Another Place in Time
Copyright© 2025 by Sage Mullins
Epilogue
Science Fiction Story: Epilogue - A story involving travel through time to a post-apocalyptic future. Abby, a young woman of 25 who is stuck in a rut in her personal and professional life, gets sent from the present to a future world where the Earth's population has been decimated by a mysterious entity with evil intentions. She is surprised to discover that this world holds unexpected opportunities for personal growth.
Caution: This Science Fiction Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Fa/Fa Romantic Fiction Post Apocalypse Time Travel Slow Violence
October 21, 2043 – Near Seattle, Washington
It was almost noon on an overcast autumn day. A soft drizzle pattered against the living room window, blurring the pines outside into strokes of deep green and gray. Inside, the Desai residence was warm, filled with the scent of cardamom tea and sandalwood from a candle Charlene had lit an hour ago.
Raj Desai sat on the edge of the couch, flipping through an old research journal but not really reading it. The clock above the mantle ticked with steady precision. Every few seconds, he glanced toward the front door.
Charlene noticed. “You’re nervous,” she said, smiling slightly as she adjusted the knit throw over her lap. Her free hand brushed absently against the slight curve of her belly.
“I’m ... curious,” he admitted. “They sounded very sincere. The woman said they had something of importance to share - something personal.”
Charlene raised a brow. “You do realize how that sounds, don’t you? You just ... invite complete strangers to our home because of an email?”
Raj gave a soft chuckle, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “They’re not strangers, exactly. She gave me her credentials - a physician, and her husband’s in the Air Force. They didn’t seem dangerous.”
“That’s what everyone says before their story ends up in a true crime documentary.”
He grinned, leaning over to kiss her forehead. “You’ve been watching too many of those.”
“I have the time,” she teased, patting her belly. “And besides, if this is some scam about donating to a foundation or investing in a ‘world-changing’ project, I’m sending them right back out the door.”
Before Raj could answer, there was a knock - polite, measured, three times.
He rose quickly, smoothing the front of his sweater vest, and opened the door.
A woman and a man stood on the porch. The woman was in her mid-forties, tall and self-assured, her red hair pulled back in a loose knot. She wore simple slacks and a gray coat, her posture both graceful and deliberate. The man beside her - roughly the same age, broad-shouldered, with short-cropped hair beginning to gray at the temples - carried himself with quiet military composure.
“Dr. Desai?” the woman asked, her voice warm but steady.
“Yes. Please, come in,” Raj said, stepping aside.
“I’m Dr. Abby Blevins,” said the woman in an amiable voice. “And this is my husband, Captain Jason Masters, US Air Force.” They entered, shaking off the damp. Jason removed his cap, giving a courteous nod to Charlene as Raj introduced her.
Charlene smiled politely. “Please, sit down. Can I offer you tea? Coffee?”
“Coffee would be lovely,” Abby said. “Thank you.”
Charlene disappeared into the kitchen, leaving the three of them in a comfortable silence. Jason’s eyes roamed the room - framed photos of Raj and Charlene at Mount Rainier, a collection of antique maps, a few baby books stacked neatly on a side table.
When Charlene returned with the tea tray, conversation turned briefly to ordinary things - Raj’s work at the Northwest American Research Institute, Charlene’s pregnancy, the unpredictable Seattle weather. The guests offered small talk with practiced warmth.
Finally, Charlene - ever the one to pierce polite fog - set her cup down and smiled tightly. “So,” she said. “You mentioned this visit had ... a purpose?”
Abby glanced at her husband. He gave a subtle nod.
“Yes,” she said. “And I’ll explain. But before I do ... I need to ask something that might sound unusual.”
Raj tilted his head slightly, intrigued. “Go on.”
Abby reached into her coat pocket and withdrew a small object - an oval stone pendant on a slender chain. Even in the muted light, it shimmered faintly, as though holding a quiet pulse of color beneath its smooth surface.
Charlene leaned forward, brow furrowing. “That’s ... beautiful. What is it?”
Abby looked down at it for a moment, almost reverently, before meeting Charlene’s gaze again. “Something,” she said softly, “that might help me show you what words alone can’t explain.”
Charlene felt a chill trace her spine - not of fear, but of something she couldn’t name. Jason watched in silence, his expression unreadable but somehow protective.
Raj sat very still, the slightest glimmer of understanding stirring somewhere deep in his mind - a connection forming that he couldn’t yet articulate.
Abby turned the pendant slowly in her hand, the glow beneath its surface now unmistakable. “It’s perfectly safe,” she said gently, glancing from Charlene to Raj. “It doesn’t harm. It only reveals.”
Charlene folded her arms, wary. “Reveals what, exactly?”
“You’ll see soon,” Abby replied. Then, as if to reassure them, she pressed the smooth stone to her own forehead. A brief shimmer of light pulsed through it, casting a soft blue sheen across her face. She inhaled deeply, then smiled - calm and unharmed.
She turned to Raj. “May I do the same for you, Dr. Desai? I promise ... once it touches you, you’ll understand everything.”
Charlene’s lips tightened. “Raj-”
But Raj lifted a hand, silencing her. He couldn’t explain it, but something within him - a sensation almost like déjà vu magnified a thousandfold - urged him to trust this woman. “It’s all right,” he said quietly. “I ... I want to know.”
Abby nodded, rising from the couch to stand before him. Her expression softened - not clinical, but compassionate. “All right,” she said. “Hold still.”
She lifted the pendant and pressed it gently to the center of his forehead.
“Invocation one,” Abby muttered.
The words seemed to ripple through the air like the strike of a tuning fork. For a moment, nothing happened.
Then Raj staggered backward, gasping - eyes wide, his hands gripping the back of a chair for balance. Images poured into him in an impossible rush: faces, voices, fire, light, and above all, the roar of the sky.
He knew. He saw.
He remembered things he had never lived - the allergen crisis that would consume the world in another branch of time. His own death in 2052, falling from the sky as an aircraft crashed into the Oregon mountains. The tsunami that destroyed their home, following the great Pacific Northwest earthquake. Charlene being taken, years later, in one of the alien attacks. The years of devastation that followed.
And within it all ... his daughter.
A brilliant woman with wide brown eyes and a fierce, gentle heart, standing in a gleaming laboratory, holding a vial of shimmering catalyst - the key that saved what remained of humanity.
Essence. The name filled his mind like a chord.
He drew a sharp breath, clutching his chest. “My God,” he whispered. “I ... I can see it all.”
Charlene stood frozen, her teacup trembling in her hands. “Raj? What’s happening to you?”
He turned to her, eyes shining, his voice shaking. “She’s telling the truth, Charlene. This woman ... she’s shown me something beyond imagining. A whole world that came after us. A world we never lived to see.”
Charlene backed a step, her fear plain. “You sound insane-”
“No,” he said softly, taking her hand. “Listen to me. Dr. Blevins has done us a great favor.”
Abby lowered the pendant, her expression sober. “You understand now why I came.”
Charlene looked between them, uncertain - torn between disbelief and the unmistakable calm in her husband’s eyes. Finally, she exhaled, her voice trembling. “All right. I don’t understand it ... but if Raj says it’s all right-”
Abby approached her slowly, her tone tender. “You’re carrying someone very special, Charlene. I think it’s time you knew why.”
Charlene’s hand instinctively moved to her abdomen, protectively. Abby smiled, remembering - not the woman before her, but the friend she had known decades ahead.
“If you’re ready,” Abby said softly.
Charlene nodded once, hesitant but resolute.
Abby pressed the pendant gently to her forehead.
“Invocation two.”
The air thrummed again, softer this time, like a sigh of wind through pines. Charlene’s eyes fluttered open, as wonder overtook her features. Tears welled as she looked at Abby, then at Raj.
“I saw it,” she whispered. “All of it. The chaos ... the loss ... but then - she fixed it. My daughter ... she healed the world?”
Abby nodded, eyes bright. “She did. Your daughter saved countless lives.”
Jason, who had been silent until now, allowed himself a small grin. “My wife here played a pretty big part in it too,” he added lightly, his voice cutting the tension with warmth.
Charlene gave a wet laugh through her tears. “I don’t doubt that.”
Abby’s gaze drifted down to the gentle curve of Charlene’s belly. “There’s one more thing,” she said quietly. “Because Essence is part of you right now, she’s received everything you’ve just seen - all the knowledge, all the memory, all the hope. It’s buried deep within her, waiting.”
Charlene’s eyes widened. “You mean ... she’ll remember?”
“Not at first,” Abby said. “It will come to her gradually - in dreams, in instincts, in moments of clarity. She won’t know why at first ... but she’ll feel it. And one day, she’ll use it to do what she’s meant to do. Whatever that may be.”
For a long time, the only sound was the rain, tapping softly against the glass.
Charlene sat back, both hands resting protectively over her unborn child. “Then she’ll have a purpose before she’s even born,” she murmured.
Abby smiled, her voice barely above a whisper. “She always did.”
And as the pendant dimmed in her hand, the echo of unseen timelines seemed to stir in the room - like a promise sealed across the folds of time.
A little later, the rain had eased to a mist, leaving a somewhat musty scent drifting through the slightly open kitchen window. The four of them sat around the small oak dining table, the pendant now resting motionless in the center - its dim glow extinguished, its work for the day complete.
Raj leaned forward, elbows on the table, his face lit only by the dim overhead light. A notepad lay before him, filled with scribbles and half-formed equations. His scientific mind had already shifted from awe to action.
“So,” he said slowly, looking up from the paper, “if everything I saw was true - and I have no doubt that it was - then we have six years before the First Incident.”
Charlene sat beside him, her hand cradling her abdomen. “Six years,” she repeated softly, almost to herself.
“Six years,” Raj confirmed. “To stop the exposure from happening at all.”
Jason, sitting across from him, folded his arms. “Do you think it’s possible to change that much? To stop something that big?”
Raj gave a wry smile. “If we’ve learned anything tonight, Captain, it’s that the future isn’t fixed. The moment your wife went back, everything began to shift. And if time gave us another chance, we’d be fools not to use it.”
Abby nodded. “You’re right. I didn’t come here just to give you a warning. I came because I know you’ll do something about it.”
He turned the pen in his hand thoughtfully. “NASA’s Atmospheric Research Division,” he said, almost thinking aloud. “They have a new biological sciences initiative in Houston. I’ve done consulting for them before. They’re working with the CDC on containment protocols for extraterrestrial samples - though, of course, they don’t know how relevant that will be yet.” He looked up, eyes sharp. “If I can quietly steer some of that research, get the right people looking in the right direction before 2049...”
Jason leaned forward. “You could stop the exposure – the sensitization - before it ever happens.”
“Exactly,” Raj said. “The problem in the other time branch was response time - no one perceived the threat until it was too late. But if I start nudging the right people now, put certain questions on the record ... we might be able to change the course entirely.”
Charlene exhaled. “And the ... the crash? The earthquake?”
Raj reached across the table and covered her hand with his. “We’ll take precautions. I’ll make sure I never take that Stanford flight in 2052. We’ll move inland before 2050 - maybe Colorado. I’ll apply for a research fellowship somewhere far from the coast.” His tone softened. “We’ll be alive, Charlene. All three of us.”
She nodded, eyes glistening. “All three of us,” she echoed. A long, comfortable silence followed.
Abby pushed her chair back slightly. “It’s time we go,” she said softly. “We’ve done what we came for.”
Jason rose with her, giving a courteous nod to Raj and Charlene. “It’s been an honor to meet you both. You’ll do great things ... for your family, and for the world.”
Charlene stood, walking them to the door. But as Abby stepped past her, Charlene hesitated, a tender curiosity in her eyes. “Before you go,” she said, “would you ... like to feel her?”
Abby froze for a moment, then nodded, her throat tightening. “I’d like that very much.”
Charlene took Abby’s hand and guided it gently to her rounded abdomen. For a moment, there was only the rustle of rain outside - and then, a small, unmistakable kick.
Abby gasped softly, tears forming instantly. “She’s strong,” she whispered.
Charlene smiled through her own tears. “She’s already listening.”
Abby’s voice broke. “You tell her ... she’s going to change everything.”
“I think she already has,” Charlene murmured.
Abby squeezed her hand once, lingering for a moment longer before stepping back. Jason placed a hand on Abby’s shoulder, and the two turned toward the door.
Raj followed them out onto the porch, his face set with resolve. “We’ll stay in touch,” he said firmly. “Regularly. No matter what.”
Abby turned back, giving him a knowing smile - one that carried twenty years of experience and a thousand lifetimes of gratitude. “I know you will,” she said. “Just ... be ready. Time has a way of testing those who try to rewrite it.”
Raj nodded. “Then we’ll just have to be smarter than time.”
The couple walked down the rain-damp steps and disappeared into the foggy gloom, their car headlights cutting twin paths through the mist. Raj stood there long after they’d gone, the subdued hum of the pendant echoing in his mind - not as sound, but as memory.
Inside, Charlene rested her hands on her stomach and whispered to the child within. “Sleep well, my little one,” she said softly. “The world is already waiting for you.”
Abby and Jason found a booth near the window of the small café they’d visited once or twice previously. The place was half-empty - a handful of late diners murmuring over coffee cups, soft jazz humming low through the speakers. They ordered sandwiches and more coffee, and sat in reflective silence for a few minutes. Abby stared out at the wet street, where the glow of headlights rippled across the puddles.
Finally, Jason broke the quiet. “Well,” he said, leaning back in the booth, “I think that went about as well as it could have.”