Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 57184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 191(@300wpm)
As I’m heating the frying pan, my mind whirls with questions. I know something changed after I came home the last time, but I don’t know what. That something clearly altered the future of Monsterland, which in turned changed my life.
One big loop. The past feeding the future. The future feeding the past.
In the end, though, the invasion still happens. When? Maybe in a few days. Maybe months or years from now.
But if I don’t know what changed, the best I can do is get a message to Alwar and tell him everything I know. How things were, how they are now, and all of the information I’ve collected along the way. I need to explain why he has to fight to keep the wall from falling.
So how do I get such a long message to him when he won’t be born for thousands of years?
After breakfast, I shower and change into jeans, a warm black sweater, and a red coat. I put on my boots and go for a walk. Master tags along despite his limp. I’m looking for a place or a thing on the property that might withstand the elements, the passage of time, and the events on the horizon—monster invasion and a nuclear war.
The only thing I know of that still exists in the age of monsters is the river rock wall itself, but how would I record such a complicated story on piles of stones? How would Alwar even know to look?
“Fuck!” I stop next to my favorite tree and stare up at the spot with the window. I can’t see it from down here, but I know it’s there. The doorway was left open. I don’t have a key to lock it. “Master, I have to leave a record of what’s coming so Alwar can figure out a solution. I just don’t know how.”
Master looks at me.
“What?”
He barks.
“I seriously wish I spoke your language. It would make life so much easier.”
He barks again, like he agrees.
“If you ever get home, make sure to tell the Scholar People they need to create a decoder ring.”
My mind suddenly trips on my own words. The Scholar People.
“Wait. Don’t the Scholar People pass on their knowledge from scholar to scholar?”
Master nods.
“So you go out into the world and bring back knowledge, and they record it. Right?”
Master nods.
“Sonofabitch.” How could I be so lucky? “I’m going to tell you everything I know, Master. You just need to get it to the temple and let them record it.”
He shakes his head.
“I fully realize the wall is being invaded, so you can’t get home right away. You’ll have to wait out the invasion.”
He shakes his head again.
I’m missing something. If he goes home with all this information, then what? Alwar is still dead. So are Bard and Gabrio. God only knows what happened to Tiago.
“What are the chances of you getting my story to the temple and one of the Scholar People crossing back to my world at some point?” Only, it won’t be my world anymore. It will be some very early version of Monsterland. “They just need to come before Alwar is born. Then he’ll come to the Scholar People for his studies, and your people will tell him everything.”
It sounds crazy, sending my story to Monsterland with Master, thousands of years in the future for safekeeping, so that someday, a scholar can jump to the past and deliver it to Alwar while he’s still alive and has plenty of time to come up with a plan. That is, if he even cares.
I try to think how I’d feel if someone told me a story, with me in it, that came from a guy thousands of years ago. And then he pleaded with me to take action, to save him when he’s already dead and has been for several millennia.
I’d laugh. I wouldn’t take it seriously. Unless the story had facts and details that proved it was real. Or at the very least, made me question.
Yep, it’s an insane idea, but what do I have to lose? It either works or it doesn’t, but it’s my only shot at warning the Wall Men about what’s to come, including the end of their people.
I sit down with Master and start telling him everything—my family’s history that’s been erased, his life with us, of me falling in love with Bard, the Proxy Vow, Benicio, Alwar falling in love with Mahra. I tell Master what changed between the life I started out with and this life without them in it. Lastly, I plead with Alwar to figure out what went wrong. “Tell Alwar that I know helping us means the end of the War People, but I’m begging him to find a solution. If the wall falls, they’re dead anyway.” If it doesn’t fall, they never exist.