Prologue

The Time Family Series Book 1: Revenge Gambit

Prologue

Time travel and revenge have much in common. The goal of both is to right the wrongs of the past. You just have to be careful not to destroy future’s written path along the way, for nothing lies that way. But what if something so unforgivable happened to you that a normal future was not only impossible to obtain, but to even imagine?

It’s much easier to tell others to move on than to actually do so. This misery within is impossible to heal from because it left me completely shattered, only to rebuild me into an empty shell of something that once lived with reason. If I could go back and stop it from happening, I never would have ended up here, lost and forever tormenting myself with desperate, ultimately futile thoughts of saving you. My existence is a constant circle of why and regret, a damning paradox without the hope of ever feeling okay ever again.

All that’s left for me is exacting the same wretched fate onto the Time family.

They don’t remember what they did. Technically, it didn’t happen in their plane of existence—yet I still exist. I still remember. I want to let go. I want to forget and move on. I’ve tried so hard to, but I can’t, so they shouldn’t be able to live in peace either. They don’t appreciate how good their lives are. They don’t understand how awful life always ends up becoming.

There is no other world, parallel universe, alternate reality, timeline, saving grace or loved one I can turn to, but it doesn’t matter. I don’t care how many lives I have to eliminate. The Times will face justice for what they did; they will not get away with this any longer. Revenge, dissolution, eradication are the only things that will bring me a sense of calmness, of serenity, of just—no more.

But how?

Ruining their lives won’t bring back my reason to live. Killing them won’t give me justice. Ending their timelines won’t change my timeline. Their deaths will fix nothing. Nothing will right the wrong. Nothing will save you.

But the complete erasure of everyone, of everything, of myself—that is the answer. The end of everything is not enough. I need everything to have never been. Total nothingness is the only path that leads to the end of my anguish.

Complete nothingness will allow me to feel nothing. No more hurt. No more pain. No more sorrow. I feel nothing now, but it’s an emptiness that begs to be filled, that exists only to haunt me and consume my everything in an endless, fruitless hunt for a life with some sort of joy and meaning to it.

I will know true nothingness if it’s the last thing I do. It will be the last thing I do. It needs to be. Vengeance will be mine, even if I have to annihilate every single life, world, universe, reality, and timeline to get it. No stone will be left unturned. No road will be left not taken. I can’t feel if I, along with everything else, have never been. The end of the Times, the very end of everything, is my only hope for the sweet, beautiful release of pure nothingness.

I don’t care what the Order thinks anymore. I am coming for all of you.