... We could be all dead for all we know in a reality where our carelessness of living on earth continued, “I whisper annoyed trying to make a point.

“If you do this we could die,” Gabriel whispers.

“Maybe we deserve to. We haven’t exactly done anything to deserve to live any more than the people who have died,” I answer.

Gabriel was silent. We both knew it was the truth as much as any person. Everybody could deny it all they wanted but every single person on Earth three years ago knew Earth was wasting away and would eventually end. Sure the Sun had another seven million years till it burned out but what about the trees? The fresh water, the oil, the fruit, vegetables, animals? How long did they have with us around with the things we were doing?

Everything, everyone, would have ended eventually.

We all knew it, yet, very few people did anything at all to stop it.

“Are you going to do it?” Gabriel asks nervous.

“We have to see if I can do it first and what the effects are,” I whisper nervous.

Gabriel touched my chin gently and lifted it up to face him. He nervously stared at my lips for a mere second before he kissed me.

“In case anything goes wrong,” he whispers over the mind link.

I look at him solemnly after he let’s go, touching his cheek.

I sighed quietly. Gabriel grabbed my hand and I froze time first. I concentrated and a list of images appeared like a scene selection in a movie’s ‘options’. I looked through them and picked out when I left after Gabriel fell asleep. If this worked, Gabriel would still be asleep when I returned to the warehouse. The question was: Would he remember?

I sighed again and selected the image. Everything starting running past me and I ended up in front of the office building I had just been on top of with Gabriel. Gabriel was nowhere in sight. I toke flight and landed inside the warehouse’s gates. I nervously started towards the front door. I pushed it open and made my way to the box cave. I carefully made my way there. Hopefully nobody caught me walking around. I wasn’t in the mood for twenty questions if anyone remembered that this span of time had already happened.

I made it there without out any trouble. Gabriel was there, sleeping. I didn’t want to wake him. He knew what would come next. He’d want me to wait. Ask Daniel and Joey what they wanted. If we waited though others could die, including us and then everything would be pointless.

I breathed. Why me, I asked again. Of course there was no reply again.

Why did it have to work? Why start the apocalypse if some kid was just going to reverse it? What was the point? Especially if nobody was going to remember? How was the Earth going to change?

“Nathan?” I heard Gabriel whisper.

I looked up and he was awake. I let out the breath I’d been holding in. I looked away. Did he remember?

“What’s wrong?” Gabriel asks.

I don’t think he remembered. Either that or we were both avoiding the truth.

“Do you remember?” I ask quietly nervous.

If he doesn’t maybe I won’t do it. I don’t want them to forget. It’ll just happen all over again and it would have been pointless. Only I would know the future of every single thing that had happened around me up until now.

“Remember?” he asks.

“Today,” I whisper.

“It hasn’t happened yet. How could I remember something that hasn’t happened?” he questioned.

“Never mind,” I reply.

If he didn’t remember nobody would, aside from me. I wonder if they’d all have this familiar feeling. Deja vu or whatever people call it.

“What do you mean never mind? How am I supposed to remember what hasn’t happened?” he asks again.

I look at him. He’s waiting and I know it. For the a millionth time, I wished he was a little less lenient with not using his power.

“Eight hours of today already happened,” I whisper over the link.

“It’s only six. What are you talking about?” he asks again.

Again, I wished I had one of the other angel’s powers. I’d love to teleport away from him right now.

He doesn’t remember and never will remember. Unless, I go forward but the situation there wasn’t much better.

“Nat-” he starts to say but I lift a hand and time freezes.

“Nathan!” I here Daniel shut.

How had he escaped the time freezing? Even Gabriel had frozen last time.

“Nathan!” he calls again.

He bursts through the door to the storage room.

“Nathan, come on. Where is he?” he calls and then mutters.

Why was he only calling my name? What about Gabriel? Gabriel could have helped him with his problem, too.

“Hey, Nathan. What’s going on? Why’s it six again?” he questioned.

He remembered today. Why?

“You remember?” I ask.

“Yeah, why?” he asks.

“Gabriel doesn’t remember. Does anybody else?” I reply.

“I don’t know, why doesn’t he remember? He’s an angel, so it’s not a race thing. He would remember if only the angels remembered,” he replies.

“Maybe I didn’t want him to remember,” I whisper.

“What are you talking about, why would you want that?” he asks.

“Because if I could rewind time, I could prevent the entire apocalypse and he was concerned about what would happen instead if we stopped it. If others would die, if we would die,” I exclaim.

“But it could save others, so what if you die? You’re saving hundreds of thousands, millions, billions of lives, Nathan,” he reasons.

“No nineteen-year-old wants to die. Actually if I reverse the apocalypse I could die at sixteen. That’s even worse. I...I want to see Sam grow up and get married and meet my nieces and nephews. I want to see the world go back to normal. What’s the point of this apocalypse if I can...reverse it? We don’t know how or why it happened or how to prevent it or what to do different. We’re kids for God’s sake,” I mutter between annoyed sniffles.

“You don’t know that you will die... You’ve never seen the future of whether you die or not if you reverse all this,” Daniel whispers.

“I’ll be back with Melody. I’ll have to tell her, again. And it’ll hurt her more this time because I haven’t been gone for three years; she hasn’t met Charlie or had Nick. Nick won’t even be alive, Caine will come back and Jason, too,” I whisper.

“Yes, but they could be different. Remember they won’t meet you so you won’t influence them. Jason and Caine won’t know about you or Jasper. Jasper might not even remember at this point,” he reminds me placing a hand on my shoulder.

“I’m scared I’ll screw things up,” I mumble.

“You could practice, it’s not like you can’t reverse it,” he replies.

I can’t tell if that’s a joke or not.

“I haven’t tried going forward,” I whisper nervously.