The sun was down the
faraway mountains, retreated back to its routine resting place. Refreshing
zephyrs blew the saturated evening air, but it couldn’t raise Alvin’s morose
mood. Head hung low; he dragged his battered body back home. His beaten
demeanor was a result of the torment at school. The harder he replayed the moments
in his mind, the harder the tears thumped down his cheeks like battering rams.
The sound of the
bouncing basketballs echoed off the concrete walls of the court. Alvin stood
poised at his point guard position, sweat perspiring down his neck.
“Run! RUN! You idiot!” yelled his
team mate, Josh. Hesitating slightly, he staggered forward, apparently unsure
of his footsteps. Alvin was the shortest in the U-15 basketball team. He was
recruited totally through luck, just because there were no one else who could
play in the school and the team lacked players.
“BANG!” a loud sound jerked Alvin
from his reverie, followed by a sharp nick of pain at his temple. Alvin was thrown
backwards. Chaos erupted.
“What the HELL, Alvin?!! Can’t you
even catch the ball when I pass it to you?!” The team captain, James was fuming
as he roared at Alvin. The latter cringed. His head was ringing as he had not
fully recovered from the blow.
“Dammit, it was just a ball, can’t
you play balls?!” taunted the team’s centerback, Moses. The whole basketball
team was now surrounding him, shouting and flashing fingers, with the coach
trying to separate them but to no avail. Then someone started hurling
basketballs at Alvin with full strength, causing him to shriek in agony.
“You must train, you freaking
idiot!! Come on! Catch the balls!!” came a taunt following by another dozens.
Praying silently for the torture to end, he curled up in a ball and braced
himself. Taunts like ‘Shorty!’, ‘Loony’, ‘Retarded ass’ rang in Alvin’s ears
and made him dizzier than ever, alongside with the thumping of the wave of
basketballs being hurled at him. Just as he was about to faint……
“BEEEPPPP!!!” An
ear-splitting car honked jerked Alvin out of his reminiscence. Quickly avoiding
the oncoming car, whose driver sped away without forgetting to utter a curse,
Alvin continued his way home.
“Dad.” He called out weakly. Groping his way into the
dark house, he could hear the vaguest hints of people quarrelling. Grabbed by
curiosity, he edged his way towards the source of the sound.
“YOU STILL WANT HER, GO!! DON’T PRETEND THAT YOU LOVE ME
AND ALL THAT, JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!!” although muffled by the closed door, his
stepmom’s sobbing voice was still frighteningly audible.
“I didn’t mean…I...” his dad’s stutter was cut short by
another round of incessant bickering of his stepmom. “YOU SHUT THE HELL UP!
THIS PHOTO! LOOK AT ME! THIS PHOTO!” She was literally shrieking and crying at
the same time. She was about to jabber another round when Alvin, who couldn’t
bear any longer, wrenched open the door and rushed right in.
Upon entering the room, Alvin knew he was in deep, deep
trouble. His stepmom, her pale face shockingly gruesome as she held a crumpled
photo in her trembling hand, stared at him incredulously, as if she couldn’t believe
he still existed; his dad, head hung low, as if cringing from his wife’s
interrogation, widened his eyes once he saw Alvin, and Alvin wondered was it
true that he saw a tinge of affection in his dad’s gaze.
With one last shriek of defiance, Alvin’s stepmom tore
the photo into a dozen shreds, flinging the shreds at every direction. Giving her
husband a last murderous glare, she stomped out of the room. Alvin stared at
the torn pieces.
It was his dead mom.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Tchaikovsky playing on the stereo, which manifested a
peaceful and quiet surroundings. The sky outside was obsidian black with the
stars blinking significantly, painting a contrastive situation. Alvin stared at
the ceiling while lying on his bed, his mind roaring ferociously. Subconsciously,
he remembered.
He was ten years
old then. His mom was still with him. His real mom.
“Alvin!” called his mom from
downstairs.
“Coming!” he replied in a bright
voice as he sprinted down the stairs in full speed. A waft of fragrant aroma
hit his nostrils and he stopped abruptly, as if collided with an invisible
barrier. He inhaled deeply, ecstasy engraved onto his face.
“Here’s my boy!” cooed his mom as
she stroked his face with absolute affection. Alvin gazed at his mom dreamily.
‘She’s so beautiful!’ he thought to himself, as he tiptoed and kissed his mom
on her cheeks. She giggled; a sound so soothing that he almost succumbed to it.
“Mom?” he called out. “Yeah?” she
replied instantly.
“Will you stay with me forever?”
“Of course.”
Sobbing
uncontrollably, he clutched his bolster tightly. His mom broke her promise. She
died in a car crash, when he was twelve. She was going to the beach with dad
that day. She was reluctant to leave Alvin alone at home, but dad insisted,
thus she had no choice. She went with dad, not forgetting to kiss Alvin on his
forehead and reminded him to take care of himself.
And
never to come back again.
Rain splattered against the window,
producing an inauspicious rhythm. It was already 11 at night. Stomach churning
in worry, Alvin gazed out of the window repeatedly, trying to catch a glimpse
of his dad’s familiar Camry. Dejected again and again, he sighed in
exasperation and tried the phone again, but to no avail. His dad’s phone was
dead.
Just when he was deciding to do
something brainless, a blinding light blasted through the gates. Galvanized by
the lights, he sprung up and hauled the door open. An ambulance stopped in
front of his house, its sirens flashing but not blaring. A paramedic stepped
out and greeted Alvin.
“You’re Alvin, right?” he enquired
a stunned Alvin. Barely able to nod his head, he followed the paramedic up the
ambulance as it headed to the hospital. “I’m afraid something terrible had
happened. I prefer you to follow us to the hospital.” The paramedic said in a
firm but terse voice. Trepidation began to build up in Alvin like ants building
their home; a lump formed at the pit of his stomach. He shivered involuntarily.
He could sense death.
Upon reaching the hospital, Alvin staggered
inside, his footsteps rigid. He was totally like a real-life zombie coming to
town. The paramedics showed him the way; he wasn’t even aware as to where he
was heading, for his mind was a blur. When they finally came to a stop, Alvin
gazed up slowly. At the entrance of the room said: EMERGENCY UNIT.
‘Where are you, mom?’ he whispered
to himself. In a daze, he followed the paramedics to a bed. On the bed lay dad,
wounded in various places, but still conscious despite of the seriousness of
his wounds. Upon seeing Alvin, he smiled grimly, a light smile that somehow
hurt Alvin’s heart. “Alvin…”he started, but was cut off by his son.
“Where’s mom?!” Alvin gazed around
frantically. If she was also injured, she should be situated beside his dad.
But what he saw was a few unrecognizable people, doctors and nurses in their pristine
white uniforms. No mom.
“WHERE”S SHE?!!” Alvin was practically yelling. “Alvin…”
Alvin’s dad tried to stay calm, but his expression betrayed him. Alvin howled
in agony.
“NOOOOOO!!!!!”
From that incident onwards, he blamed his dad for his mom’s
death. If she had not followed him, maybe
she will still be with me, he thought.
“I miss you, mom…”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It was a bright and sunny morning. Everything seemed
livelier than usual. Yawning luxuriously, he stretched and paused in
mid-stretch. A strong sense of déjà vu
hit Alvin hard on his face. Yawn that wide
again, and a bluebottle fly will fly into your mouth, his mom told him
once, when she woke him up. He had pouted.
On the way to school,
Alvin was in quite a bouncy mood, as he observed the surroundings. He was
captivated by the sight of a pretty woman, who was in her early thirties. She
reminded Alvin deeply of his late mom.
“HEY!!” yelled a voice
that tugged Alvin back to reality. He had apparently bumped into a
queer-looking old man. Alvin caught a glimpse of the vial the old man was
holding tipped over and the contents spilled into the drain, as he managed an
articulated apology “Ss…sorry!”
The old man scrutinized
Alvin closely, his eyebrows screwed together in a hairy knot. His eyes were
turquoise in color, and it displayed what people call ‘The Wisdom Eyes”, which
made Alvin squirm uneasily under his burning gaze. The two of them froze for a
long time, before the old man broke the awkward moment with a clearing of his
throat.
“Ahem, so have we met
before?” the old man straightened his ruffled tunic. Straightening his back,
Alvin managed an articulated speech “I don’t think so. What was that in your
hand?” He pointed at the vial which was still held tight in the old man’s
fingers as an emphasis. Without bothering to reply Alvin’s question, the old
man stood up in a flourish and whipped the now empty vial harshly towards
Alvin, pausing right in front of his nose, making him flinch.
“Do you know what this
is?” The old man whispered harshly at Alvin, spitting saliva at every
direction, gesturing at the vial. When Alvin shrugged timidly in return, the
old man continued, “This is the new creation by me, the famous Professor
Kirovan. I present you, the Resurrecting Potion! I was about to test it on this
dead lizard,” Prof. Kirovan gestured nowhere. “When you,” points at Alvin
“stupid idiot bumped into me and caused me to spill all of it into the drain!” Alvin cringed. “Sorry.” Was what he could
only manage.
“Hmph, I forgive you,
you puny little thing,” the old professor sneered. “It’s probably by a stroke
of luck that I still have another sample at my place.” Alvin’s head snapped
right up. “Really?!” his eyes glowed as he enquired. “Yeah,” Prof. Kirovan
started in a mysterious voice. “Do you know the power of this little potion?”
he squinted at Alvin and hissed. When Alvin didn’t reply, he continued. “It can
bring back the dead; as long as you possess the single scrape of skin, hair, or
any other organs or body parts, which contains the deceased’s DNA, a drop of
this thing can give it life, and allowing it to flourish again.”
Alvin’s mind rang; he
was speechless. He recalled that he had a collection of his mother’s hair in
his private collection box. Suddenly, hope dawned upon him and his heartbeat
thumped ferociously.
Smiling, triumphant at
the stunned expression on Alvin’s face, the professor turned and was about to
leave, when Alvin lunged towards the professor and blocked him from walking one
more step. “Stop! I need one of it! Can you give it to me? Please?” he
blabbered frantically, afraid that he would not be able to see the professor
again.
Prof. Kirovan stared at Alvin, as if he was a
tree-cross-with-a-werewolf-mutant. “Do you know the importance of live?” he
started, not quite exactly the right topic. “You cannot stop it as you wish, nor
restart it as you desire. Life is NOT a videogame. There’s no ‘Try Again?’
button. Once it ends, it ends. If you rekindle it again, future history will
change, and many sub consequences will occur. People will die, some will
vanish, and many other disruptions. Do you understand the imperative
conscientiousness of the entire concept I’m tryin’ to say?”
“But…but…” Alvin stammered. “NO BUTS! Life is life,
you cannot simply say ‘But…but…’ and expect the Grim Reaper to let you go! It’s
not a joke, resurrecting the dead. It’s a forbidden deed, indeed, as the
aftershocks caused by it is totally unpredictable, completely volatile. Be
careful what you wish for, for your actions may cause the death of someone.”
Stunned but not completely shattered by the forceful
words of the professor, Alvin could only stare as the professor turned and
started to walk away in long, rapid strides. Suddenly, a stroke of
determination struck him like a lightning bolt, and he made up his mind. He decided
to skip school and follow Professor Kirovan, until he got his hands on the so called
Resurrecting potion.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Deep in the drain, a scrape of rotten banana peel
morphed in a stunning speed, growing larger and larger in size, until it broke
through the metal grille that covered the drain. Not stopping at all, it
continued growing until it finally emerged as a fully-grown banana tree, its
leaves and trunk healthy, and fully-ripe fruits hung on the tree.
As if it had lived here all along.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
The woods were dark, as the boughs of the canopy
obscured up most of the light of the glaring sun. Only a few shafts of daylight
managed to work their way to the ground. Alvin moved stealthily, trailing the
professor by a few yards backwards, not wanting to startle him. The deeper the
professor went into the woods, the more Alvin was convinced by the verisimilitude
of the mysterious and mythical Resurrecting Potion. Alvin was greatly
galvanized by that fact, as his determination to resurrect his mom blazed like
a wide-spreading forest fire in his heart. He sensed hope.
Deep in his reverie, Alvin was dumbfounded when the
professor suddenly disappeared from his sight. Gazing around frantically, he
hastily searched his surroundings, evading the trees that blocked his way and
obstructed his vision. Ducking past a 40 feet tall maple tree, he halted in his
tracks, perplexed by what he saw.
What was displayed in front of his very eyes, was a
gigantic crevice that separated the wide trunk of the maple. An onyx loincloth
was hung just as a practical try to distract the attention of prying eyes.
Without a moment of hesitation, Alvin flung the loincloth upwards and entered
the crevice.
Once he entered the fissure, he was again stunned,
for at the wall of the inner bark was a steel ladder, that led to the deep
underground. Bracing himself, he grabbed the top rung and started climbing
downwards, swiftly but careful not to make any noise.
The climb was endless, and when Alvin felt as if his
hands were about to drop off their sockets, his feet met sold ground. Stepping
off the ladder, he glanced at his surroundings. It was still dark, but the oil
lamps that were hung on the wall of a corridor illuminated the darkness. At the
corridor’s end was…practically nowhere. Feeling a shudder starting to creep
down his back, Alvin tiptoed carefully towards the abyss in front of him.
The light’s intensity increased gradually as Alvin
explored deeper into the corridor. Finally, he caught sight of Professor
Kirovan, who was bent over a pile of complicated beakers which were all
entangled in a confusing jumble. Analysing the propinquity of the gargantuan
room in front of him, Alvin’s gaze was attracted by the sight of the cerulean
coloured liquid comprised in a lone conical flask on the shelf in the corner of
the room. It was the exact replica of what the professor held when they met.
A precarious strategy forming in his head, he
decided to steal the potion without alarming the professor. Grabbing the chance
as the professor’s back was turned, he tiptoed towards the shelf slowly and
carefully, his footsteps muted as much as possible. Within thirty seconds he
had already covered the distance between him and the shelf. Laying his hands on
the conical flask, he felt the sturdy and compressed weight of the liquid, and
prepared for the journey back to the surface.
He was about to reach the opening of the room, when
a slightest hint of carelessness caused him to tip the conical flask, affecting
the concentrated liquid to slosh noisily against the walls of the beaker. That
caught the professor’s attention right away.
“HEY!! WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?!!” thundered the
fuming professor. Instinctively, Alvin ran; like a deer chased by a tiger, he
ran, his footsteps thumping hardly against the ground, with the professor hot
on his trails. For a man in his fifties, the professor put on a good chase as
he followed Alvin on his desperate escapade.
“YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE POWER COMPRISED BY THE
POTION!” bellowed the professor, heaving profusely like a mad bull. Alvin
risked a look backwards and flinched. The professor was barely a few feet
behind him. Increasing his speed, he reached the ladder and started climbing,
the potion held precariously in his right hand as he climbed. One wrong move
and the potion would be lost, along with his hopes of resurrecting his mom.
“STOP!! STOP, YOU FOOLISH, THOUGHTLESS KID! YOU
THINK THAT YOU CAN SAVE YOUR MOM WITH THIS POTION, YOU ARE WRONG! SHE WILL NOT
BE THE SAME ANYMORE AND INSTEAD, YOU’LL REGRET YOUR RECKLESS DEED!!” Alvin’s
heart froze for a second. ‘How did he know my name?’ he thought to himself and
ran even faster, eager to escape this maniac professor.
“STOP!! LISTEN
TO ME!! YOU”LL NOT GET BACK WHAT YOU WISH FOR! IT WILL NOT BE THE SAME!
YOU WILL ENCOUNTER DEATH, OF THE ONES YOU LOVE! PLEASE! LISTEN TO MEEEE~~~” his
voice became softer and softer until it finally became inaudible. Alvin exhaled
in relief, and his long, strides turned into shorter ones, and when he was
fully certain that the professor could not have followed him, he slowed into a
jog which he continued until he exited the woods.
It was past noon. Alvin hurried back towards his
house, trepidation churning inside him. The only obvious thought he could think
of is: Get my mom back.
It’s time for the next mission.
“I’m coming, mom.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Alvin’s stepmom was
caught by surprise when her stepson arrived home two hours earlier than usual.
“What happened, Alvin?” she enquired suspiciously. When Alvin ignored her, her
suspicions were confirmed. “Did you actually truant school?” she asked in an
incredulous voice. Alvin continued ignoring her, heading straightaway to his
room. “ANSWER ME, ALVIN LOCKE!!!” she shrieked, losing her patience. “BAM!!” Alvin
entered his room and banged the door hard, leaving his stepmom outside,
traumatized.
Inside
his room, Alvin literally ransacked his wardrobe as he rummaged for his private
collection box. He found it beneath a pile of old tee, which he had not worn
for a few years. Cradling it in his hands as if it was a fragile lily,
he opened the lid of the box. Inside it was an assortment of special beads, a
few gemstones which he found in his own garden, a pen, which was a gift by the
girl he had a crush on when he was in primary, and many other else. His hand
hovered above the paper packet which was arranged at the corner of the box. The
professor’s warning hummed in his head. ‘She
would never be the same again!’ Ignoring it as if it was an annoying fly,
he picked up the paper packet and opened it.
Inside were a dozen strands of his dead mother’s hair,
which hadn’t decomposed throughout the years. Caressing them adoringly, he
picked up one of it and examined it. It was onyx in colour, with a slight tinge
of auburn. Putting all the strands of hair in a plastic bowl, he gently tipped
the potion, hesitating when the liquid was about to flow out. ‘Is it worth it?’
he wondered aloud. Before he could consider further, his hand twitched and a
drop of the Resurrecting potion dropped into the bowl.
A strong aroma began to waft out of the bowl, as the
potion coagulated rapidly around the hair, forming a clump of mushy substance.
A piercing sound could be heard, as if a person had been tortured cruelly, and
it pierced Alvin’s eardrums like a tungsten-tipped dart thrown hard at the
dartboard. Alvin shut his eyes instinctively and cupped his hands around his
ears, a futile attempt to block out the sound. The sound seemed to be coming
out from the depths of Alvin’s eardrum, hurting his head and making his eyes
water.
The scent doubled and tripled, and although it wasn’t
smelly, it started to make Alvin uncomfortable. He shut his nose alongside with
his ears and eyes, and waited for the cacophony to end. To his dismay, it
continued to torture his eardrums, even worse, the shrill shrieking sound had
transformed into a full-pitched screech in his ears, hurting him terribly. ‘I’m
going to die.’ Thought Alvin, when suddenly he slipped into the wave of
unconsciousness and everything turned black.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Meanwhile, Alvin’s stepmom, who was
still angry towards Alvin rude behaviour, started to worry when Alvin did not
come out of his room for a long time. Although she treated Alvin obnoxiously,
she felt a deep purge of passion towards her stepson, even that he wasn’t from
her womb. She’d sobbed a little whenever Alvin treated her as if she did not
belong to the family, shown open distrust towards her, and criticized her every
flaws and mistakes. She actually loved him deeply, but he couldn’t take the
sudden change of parent immediately. ‘Give him some time.’ She’d thought to
herself.
Approaching her stepson’s room, she
knocked gently on the door. “Alvin, are you there?” She was met with silence.
“Hello?” she started to worry. Sensing something amiss, she opened the door,
which was surprisingly unlocked.
Alvin was slumped at the corner in
his room, his head hung low but the heaving of his back showed that he was
still alive. What caught her attention was a woman, who was in her early
thirties, wearing a white satin blouse, lay on Alvin’s bed. Her facial features
were close to perfect, and her slender body made her a beautiful woman.
Alvin’s stepmom caught her breath.
She was totally shocked. Her heartbeat quickened irregularly and beat faster
and faster. Then it suddenly stopped abruptly, as the heart couldn’t take it.
She fainted to the ground. The cells in her body were slowly deprived of oxygen
because of the heart attack and she succumbed to a painless and sudden death.
On the bed lay Alvin’s real mom.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
It was an endless
slumber, for Alvin, but it was surprisingly dreamless. He felt that he was
being boiled in a crater of hot magma, his eardrums being perforated, his limbs
separated from their various sockets. The agony lasted for a long time, and
Alvin could do nothing but pray for it to end. At last, he woke up.
The first thing that
caught his eye was his mom. Not his stepmom, but his real mom. His real mom,
who had been dead for five whole years. She lay idyllically on Alvin’s bed, her
chest heaving up and down, confirming that she was still alive. Alvin inhaled
deeply. He hadn’t seen her for five years, but to him it felt like a thousand.
Now here she was, lying peacefully on his bed, alive. Nothing could describe
the ecstasy in Alvin’s heart, and he leaned over to wake his mom up. “Mom.” He
cooed as gently as possible as he nudged her arm. She opened her eyes. And
screamed.
“AHHHH!!! WHO ARE YOU?!!
GET AWAY FROM ME!!” she flinched immediately and retreated to the end of the
bed. Dumbstruck, Alvin spluttered, “W…what? I’m your son! Don’t you remember
me?” His mom stared at his face, her gaze expressionless.
“Oh, is that you…Bryan?”
she muttered. Dismayed, Alvin groaned, “Mom, how can you forget me? It’s me,
your lovely son, Alvin.”
“I’m NOT your mom!” she
yelled. “In fact, I don’t even know you!”
Shocked, Alvin stared at
his ‘mom’. This wasn’t her. It was her body, but the soul amongst wasn’t hers. The
professor’s voice echoed eerily in his mind. ‘She will not be the same anymore.’ Alvin shuddered.
Alvin’s ‘mom’ tried to
barge her way past Alvin, but the ignorant mind of his controlled his limbs and
blocked her from succeeding her escape.
“Please, it
can’t be true; you must at least remember my face, my name, or anything! Come
on, mom, please don’t tell me that all the labours I’d tried all my best to
resurrect you was a total heap of dung, wasted down the drain! Please, mom, try
to remember…” Alvin’s begging was cut short as his ‘mom’ interrupted.
“STOP!! You better stop your incessant bickering
right now, you idiotic fool! I’m not your freaking mom, thus stop calling me
that freaking meaningless name!! Now get off the freaking bed and let me go!!”
yelled his ‘mom’, all the kindness Alvin remembered she’d shown to him vanished
into nothing.
Alvin felt as if his ‘mom’ had slapped him in his
face, although not physically. The discourtesy and vulgarity shown by the woman
in front of him, which possessed his mom’s body, had totally shook him to bits,
as if he was a ball being jiggled vigorously by a clown. He stared mindlessly
at the imagined abyss in front of him, a bit light-headed, as if he was about
to faint.
Before Alvin could react, she edged past Alvin and
ran out of the room. “Wha- wait!” he leaped out of the bed clumsily and followed
her. Upon reaching the door, he halted abruptly. In front of him laid the
lifeless body of his stepmom, her eyes wide open and her face sickeningly pale.
Alvin stooped low and laid two fingers at her carotid pulse, but to his dismay,
he found no pulse.
All of sudden,
he was hit by a wave of sadness and regret. Gazing morosely at his stepmom’s
hellish-white face, he reminisces about the limited time they’d both spent
together. Instantly, another wave of shame and nostalgia whumped him right on
his face. He’d treated her so rudely since dad married her, but she never gave
up on him. She kept advising him, convincing him to change his attitude and
accept her as his mom. Instead of being touched by her kind heart, he gave her
the black eye and distrusted her strongly. Now, seeing her lying on the floor,
dead, a pang of guiltiness thumped him hard and he could feel his eyes
moistened up. “Sorry, mom…” he cried.
You’ll encounter death, of the ones you love.
Alvin could hear the
words of the professor clearly, as if he was right beside him. Remorse flooded
through him, and he fell to his knees. He’d lost both moms; one lost in the
soul, one lost in the body. Alvin regretted his foolish actions, but it was too
late for him to rewind his actions. His mind flashbacked to the moment when he
asked for the potion, ‘Be careful what
you wish for.’ He’d turned a deaf ear on the professor’s advice, and now he
was met with a messed up, ruined life.
Professor Kirovan was
true. The dead must not be simply resurrected. When fate summons the person to
go back, he or she cannot avoid it. If there’s any attempts to diverse the
person’s fate, volatile disruptions would occur and the whole scene will be
confusing or maybe crude and remorseful. People would die an unnecessary death,
and the resurrected person may not be the intended person; it is an immoral
sign of the violation of reality, the diversion of fate which is absolutely
forbidden.
Suddenly, a flash of intense loathing ran through Alvin’s
body. He stood up slowly, head bowed, murder in his eyes. He hated Professor
Kirovan for creating this heavenly yet deadly potion, and his arrogance,
self-esteemed character when he told him about the wonderful ability of the
potion. Every move, every action of the professor suddenly triggered a roar
within Alvin, a roar of vengeance. Vengeance for his resurrected mom who wasn’t
herself, vengeance for his dead stepmom, vengeance for the chaos and turmoil he
created in Alvin’s family; Alvin suddenly had the insane desire to kill the
professor, and tear his body into thousand pieces.
Stepping out of his room, he gazed around. His ‘mom’
wasn’t in sight. The front door, however, was wide open, the wooden door
hanging carelessly from its hinges. She had apparently fled out of the house.
His mind blurry, Alvin grabbed a knife from the kitchen and ran outside the
house.
On the way to find the professor, he couldn’t think
straight. In his mind was the turmoil of burning rage, and nothing else. Alvin
trotted ahead in wide, loping strides; his intend to kill the professor making
his mind unconscious to any other reasonable thoughts.
Reaching the ‘tree’ that led to the professor’s
underground lab in no time, he descended down the stairs and raced inside.
Professor Kirovan was slumped on the table when Alvin found him, probably
dejected by the loss of his potion, Alvin didn’t know, and didn’t care a hell
about it. Catching the old man in surprise, Alvin held the knife against his
neck, pressing hard until the jugular veins were visible and blood began to
seep out of the pressurized area caused by the knife. The professor glanced up
in surprise, a glint of terror appearing in his eyes but disappearing almost
immediately as he regained his normal arrogant composure.
“Why did you come back, my dear? Did the potion not
work?” he asked sweetly, oblivious of the knife pressed against his throat. The
anger roared in Alvin’s ears, and he applied more pressure to the knife,
causing the professor to wince. “How dare you?! HOW DARE YOU?!!” he was
literally screaming. “How dare you make me do such terrible things without
stopping me?!” tears streaming down his face, he blinked them away and stared
hardly at the professor. Prof. Kirovan’s expression softened and he spoke, soft
but firm, “I’d warned you in the first place – resurrection is not a thing to
play with, as it’ll cause unpredictable consequences, which you might regret
deeply. It’s you who ignored my advice, you who carried on with your desire to
save your mom!”
His words struck home, and Alvin reeled back in
recognition. His hand slumped, and the knife fell clumsily out of his hands and
struck the floor with a loud ‘clang’. “No…no…it can’t be…” Alvin muttered, his
gaze faraway. “Think about what you’ve done,” the professor continued. “Think
about your stepmom, who loved you so much, who died due to the shock of
witnessing the forbidden resurrection of your real mom; think of your dad, of
how will he cope when he suddenly finds his wife dead and his beloved son
missing; your dad loves you deeply, you know? Now you’ve caused him infinite
misery, when he comes home and finds all his love ones dead and gone. Think
about it, Alvin, of all the misery you’ve caused-”
“IT’S ALL B’CAUSE OF YOU, YOU MAD OLD PROFESSOR! IF YOU’D
NOT SHOWN ME THE POTION, MY LIFE WOULD BE NORMAL, AND NO ONE’LL HAVE TO DIE!!”
Alvin bellowed, not being considerate, and he grabbed his fallen knife and
prepared to swing it at the professor.
“No, you wouldn’t dare.” Smiled the professor, an eerie
smile that chilled Alvin down to his roots. “I’ll kill y…you!” he hissed back
in return, his hand curling up in a wide arc.
“No, you won’t. For I’m you.”
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Year 2026
Alvin had
graduated from university, now a Phd. level chemist. He excelled in
biochemistry, and preferred researching on ways to resurrect the dead. This
question had haunted everyone for a long time, could the dead actually be
brought back to life? Many scientist had tried all their best to find out ways
to resurrect the dead, but their effort were all useless.
Alvin’s
absolute interest in the particular topic had given him an ultimate support,
and he was met with a minuscule success when he was forty-five. He managed to
turn a dead leaf, a wilted Bryophyllum, to be precise, into a living leaf that
actually started growing into a plant! He was galvanized by this discovery.
Through
years and years of hard work and research, he managed to find out the right
remedy to resurrect the dead. Initially, he tested the potion he’d created to
resurrect a dead lab mouse. The mouse became alive again and started behaving
oddly. It munched off its own tail, and started a massacre in the cage. Disgusted,
Alvin, who called himself the Professor Kirovan, made some changes to the
potion to improve its abilities. At last, when he’d managed to resurrect a dead
tramp whose corpse he found in an uncanny alley, he knew he’d succeeded. That
was when he was fifty-eight.
Euphoric
at his achievement, he suddenly remembered his dead mom. She had been dead for
19 years, yet he still missed her. A wave of nostalgia attacked him, and he
made up his mind to resurrect his mom.
But he’d
lost anything that formed a resemblance of his mother. No hair, no nails, no
dead skin, no nothing. He thought thoroughly. There was another alternative.
Thus,
he took the time machine.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
“The future you, if more
precisely. If you kill me, that means you’re simply writing down a full stop
for your life. It’s as if you’re making an appointment with the Grim Reaper at
fifty-eight.” Professor Kirovan/Alvin smiled widely.
“W…what?” Alvin
stammered, shocked by the future-him’s confession. “But you don’t look fifty-eight!” he pointed out, suspicion
building up.
“It’s the time travel.
It makes you age in a horrific speed.” The professor explained. He looked more
like a seventy-eight instead a fifty-eight. ‘So time travel is abled not long
to the future.’ pondered Alvin.
“Then why not
straightaway go to when mom died?” challenged Alvin, his chin held high. “Why
not just simply stopped her from going with dad?” Alvin realised that there
were tears in his eyes. Shaking his head pitifully, the professor spoke, “No,
the time machine that time was not that advanced. It could only send you back
to a period of time; let’s say ten years, to the most accurate. You cannot go
straight to one specific year, neither a particular day.”
Digesting the
explanation given by Professor Kirovan/Alvin, Alvin gazed at the future ‘him’.
Suddenly, a voice in the back of his head spoke, ‘He’s lying. Kill him.’ Alvin’s brain made the final decision. He
heaved the knife high up.
“Do not regret, Alvin.”
The old man in front of him warned in an ominous voice, his face calm, not a
bit afraid of his death that loomed upon him.
It was too late for any
second thoughts. Alvin swung his knife.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Year 2055
Alvin, who had smartly
avoided involving with any science related subjects, now worked as an
accountant, a job he would never assumed he would take when he was young. He
led a pretty normal life, without any special occasions.
However, he was always
haunted by the old professor’s voice and his calmed countenance when Alvin
murdered him in cold blood. Every night, Alvin had nightmares about the
professor appearing at his doorstep, body bloody and seeking for revenge. When
the first time machine prototype was created, it made great news that occupied
the headlines and the several pages after it in the papers. Terrified, Alvin
tore the whole paper into shreds, and ignored any news about the time machine
that was reported from that day onwards.
As this year was the
year 2055, Alvin was distinctly aware that he was already fifty-eight years
old. Terror almost overwhelmed him, when he thought of the fact that he was
destined to die this year. But, he
told himself, I’m not going back in time.
And I’ll not be killed by the younger version of me. Vaguely reassured by
the thought, Alvin carried on with his life normally.
But everyone was
surprised when he died mysteriously one month after his fifty-eighth birthday.
No one knew the cause of his death, and many doctors were dumbfounded by the
sudden death of Alvin, who never complained of any illness when he was alive.
It was even startling
when a paper packet was found in the back pocket of the pants Alvin was wearing
when he died, inside comprising a strand of hair that belonged to a woman that
was dead for forty-eight years.
Note: Last
advice, let the dead stay dead. Do NOT resurrect them, no matter how important
they mean to you.
