The London borough was almost completely silent, unusual for such a large area. No vehicles occupied the streets, nor people the sidewalks…save for one. A young boy darted for his parents' apartment, gasping as he pushed himself onward despite having reached his limit quite a while ago. His face was contorted as though the ominous evening was about to swallow him up, his brow furrowed, his umber eyes lit with anxious concern, his heart hammering so rapidly in his heaving chest it felt as though it would burst at any moment. He didn't know why he was running. He didn't know what he was running for. Something—some intuition—simply told him to move. To bolt as quickly as his short legs could possibly take him…or else he and his parents would suffer greatly.
The boy was turning his head this way and that, frantically questioning for the hundredth time what was causing him such distress. Was this implicit danger behind him, hunting him and his family down? Or worse… Perhaps it was in front of him, having already reached the apartment, tearing his mum and dad limb from limb as he journeyed to what would ultimately be a demolished and empty home…? He was painfully aware that he was unsure, but another spark of intuition that jolted through his stomach just then made him realize that an answer he would not like would soon be revealed to him…
Enough…, he thought to himself wearily, determined, as he had been throughout this entire journey, to put this all-encompassing, pestering dread behind the captive bars of logic. Like a wild animal, it tried to claw at his thudding heart from beyond the cage, but he ignored it. Nothing was about to happen to him or his family. He would arrive home and greet his parents, all of them completely unharmed, and they would greet him back with embraces and pats on the back, glad to see that he had returned. This intuition was a fleeting feeling, after all, nothing but an irrational fear born from his imagination. Soon, he would be looking back on this moment, laughing at his own silliness. He clasped the peak of his olive-tinted newsboy cap, smiling to himself even now.
However, as the boy continued onward, he failed to notice the split-second change in the atmosphere. Another layer of calm enveloped the already quiet borough, but it was unlike the placid, relaxed silence of a sleepy city. Instead, it felt more like what settled just before a vicious storm. Another spurt of adrenaline shot through the boy, then another, and another, like the pulse of a creature—his intuition—trying to escape the prison of ignorance he had barred it behind. His mistake, he would realize soon enough, was not heeding it in the end.
In an instant, a vicious, deafening explosion rent the eerie quiet asunder. Glass flew in all directions as windows shattered to pieces, black smoke erupting from the now gaping holes; huge masses of previously whole buildings hurtled into other structures and the concrete down below; the toll of a million sirens pealed out into the night like the wailing chorus of the dead. All of this clamor tore across the area in resonating echoes and shook the borough as though wringing the life from it.
With a stunned gasp, the boy threw his hands over his ears and shut his eyes tight. The din was so powerful, so excruciating, that it drove him to the quaking ground where he curled into a fetal position and began screaming in agony as the clatter obliterated his hearing. For the next few moments he could do nothing but grit his teeth tight and voice his anguish through half yells, half whimpers as blood trickled from his damaged ears, mingling with the tears that seeped from his clenched eyes.
When the initial shock began to subside a bit later, the boy simply lie quivering on the cold dirt path like a bedraggled, abandoned animal, inhaling the acrid stench of burning buildings that billowed all around him, listening to the drumming of his own violent heartbeat. His clothing as well as his hands and tear-stained face were peppered with grime. His throat felt as though it were on fire. As he slowly recovered his senses, he hoisted himself up awkwardly from his position on the ground, his head spinning, his vision swimming, causing the ground to black out for a mere second before refocusing again. He blinked and shook his head weakly, forcing himself to concentrate.
But as he turned his attention to the London streets, what he saw before him caused his confusion to return like a ton of bricks dropped on him from one of the collapsing flats above. People—hundreds, thousands of people—surged around him like raging waves, nearly crushing him as they heaved in utter chaos. As he flitted his wild gaze from hysterical group to hysterical group, the boy could see their jaws gaping. Some were screaming. Some were crying. Some were shouting hurried commands of confirmation as families fled from the destruction. But it all sounded the same to him. The ringing in his ears caused the clamor to melt into thick muffling, as though he had been thrown underwater. This raging sea was trying to drown him, swallow him whole, and in that moment he was more frightened and lonely than he could ever remember feeling before.
"Mum… Dad…," he whispered, circling his arms around his legs as he hugged them to his chest. Rivulets of tears retraced the wet paths down his cheeks, dripping onto his knees. He felt like giving up, too frightened, too lost to try and remove himself from this pandemonium, but another shot of adrenaline pulsed within him, bringing with it energy and the reminder that his parents were waiting for him at home. This time, he decided he would not ignore this insight. He needed to make sure they were safe…and let them know he was, as well!
With this thought, the boy scrambled to his feet and lifted his face to the dark, smoke-imbued sky, trying to analyze the situation through the anxious, fleeing crowds that towered over him, searching desperately to see what damage had taken place and where. His mind swarmed with thousands of questions. Was this explosion the work of terrorists? Would there be another explosion? Supposing terrorists weren't behind this, then who was? Hadn't the blast detonated near that research facility, Polydimensional Physics? This last speculation caused him to give a small, sickened gasp. But…his parents' apartment was just meters away from that lab! Did that mean, then…?
An opening began to clear in the turbulent masses and that's when the boy saw what confirmed the worst. The top of the apartment was obscured by fulminating clouds of smoke and livid flames that devoured the caved-in building. Upon witnessing such a sight, the world fell away from the boy, his newfound energy vanishing as soon as it had come, leaving his legs weak and his face ashen. He shakily stepped forward, his feet moving of their own volition as he gaped wide-eyed at the horrid scene. People shoved past him, nearly knocking him over, but he paid them no notice. The commotion was lost to him as he continued to stare at the building where he had lived for all of his short life. It would soon be no more.
…Parents…in there…, a voice whispered in the back of his head that he couldn't quite grasp.
His parents were in there…
His parents were in there!
The voice was a punch in the gut. He blinked rapidly as the world rushed back to him and now that his hearing was returning, he was instantly bombarded by yelling, shrieking, crying people, blaring sirens, and the crackling, snapping blaze of the apartment his eyes were still trained on.
At once, the boy began to run wildly, blindly toward the devastated building, knowing if he just pushed himself, he could make it in time to save his family.
But before he could get too far, someone clad in a black suit jacket and top hat leapt out of the crowd, barring his path. Dazed by his own ambition, the boy collided head-on with the man, but not even the jarring halt could discourage him from trying to reach his destination. He maneuvered his way around what was blocking him and attempted to continue on, but the man seized him by the arm, then spun him around and gripped his shoulders tight. He yelled a command of some sort, but the boy was so recklessly determined that he couldn't hear a word of what he was saying. He just wanted to run, to return to his parents, to see their smiling faces as they all embraced, safe and sound. He wriggled around violently, trying to free himself, but the man held him firmly and snapped another hectic command.
"…Way! This area is not secure!"
Only some of the words registered to the boy in his panicked state, but he knew then that the man was trying to stop him from rescuing his loved ones.
"I need to go back!" he cried in reply as he continued to struggle. "My parents are still inside!" At this point, he became so agitated that tears returned to his eyes and he sobbed in desperation.
"Pull yourself together, boy!" demanded the man.
But the boy ignored him, kicking and thrashing even harder to escape.
Suddenly, a stinging pain jolted across his left cheek like a bolt of lightning, a loud SLAP rising above the uproar of the chaos that surrounded them. So unexpected was the swift crack that all frantic thoughts, all fearful ambitions—everything—was thrown from the boy's mind. He was vaguely aware as the man grabbed him by the shoulders once more, jostling him from his stupor.
"There's nothing to be done! Jump back in there and you'll die, too!"
These words seemed to echo throughout the boy's mind as his senses began to return. The possibility had never really occurred to him until that moment that he might be making a wrong or irrational decision by running into a burning, collapsing building to rescue his parents. Really, now that he thought about it, what did he think he could possibly do…? There was no physical way for him to carry them out. Not with how small he was… The boy glanced to the apartment again to see flaming chunks of brick and mortar crumble to the ground below. Besides, with the state the building was in, his parents…they couldn't possibly be alive any longer… That explosion had destroyed not only the research lab, but the entire half of the apartment they had all lived in. They were dead and, as the man had said, there was nothing to be done.
"No…" the boy whispered as this realization became apparent, a sniffle racking his small form. His shoulders sagged as the weight of the entire world was now borne upon them and his body felt completely drained of both energy and heat, as though he were a hollowed-out husk of the happy, outgoing boy he had once been. "Mum… Dad…" He lowered his chin and clenched his teeth, another stifled sob shaking him. Then, as all of his fear and sorrow reached its peak, the boy threw himself at the man in the top hat and began wailing openly, desperately into his chest. "NO!"
"Big Luke," the man called to him over top of his misery, but the boy did not lift his face. His grip loosened on the man's suit jacket and he slipped down to the dirt path, falling to his knees where he continued to cry in despair. "Big Luke," the man tried again. "…Ig Luke…"
"Big Luke!"
Clive gasped as he shot upright in the bed he had been resting on. Perspiration beaded his pallid face, mingling with the tears that continued to stream from his wide, dark-ringed eyes, and his button-down as well as his olive vest were plastered to his body, soaked through with cold sweat. His ochre bangs were matted to his forehead underneath his boiling cobalt cap and his chest rose and fell in staggered time with his ragged breathing. He blinked a few times, trying to rid his sight of both the atrocious visions and the tears they had caused. Unfortunately, neither could be wiped away at the moment.
"Big Luke?" Clive flinched at the sudden voice, turning his head abruptly to see Luke, the blue-clad boy he was impersonating, stationed at his bedside, watching him with concern. Professor Layton stood next to his apprentice, reflecting the boy's apprehension. "You were…yelling in your sleep…," Luke continued, searching Clive's anxious face for answers, "and weeping quite profusely… Is everything all right?"
Clive hesitated before answering, still trying to catch his breath and regulate his frantic pulse. How humiliating… How terribly shameful of him to experience such a vision now of all instances… Though, it had only been a matter of time, he supposed. He brusquely wiped the tears from his eyes as he swallowed. He couldn't help noticing that his throat felt as though it were on fire, just like back then…
"It's nothing you need concern yourself with, Little Luke." He had tried to say this with confidence, even allowing a small, guilty smile to play on his lips despite his distraught mood, but the rasp in his voice undermined his efforts. To rebuild his façade, Clive chuckled sheepishly, running a hand through his sweaty bangs and readjusting his cap as he said, "A simple nightmare is all. With the present like this, overrun with those Family thugs, it's quite common. I apologize for alarming you so."
"Tell me, my boy," Clive looked up to see Professor Layton setting a firm, but gentle hand on his shoulder. A shot of adrenaline, not unlike those he had just re-experienced in his nightmare, coursed the width of his stomach as he watched into the man's astute gaze. "Is there something even more sinister in this future that you have faced that we have no knowledge of yet?"
Clive could see a type of understanding, a sort of hypothesis forming in the depths of his eyes. The professor knew there was more to the nightmare than what he had let on.
I applaud your intuition, he thought, a sad, wry smile forming within himself. It's as impeccable as ever. However, at the same time, you're also wrong.
"Now, now, Professor," he chided smugly in reply as he brushed the man's hand from his shoulder, then shifted his legs over the side of the bed and rose to his full height, "a puzzle-solving fanatic such as yourself shouldn't simply request the answers, now, should you? Where would the enjoyment be in that?" Taking a few steps, he retrieved his suit jacket from the back of the chair he had draped it over and slipped it on as he continued. "Anyway, on that thought of puzzles, why don't we continue our investigation for your future self? We won't rescue this timeline from its peril by sitting in this hotel all day." Clive now turned his back on Luke and the professor, looking over his shoulder to give them a determined grin as he grasped the peak of his cap.
But this was just another mask, another lie added to the many intertwining threads of deceit that formed an ever-tightening noose around his neck.
It's not your future that contains such a sinister outcome, Professor, he thought as he watched the man clad in a top hat that had saved him all those years ago. Rather, it's my past.