The Watch
It's a cold and lonely Christmas Eve in the town of Westercourt. The townspeople have all gone to sleep, save for the dads and moms still awake to prepare the gifts under their Christmas trees for their children, anticipating the arrival of Santa Claus.
However, at this time of the night, Santiago was taking a stroll in the direction of the graveyard. The road to the graveyard was a lonely one, with an occasional beggar here and there with their palms out and mouths open, hoping that a passer-by will drop a few coins into their hands. Santiago saw the looks on their faces, and was utterly disgusted by them. How low could a human sink to beg others for money? He couldn't understand it.
As he entered the Westercourt Graveyard, the air around him seemed to have changed. What was once a night in preparation for a festive day ahead suddenly turned into a night beckoning sorrow and regret for past sins. Santiago gripped his wool jacket, his hands suddenly turning colder by the second.
He took a few steps forward, and then proceeded a long road to the left, and a little more forward. Until he arrived at the spot.
R.I.P
Delilah Campalena
1970 – 2005
It was the gravestone of his wife, whom he spent 5 loving years with before she passed away from tuberculosis.
He could still remember her as if she was still right there beside him, arms wrapped around him, with both parties still heads over heels for each other. Her auburn hair brushing against his cheeks as they kissed the night away.
And how he found her lying beside him, without a pulse.
Recalling those memories brought tears to his eyes again, which he quickly wiped away, for fear of the tears freezing on the surface of his cheeks under this snowy weather. He stood there for an hour more, before deciding to make his way back home. And then he saw it.
He saw a shimmer of an object laid out in the snow, a few centimetres on the right of her gravestone. With his nearly frozen hands, he dug the snow up and out, and picked up the object.
It was like nothing he had ever seen before. It had the build and the structure of a standard watch, but it wasn't telling the time. Instead it had an interface that he couldn't understand. In the top right corner of this "Watch", there was an arrow pointed at 0, and it was labelled underneath as Age. In the top left, there was another arrow pointed at 2011, and labelled as Year. And in the middle, there was an arrow fixed in the middle of a scale, ranging from -50 to 50, and labelled as Time.
Out of curiosity, he wore the watch, and a shocking sensation travelled from his right wrist to his heart. He felt his heart rate started to accelerate, as if it was about to beat right out of his chest. And then suddenly, the sensation stopped, and his heart rate settled back to normal. He looked at the watch again, this time he saw the Age arrow was now pointed at 37. He took another look at the watch again, and then fiddled with it. The bezel of the watch could be rotated, and it seemed to shift the Time scale.
Is this… A time machine? Santiago wondered. He stopped the bezel, and now the Time arrow was pointed at -8. The watch suddenly heated up, and Santiago could feel his wrist about to melt off. He shut his eyes as a bright light engulfed his sights. He could suddenly feel a nice warm breeze, followed by many sounds of oceans, eagles, cars, doorbells, and other various things. Then the sounds suddenly stopped, and he opened his eyes. He could not believe what he was seeing.
He was back in 2003, still in the same spot where he stood in the graveyard. He could see his wife, Delilah, standing a few metres away, with him. That was where Santiago's mother was buried. He was back in the past, and he was watching his life happen all over again.
As the couple walked back to the house, Santiago wanted to chase after them, wanted to tell his past self to cherish every moment with her, but he was suddenly dragged back into the spot he stood before, and was suddenly warped back into the present. As he stood back in the snowy graveyard, shocked and baffled at what he just witnessed. He went down on his knees, trembling in the night, not because of the snow, but because of this mysterious, yet strangely exciting discovery.
As he got back up on his two feet, he noticed he was weaker than before, and he felt colder than ever. He wrapped his jacket around himself more tightly, and looked at his watch. The Time arrow pointed back at 2011, but this time the age arrow pointed at 45. He had just aged 8 years in a matter of seconds, and went back 8 years in time in a matter of seconds as well.
And then he realised, this time machine didn't need any form of energy or battery to sustain itself, because it was using a person's life as the energy source. Santiago thought about it. From the way he saw it, there were a few things he could do with it now.
One, he could lock it up forever, and never use it again, never speak of it, and continue with his life as if nothing had happened during the Christmas Eve of 2011.
Two, he could abandon it where he found it, right beside his wife's grave, and hopefully it'll be lost in the coming snowstorm.
Or three, he could continue to use it, knowing the consequences of such actions would only bring about his death.
He thought about it as much as he could, and realised he wanted to use the power of the watch. He wanted to see Delilah again. He was never really living without her, and he never expected them to part so soon. If he was going to die alone, then he would want to make every year of his life count. He rotated the bezel of the watch again, and travelled back in time.
The more he travelled back, the more years of his life was taken away. Slowly but surely he was beginning to feel his age catching up to him, with his body feeling weaker every minute he spent with the watch. And in a short time span of 6 minutes, he was 78 years old.
He could feel Death was knocking on his door, and expected no less from the abuse of such power. But then he suddenly realised something.
"If I was supposed to die at 80, what happens if I go over the boundary? What happens if I travel back further than I can? Will I be able to cheat death?"
These tempting thoughts played over and over in his head, as he felt his heart starting to slow down. He had no time left, and there was nothing else her could do now to save himself, save for this last gamble.
He rotated the bezel, and the Time arrow pointed to 30. 30 years forward in time. The watch heated up his wrist again, more powerful than before. Santiago could feel the energy being drained from his body, and then suddenly, it stopped. The white light was still there, but the draining had stopped.
He was 37 again, but he suddenly found himself in a coffin, already buried 5 metres below ground. He banged on the coffin and screamed as much as he could, but no one could hear him, not now. Not at Christmas Eve of 2011, where he was supposed to be visiting his wife. He felt his wrist for his watch, but realised in fear that it was missing. He was going to die.
5 metres above, the watch was half buried in snow on the left side of an unmarked gravestone, on the right of Delilah's Grave. It was Christmas Eve of 2011; a man by the name of Santiago was taking a stroll to his wife's grave to pay his respects. And the watch just laid there, half buried on the left side her grave.