And now...it begins.
Here's my entry!
Time. Time was a driving force. It judg
ed how people lived their lives, arranging their years from their first breath to their last. It waited for no one. It crushed cities, wiped out civilizations, and struck fear into the hearts of the bravest of Earth’s heroes.
And yet, it was so easily manipulated. Darren Wilder sat at his desk, laughing at a GIF playing on his computer screen. He’d turned time back hundreds of times, and the animation still made him laugh. Had he finally found a physically timeless form of media? 990,000,000 replays later, and he was only chuckling a little. Darren frowned. No, it wasn’t timeless. He sighed, dropping onto his chair in a dejected slouch.
The looping GIF flickered a little, and then his screen clicked off. Moments later, the monitor was filled with millions of random flashing numbers, each with a specific color code: Dark green for numbers 1-4, light green for numbers 5-7, and bright red for numbers 0, 8, and 9. Darren rolled his eyes.
“Hello Spyder…” he sighed, putting a sarcastic pitch into his voice.
The numbers shifted a little, and then flowed from the screen, oozing across Darren’s desk like mold on fast-forward. The numbers then swirled into a humanoid shape, still rapidly blinking and vibrating like irritated insects. A faint series of blips and beeps pulsed from the creature, foreground music to a background tone of white noise. This sound soon faded as its shape fully formed, leaving behind the slight, rustling whisper of its numbers as they shifted about. The humanoid cocked its head, and six massive spidery legs sprouted from its back, startling Darren. The human huffed. All these years and he still got a jump out of that. Amazing.
The creature’s pale grey eyes formed last, flickering into existence like flashlights low on battery. Fully formed, the creature gazed at him, its face unreadable. Well...Spyder’s face was always unreadable. The eyes were the only feature it had.
Spyder looked at Darren’s screen, which had now returned to normal and was playing the GIF once more.
“Again?” the creature said. “Given your amount of replays, I must say I’m surprised. This is a lot. Even for you.”
Despite the fact that Spyder’s tone sounded like the muffled drone of countless angry hornets, Darren could still hear the reproach. The human put his hands behind his head and tilted his chair back.
“Yeah…” he responded, giving the computer an absentminded wave. “But you know how my job is. I get so bored that the mere fact that clouds move counts as exciting. My day offs should consist of something enjoyable...these GIFs are the solution.”
The man paused for a moment before continuing.
“This one isn’t good anymore. Can you find me another one?”
“That’s it. You’ve watched all the funny GIFs the Internet has to offer.”
“Really?”
“Have I ever lied to you?”
Darren glared at the digital being, and its unblinking eyes simply stared back. They flickered, breaking the man’s concentration.
“Well...yeah! A whole bunch of times!” he responded at last.
Spyder cocked his head, not quite surprised with Darren’s reaction, but still interested in the exasperation it was delivered with.
“Not my fault.” Spyder replied.
“Sure it is!”
“Even though I can reprogram all of the world’s computers with ease, I have no power over the processes of your human mind. I provided the lie. You made the choice to believe. I had nothing to do with it.”
Darren opened his mouth to protest, and then realized Spyder had actually made a very good point. He sat in silence for a moment. Spyder hovered there, floating in the room like a digital phantom. Darren let his mind wander, staring at the topmost layer of shifting numbers that made up Spyder’s “skin”. Beneath the first layer was another random swirl of numbers, and under that was another...and so on. He looked up at Spyder’s face, causing the being to make eye contact.
“So I really have watched all the GIFs?” Darren asked.
Spyder nodded. “Yes.”
He and the being had met in 2018. He’d been researching viruses when his screen went black and spawned this monstrosity. Of course, he’d been terrified at first, but then the creature said it would help him in his research, he accepted and they’d been working together ever since. Wherever Darren went, the creature went with him, hidden in the tech of his digital wristwatch. It became obvious very quickly that when it came to the Internet, the being could do virtually anything. A faraway look came into his eyes.
“What’s it like…” Darren asked, his voice now a longing whisper. “...being immortal?”
Spyder was silent for a while, and then made observant statement.
“You look very tired, Darren. You should rest.”
The man snapped his fingers, returning his body to the freshened state it had been in when he’d woken up this morning. The exhaustion vanished from his limbs in an instant.
“There.” Darren replied. “Fixed. Now answer my question.”
Spyder’s eyes flickered, and his legs flexed a little. Darren sat up and leaned forward, his eyes eager.
“It’s like, ‘
living forever; never dying or decaying.’” was the reply.
Darren chuckled, sinking back into his chair. He shook his head, folding his hands over his chest.
“Don’t just look it up, Spyder.” he said, his voice suddenly pleading. “I want to know what it’s like for real, just...just put it in your own words.”
Spyder cocked his head, slightly puzzled at Darren’s tone.
“Your power…” the being started, its tone low. “...it’s fading, isn’t it?”
Darren was silent, his face grim. Spyder nodded, but wasn’t surprised. This wasn’t the first time he’d heard about this. Exactly 23 years from now, in 2016, Darren was given a special formula that gave him the power to control time. Now it was 2120, and the human was finally feeling the effects. He’d mainly used his new talent to slow his aging while time-travelling. Darren had been 45 when he started using, and now he was 149. Both knew that this day was going to come.
Even now, Spyder could see the sweat on Darren’s forehead, and made a mental note of his behaviour. The man was terrified, and doing a very unsuccessful job of hiding it.
“How long do you have?” Spyder asked, his tone firm.
“30 minutes,” Darren responded, fidgeting with his wristwatch.
Spyder removed all emotion from his next sentence.
“I see.”
The man fixed his desperate eyes on the digital creature’s face, his hands twitching as though he wanted to make a grab for one of Spyder’s limbs.
“Spyder…” he choked, his voice breaking. “...don’t let me die!”
The creature drifted back a bit, silent. He didn’t know what to say.
“My daughter!” Darren continued. “I’ve kept the C112 inactive for too long already!”
Spyder said nothing. C112 was the name of an incredibly fast-acting virus that had been discovered in 2020. It was devastatingly successful as a subtle biological weapon in the first few years of its discovery, but Earth’s doctors eventually found a cure and wiped it out completely. However, Darren’s daughter mysteriously contracted it in 2023, and by the time the doctors discovered it...the disease was spreading too fast for them to stop. Darren halted the tumor’s progress by pausing it and slowing his girl’s aging rate. Despite his efforts, the survival period of an infected person was a maximum of two days, three if you were extremely lucky. In her case, it had been determined that it would take just 30 minutes for the virus to fully incapacitate its host. It would do no good for her if he died now. She was only six years old.
Darren rose from his chair, trembling with emotion. His hands twitched, making small grabbing motions at the air.
“Spyder…” he begged, his voice rising to a frantic pitch. “...Spyder you have to listen to me!”
Spyder’s legs curled back, each one bent like the tail of an irritated scorpion. The digital being’s eyes flickered from grey to red, and then back again.
“Darren,” Spyder warned, the numbers of his form whirling with agitation. “Calm yourself!”
“You don’t know what it’s like!” the time-traveller screamed, grabbing his computer.
Spyder narrowed his eyes, and the laptop went sailing over his head.
“Seeing your daughter every day…!” Darren gasped, scrambling for another object.
“...and knowing that she’d die so young…!”
A coffee mug, thrown with unnecessary force, shot through the air. Spyder twisted to avoid it.
“...without ever going to college…”
A book was the next to fly.
“...or university…”
A solid gold paperweight followed.
“...or getting a job, or meeting a husband, or even having KIDS!”
Darren forced out the word as he threw his chair with all his might. This time, Spyder didn’t get out of the way. He drifted slowly towards the shaking human, undeterred as the chair flew harmlessly through his body...slamming into the wall beyond.
Darren sank to his knees, sobs jerking at his chest and making his breath come out in embarrassing gasps. He curled up on the floor, feeling beyond hope or help; like he had just stepped through a door into a cold and unforgiving world, never to return. The man shut his eyes tight, but the tears came anyways, flowing across his face and moistening the carpet beneath him. Darren lay there and sobbed, rocking from side to side. Spyder knelt down beside him, silent for a while, and then spoke.
“With all your adventures through time...you always return to a certain year...don’t you?”
Darren managed to nod, giving up all hope of stemming his sadness.
“Your daughter lives in that year. Not now, but many years back. You’ve often returned to the year and then gone a little further back, watching as she grows and makes discoveries.”
Darren continued to rock.
“Honestly though,” Spyder continued, his voice gentle. “...you didn’t expect to simply do this over and over again, did you? To go anywhere in time and keep returning to the same place, every 10th birthday of hers.”
Darren stopped rocking, but didn’t say anything. Spyder cocked his head.
“You had to have known that it couldn’t always be this way.”
Darren made eye contact with Spyder, but still remained silent. The look in his eyes suggested he wanted to say something, but he probably didn’t know what words to use.
“I’ll tell you what it’s like to be immortal. At first, it is the best thing that could ever happen to you. You have no fear. When you have no fear you have no enemies. When you have no enemies you have more friends. When you have more friends you make more discoveries. With more discoveries you earn vast knowledge. With that knowledge you earn experience and learn many new things. Eventually, you begin to feel very much like a god.”
The tears had stopped. Spyder had Darren’s full attention now.
“But there is a drawback.” the being continued. “You will be lonely. Eventually, your friends will age and die and bring about a new generation. Immortality becomes more and more insignificant as time continues. Yes you may make many new friends. Yes you may be able to punish enemies and be a force they’d never be able to extinguish. But this becomes normal. You get bored. Defeating enemies, making friends, exploring worlds...it all starts to become old. All these wars and calamities of the Earth, you’ll eventually come to know that they will always exist until the end. You may stop some of them, but not all. No human, not even an immortal one, can deal with these things alone. At one point, you’ll know all there is to know. Nothing will surprise you. No one will ever have the knowledge you have, leaving you mentally alone. You will be so different that no one will be able to relate to you, and then they’ll start to avoid you. Not everyone will be intimidated by your knowledge. Some may even respect it, but more will be unsure of how to react. People tend to avoid things they don’t understand. This avoiding will eventually turn to fear, and then hostility. No one will want anything to do with you. And then you’ll be an outcast forever.”
Darren nodded slowly.
“You can still digitize me though...right?”
Spyder’s eyes flickered, and he cocked his head. Digitizing was converting any entity, living or dead, into a form that could exist in his digital domain. Once digitized, the being will become ageless and dwell forever on the web. As far as Spyder knew, he’d had this power ever since he’d come to existence in 1969, the origin of ARPANET. From that point on, the World Wide Web had become his domain. He’d grown with the tech, and eventually became a master of it. Still, Darren was the first human who’d ever volunteered to be digitized.
“Why would I want to do that?” he asked.
“Then I don’t have to die. My daughter would still live!”
“For 30 minutes.”
Darren stiffened. He looked at his wristwatch, and as if on cue, a small trickle of blood came out of the corner of his mouth. The time-traveller and the immortal looked at each other for a few moments.
“Time’s up.” Darren breathed, his voice strained.
Spyder nodded.
“I’m sorry, Darren.” he said. “But the digital cosmos is no place for a human. All you’d be able to do is travel throughout the web, grow wise with technology, but then that’s it. Unlike me, you won’t be able to influence the Internet like I do. Viruses will rage undeterred through systems. Technological flaws will remain unfixed. Social media predators will continue to prowl. You’ll be exposed to all the good and evil the Internet has to offer, and you’d be able to do nothing about it. The world would turn. The web would remain intact. You’d just stand there and watch everything take place.”
Darren’s eyes began to close, but he forced them to stay open. He took a huge, ragged breath, his hands clutching desperately at Spyder’s intangible arm. Outside the building, the world changed as the time-traveller turned back the clock for one last time. They were back in 2023.
“Spyder…” the dying man whispered. “Spyder...if you won’t digitize me...digitize my daughter...digitize Marie for me…”
The being bowed in acknowledgement, but Darren’s body went limp, his eyes staring into nothingness. The creature stared for a few moments, watching as the man’s body disintegrated into ash. Spyder then straightened up, turning to the man’s laptop. Some of his numbers drifted towards the device, but then just swirled in circles around it. No connection. Spyder glanced around the room and spotted Darren’s mobile phone. His body broke apart, swirling into the device. He surged along its connection, emerging from a cell within the pocket of a plump, blonde lady with many expensive bracelets adorning her arms. She was listening to music on a CD player inside her purse. Typical.
This was Marie’s babysitter. Spyder shot out of the phone, a swirl of dark numbers, sliding into the shadow of a nearby tree. He was in the city park. Just a few feet from his position, a brown-haired girl dug in t
