Young Writers Society

Titus didn't know how long he'd been asleep. It was still dark outside, and the hallway lights had been dimmed just a bit for any insomniacs that would be walking around. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his holophone. The screen appeared before him, the time dancing in front of his face.

"Two... not too bad," he grunted to himself as he began to stand. He walked down the hall, pressing the button on the door where his family was. It quietly slid open; his mother lay resting across her husband's chest, gently snoring as her hands were wrapped around his. The old man was still awake, smiling as his son came in.

"Annabeth said you'd gone to sleep," the old man croaked out quietly. "I told her to leave you be... you spend enough time around us old folks as it is..."

"And yet I still do it everyday," Titus murmured in reply.

Philemon shook his head gently but said nothing for many long moments, wrinkled face and yellow eyes warped with age and nearing death. "I finished my machine, my son..."

Titus rolled his eyes. "You have not perfected time travel."

The old man's smile faltered. "You doubt me."

"None of your inventions have ever worked. On good days, they do nothing at all. On bad days... they kill."

His father turned his head away ever so slightly. "I am sorry... about Fiona and Desdemona... but I am offering you a chance to save them... to live a better, happier future..."

The idea was appealing-- who wouldn't want to change the past?-- but it was impossible nonetheless. Time travel was merely a concept, a concept that this old, muddle-brained fool had fed far too much interest into. But he would play the old man's game. "What do you want me to do?"

Philemon smiled and turned back to Titus's face. "New York is a beautiful city, my son, but sometimes beauty is not manifested in what is or what could be, but what once was. The coordinates are set-- I had hoped that I would be able to go back ere I die, but alas that is not my fate..." Here, the man paused for breath, breathing in and out, in and out, slowly rebuilding what little chance his lungs had for success. "Open... your mother's purse..."

Titus obeyed, not sure what to expect. He knew it wouldn't work-- at best, nothing would happen, at worst it would explode and they would die. It was as simple as that. There really wasn't a reason to live anymore, though, so why not take the chance? "Inside... find the old locket."

There was no need to elaborate: the Winthrop Family Locket had been in the family for centuries, since before the Sundering. Though it was usually rusted with age, it was now as good as new: the silver shone brightly, like a freshly waxed car, the word "Remember" standing out clearly on the front. The chain it was attached to seemed as though it had been forged anew.

"Yes... open it..."

Titus shook his head. "It's never opened, Father, not since before Grandfather was born."

"Open it," the old man urged again.

Sighing, Titus reached a thumb over and pressed the little silver button on the side of the locket, seeing and hearing no more.

* * *

Even all these years after the world had ended, she still had the locket that her grandmother had given her. It was small, covering just the center of her palm, heart-shaped and coated in silver. On the front, little words were etched into the metal, forming the word “Remember.” Dorothy Winthrop did remember. She remembered a lot of things. Now a 54-year-old woman with a cane and a bad limp, she could remember back to when she first got the locket at four years old.

That year, 2004, everyone in the family had come from all across the world-- her aunt from New York, her uncle from Nashville, her cousins from Seattle-- but the person she had been most excited to see was Grandmother Regina. Grandmother Regina came from Paris, France to the tiny, unimportant state of Maine just to see Dorothy. The wise old woman wasn’t known to come from her newfound home to see just anyone, though. Dorothy was the baby of the family, as the youngest of three.

The Winthrop Family was large and overcrowded in those days, back before the best parts of the world were lost to fire and fury, before the bombs came down in 2019 and wiped away most of humanity. Mother was in the middle of three, with Uncle Herman and Aunt Sheila being her older and younger siblings respectively. They both had three and five children apiece. Grandmother Regina was Grandfather Martin’s second wife; Miss Maybelle moved to Atlanta to live with her family and took Uncle Herman with her until she finally remarried and had several more children. Grandmother and Grandfather had their brothers and sisters, who in turn had their children. Great Aunt Carolyn often joked that as many as five hundred Winthrops were running around New England at a given time, though it was hard to get them all in one place.

Now, though, everyone came to see Grandmother Regina. But she wasn’t coming for them, but for little Dorothy Winthrop, the toothless child running around the docks of Augusta, chasing after tired sailors and butterflies all day long. Grandmother Regina had swooped little Dorothy into her arms and handed her a small box. "This is for you," she had said. "Keep it safe and remember your heritage."

That was 35 years ago now. By traditional standards, it was 2054. Most people referred to it as 35 AS-- After the Sundering. Dorothy Winthrop was mostly alone now, alone in her little house by the sea, with her little dog, Coco, sitting in he lap. They were other Winthrop relatives that lived nearby-- they all lived at Winthrop House, on up the hill. This small, secluded corner of New England had somehow escaped nuclear devastation and continued to thrive.

"It's about time to go back to New York," the older woman whispered to her cream-colored maltipoo, placing the locket around her neck. "We'll have to talk to those crazy people again, Coco... It'll take forever to get there, but we always do it, don't we, girl?"

The little dog barked at her master in agreement, bright eyes smiling up at the human, as if to say, "Yes! We always do!" Dorothy reached for her cane and began to push herself up off the ground. Coco leaped off her lap as the older lady brought herself to stand. The little dog wagged its tail and pranced around the human's legs as Dorothy started to walk back towards the little path that led to the cottage, locket resting against her chest.

Dorothy stopped several feet in front of the cottage door and looked it up and down. "Well, Coco, we've got to get inside now, don't we?" She reached forward, turning the doorknob as a flash of light flooded the room in front of her. Coco started barking wildly as a man appeared in front of them both, spinning in a circle. Quickly regaining her composure, the older woman held her cane up as a weapon. "Get back! I'm armed!"

The man fell to the floor, head still spinning though he was laying down. "Not... here to hurt you," he moaned quietly.

"Then why the hell are you here, you great lump?" she snarled as Coco pounced on the man's chest, growling at him angrily, bouncing up and down.

"This." The man weakly held a... small locket up to her... a locket that... wasn't it--?

Dorothy clutched at the locket around her chest. They were... the same! The exact same locket! Well-- his was a little shinier, but somehow she knew that it was somehow hers. "What's your name?" she inquired, aggressively poking the man's leg with her cane.

"Titus... Winthrop," he breathed before his head fell to one side.

Dorothy hurried herself to her knees and checked his pulse. "Titus?" she breathed to herself. "Titus, don't be dead..." His pulse was there, though weaker than she would've liked. Clutching her cane, she pushed her glasses halfway up her nose and quickly stood once more, making her way into the hallway. Reaching for her phone, she dialed a few numbers and held it to her face, waiting for an answer.

"Hello?" a man's voice answered.

"It's Dorothy. Titus is here, but not the one from last time. I think it might be his son."