THYME'S POV:
I couldn't believe it. In my dorm room, lying on my bed and staring at the ceiling, I replayed the last few days. It felt less like a dream and more like a fevered hallucination. A nightmare I couldn't wake up from, filled with things that felt horribly, irrevocably real. I had been dragged through time and space, chased by monsters, and even shot. I had seen another version of myself, a ghost from a past I didn't remember, and another version of Meta, a man with haunted eyes and a sad, knowing smile. My entire world was on fire, and the worst part was that my heart was on fire too.
Just a few weeks ago, Meta was a stranger I'd met on a rooftop. Now, my entire universe revolved around him. I was afraid, not just of the strange things happening to me, but of what this all meant for my heart. My emotions were a tidal wave, a mix of terror and a love so profound it felt like a memory. I sighed, the sound a shaky release of air, and sat up, running a hand through my hair. I needed to clear my head, to find some anchor in this chaos. My eyes landed on my phone, and I picked it up, mindlessly scrolling through the university's social media page. And then I saw it. A post from the university's official page, a banner for a lecture. The club's name, "Journey of a Time Traveler," was plastered across the top. The lecture was titled "Theories and Paradoxes of Time Travel," and it would be led by a former member, a professor.
The comments were a mess of mockery, a digital chorus of ridicule.
"Seriously? Time travel? They still let this club exist?" a comment read, followed by a laughing emoji.
"Bet the lecturer's a total nerd," another scoffed.
But I felt a pull toward the post, a frantic, desperate magnetic force. Time travel. I knew how insane it sounded. But given everything I'd experienced—the shifting timelines, the emotional imprints that weren't mine—I couldn't ignore it. It was scheduled for today at 9:00 AM, and my class wasn't until 12:00 PM. I had a few hours to spare. Was this a sign? A stupid, absurd, unbelievable sign, but a sign nonetheless. I had to go. I needed to know if there was any truth to the madness that had consumed my life. A cold resolve settled in my bones. I had to go.
Even as I walked toward the lecture hall, I could feel the whispers like sharp little thorns. Students gossiping about my recent public incidents, the rumors of my mental breakdown. A part of me, the old Thyme, recoiled in familiar fear, but then I thought of Meta. The sudden, unexpected joy he had brought into my life was a shield against the ridicule. Our relationship was moving forward in a chaotic, beautiful way, and it felt like a melody I'd heard before, a forgotten kind of joy.
I finally arrived at the lecture hall, expecting a handful of fellow eccentrics. Instead, the room was almost full. My initial hope vanished the moment I saw why: the majority of the attendees were female students, giggling and whispering. I felt a wave of disappointment. This wasn't a genuine interest in time travel; it was a social event, a chance to stare at some handsome professor. I sat at the very back, hoping to disappear, to become invisible.
The professor entered, and a fresh wave of giggles rippled through the room. I understood why; he was tall, handsome, and charismatic. My heart sank. This wasn't a serious lecture; it was a fan meeting. I was about to stand up and leave, to accept my failure, when he started to speak.
"Good morning, everyone," he began, his voice calm and clear, cutting through the whispers. "Thank you all for being here today. I know the title of this lecture might sound like something out of a science fiction film, but I believe the boundaries between imagination and reality are thinner than we think."
He paused, scanning the room, his eyes lingering for a moment on mine. "Today, we're not just going to talk about what we know. We're going to talk about what we believe is possible. The concept of time travel has captured our imaginations for generations, but what if it's more than just a dream? What if it's a part of our reality we just haven't figured out yet?"
My doubt returned as he continued, launching into a detailed explanation of "time dilation," "gravitational effects," and "space-time shortcuts." It all sounded so theoretical, so scientific, and so cold. It didn't explain the feeling of being dragged through different timelines, the emotional imprints that weren't mine, or the horrifying premonitions. This lecture wasn't for me. It was for people who thought time travel was a puzzle to be solved, not a living nightmare. I had been a fool to hope. I started to stand up, my hand already on the door.
"But what if I told you that time travel isn't a theory of physics, but a supernatural force?"
The words hit me like a physical blow, a bolt of electricity that rooted me to the spot. The giggling of the girls faded into the background, their voices now just a dull, distant hum. A supernatural way of explanation. This was it. This was what I had been waiting to hear. My heart, which had been heavy with disappointment, began to pound with a renewed, frantic hope.
The professor's gaze swept over the room, a subtle, knowing smile on his lips. "For centuries, countless cultures and traditions have spoken of journeys through time—journeys not made in a spacecraft, but in the mind, the spirit, the soul. These are not scientific theories; they are lived experiences."
He walked to the front of the stage, his tone shifting from academic to something more personal, almost mystical. "Consider the shamans of the world, whose practices involve Shamanic Time Travel. They enter altered states of consciousness to travel through the spirit world, a place where time and space have no meaning. They access ancestral memories to heal trauma from the past. They visit possible futures to gain warnings and insight. For them, time is not a linear path you walk down; it's a vast, non-physical realm where past, present, and future exist together."
My breath hitched, a sharp, painful intake of air. His words were a mirror to my own experience. He was describing the exact feeling I'd had—that I was a vessel for something else, a traveler in a spiritual realm where the past was just as real as the present. I thought of the emotions that weren't mine, the fragments of memory that had felt so ancient. I wasn't just losing my mind. I was a passenger on a journey I didn't ask to take.
"Then there's the concept of Dreamtime from the Australian Aboriginal beliefs," he continued. "A timeless spiritual realm where ancestors and creation spirits exist. Their elders can spiritually communicate with these ancient beings, witness creation events, and gain sacred knowledge that transcends time itself." He paused, letting the words sink in. "And it is not only them. In Hindu and Buddhist mysticism, yogis and sages who attain high spiritual power are said to 'see' the past, present, and future. In some stories, they can meditate so deeply they wake up hundreds of years later. It's a form of time-traveling through pure, focused consciousness."
My mind raced, connecting the dots. He was speaking my language. The terrifying experiences that had made me feel like I was going insane were being given a name. He wasn't talking about science fiction. He was talking about something far older, something spiritual.
"In my own personal study," the professor continued, "I found similar beliefs in pre-colonial Philippines. The Babaylan, spiritual leaders, were said to communicate with ancestral spirits and deities. They could recall ancient events, interpret visions from the future, or 'travel' between the physical and spirit worlds. Their journeys could symbolically transcend time, accessing ancestral wisdom or cosmic warnings. And finally, we see echoes of this in Western Esotericism—traditions like Theosophy, Hermeticism, and Occult magic, where practitioners believe the soul or astral body can exit the body and travel to other dimensions, visiting past lives or future incarnations."
The professor's speech wasn't a collection of ridiculous theories. It was a map. He had just laid out five different paths to the same destination I'd been stumbling toward blindly. For the first time, I felt a spark of hope, a frantic, desperate light in the darkness. This lecture wasn't a waste of time. It was the universe giving me a compass, a way to navigate this nightmare I was in. I no longer felt lost.
The professor's eyes seemed to linger on the students for a moment before he continued, his voice dropping to a near whisper. "These ancient beliefs are not confined to faraway lands. Here, in Thailand, we have our own versions. The Maw Phi, for instance, are shamans known for their trance-based spirit journeys into the past and future. The Lersi Hermits, masters of magic and meditation, are said to see through time and even alter it. And then we have the Visionary Monks and the Phi Fa Shamans, who access past life insights and ancestral memories through deep meditation and spirit communication."
A shiver ran down my spine, but it was a shiver of recognition, not fear. This was a map of a world I never knew existed, a world I was now living in. The professor's next words, however, sent a cold spike of ice through my heart.
"But aside from these four, there was also a secret clan of shamans that existed until the 1960s. This clan was largely unknown because all records of them were intentionally erased by someone. Rumor has it that this clan believed they could create a child who could successfully time travel from the future or even to the past. To achieve this, they would abduct spiritual leaders and practitioners from other countries to strengthen their own abilities." The professor's eyes narrowed slightly, a hint of something darker in his tone. "There is no proof they ever succeeded, and their methods are believed to be the reason the clan was ultimately wiped out."
A profound sense of unease settled over me. A child who could successfully time travel. The nameless clan the professor was describing resonated with me in a way I couldn't explain. Was this why I was here? Was I the child of this twisted, horrifying experiment? Was I a monster?
"But aside from humans, there are also things or places believed to grant access to time travel," he continued, his voice returning to its normal lecture tone. "Most of these are said to be haunted by evil spirits or contain the deep, lingering emotions of their old owners, which can sometimes drive people to madness. I will not discuss those things in detail, but places like mountains, caves, and ancient trees are believed to be capable of triggering a time jump, but it's incredibly rare—like a one in ten million chance. And the possibility of you not returning to your original timeline is significant, so I will not be specific about which places have these possibilities."
I didn't think my time travel was related to those places. My journeys, I realized, were different. They were connected to something else entirely. As the professor spoke, a theory began to form in my mind, a frantic clicking of pieces falling into place. My time travel had always happened when I encountered something related to an entrance, a threshold. Water, for instance—I'd been told that water is believed to be a portal to another time. Smoke or fog could act as a door to another timeline once you were consumed by it. Mirrors and doors were the same, gateways to another reality.
My time travel ability wasn't random; it was a phenomenon of portals. I just didn't know how they were activated. But this lecture, this professor, had just given me a new kind of roadmap. He was more than a scientist and a historian—he was a potential key to my past. I no longer felt lost. I had a direction, and I knew I had to find a way to talk to him. He might just have the answers I desperately needed.