I was born into a world bereft of life. Nearly 200 years before my birth, the atmosphere, the oceans, the forest, the very soil, was decimated by the environmental effects of industry. It was terrible. Millions died from the pollution in the air and water. The great nations waged a war over the few unpolluted water sources remaining. However, the war, the poisons they used, only caused further pollution. Once the poison got into the food sources, it was all over. Millions more died, until most regions consisted of nothing but emptiness and the dead bodies of the last few to die.
My mother and her parents were some of the few survivors from Japan. After the war broke out, my grandparents used all of their savings to buy a large supply of bottled water and canned foods. They had an inkling of what was coming, and they knew that for the sake of their small daughter they had to be prepared. And then, years later, I was born. Chiaki Mamiya; named for my father, who had succumbed to air poisoning while my mother was still in the early stages of her pregnancy. By that time, the air condition was a lot better, the effects of the pollution having faded ever so slightly after industry died, but there were still areas of the world where the levels of pollution were dangerous. My father was unfortunate enough to come across one of those areas. By the time he made it back home, he was on the verge of death.
My father was a "merchant". He travelled the world, searching for supplies, resources, anything that could be useful to us, and bringing it back home. After the war, money was practically worthless. People have long since reverted to the trading system. Two cans of vegetables for a bottle of water, a can of soup for a can of vegetables. We all know that eventually all of the resources will burn out. They're already becoming harder and harder for the merchants to find. Unless nature can reverse the damaging effects we've caused before those resources run out, humanity is finished. It's our own fault, I suppose.
The governments of the Earth had failed, leaving only one branch; a secret branch developed at the end of the war. The TTRD; the Time Travel Regulation and Discipline branch created in response to an extraordinary invention, a device that could allow the user to leap through time. The possibilities that such an invention created had to be guarded at all costs. It could not be used to change the past, no matter how terrible it had been, no matter how much one might want to. The secrets of the TTRD were closely guarded all throughout the end of the war, and it wasn't until 20 years ago that the existence of this invention was brought to the public light. Even then, it was only known to a few, spread through rumors whispered in awe. And eventually, news of it came to my ear.
I first heard about time travel when I was 6 years old. I was with my mother, who was bartering with a man for food, and he whispered the rumors to her; my ears just caught them. My mother brushed the rumors aside as worthless. It was said that one had to "qualify" in order to be given the opportunity to time leap; whatever those qualifications were, my mother was positive they were near impossible to reach.
"Who would want to time travel, anyways? Who would want to visit the past, before all of this mess? It's not as though one could stay there. It would be as painful as dying of thirst with a glass of water right in front of you…..and not being able to reach it. Who would ever want to live through that? The world would be a better place if everyone worked towards improving the present instead of wasting their lives pining for something that no longer exists." my mother said to me after we heard the rumors. I didn't quite understand what she meant at the time; all I knew was that my mind was caught. To be able to visit the past…..the mythical past of beauty, peace, and safety…..it was a dream. I wondered how I would use a chance to visit the past if ever I was given one. What would I do? What would I see? And then, close to my seventh birthday, I decided.
There was a very old book that my mother had discovered in the charred ruins of what once was a great library. A history book, written long before the war, when children like me went to school without having to worry about things like whether or not they would collapse from air poisoning, or where they would find pure water. My mother used this book to teach me how to read and write. She and I used to read it together every night. There was this one chapter; it detailed a historical era of famine and war. Reading it, I was reminded of my own era. The people that had lived in that time had believed that the world was coming to an end. In my own time period, it seemed that the world of humans really was ending. I could understand their hopelessness. But embedded in that chapter of horrors there was something remarkable. A page miserably burnt. It was just possible to read the text.
To the right: a painting, created during this era. The artist is unknown, however when one gazes upon it, a feeling of serenity comes over them and it's almost impossible to believe that a painting of such complex beauty, such calm and peaceful spirituality, was created in such tumultuous times. Restored b-(beyond that the page was too burnt to see).
The picture itself was gone, burnt away. But its description gripped my curiosity. Beauty….Calm…..Peace…..Spirituality…Serenity. They were things I'd never known. There was no beauty in my world. Whatever colors there might once have existed had faded to shades of grey; the earth had become a wasteland. People wandered the remains of streets with defeated expressions. There was always this tension existing in the back of my mind, in all of our minds; panic, fear, weariness. People had no hope anymore, and whatever god or gods they might have once believed in meant nothing to them now; the belief in a god that had no proof of existence wouldn't help them survive in our world of very real dangers. Whatever personal spirituality these people might once have had was crushed by despair. And so, after reading that description more times than I could count, the painting that I had never seen gained a place in my heart. I knew with certainty that if I were to travel to the past, it would be for the sole purpose of seeing this painting.