Deja Vu?

By: Paxton Wall

"Hey, do you ever get the feeling that you've done this already?"

"What do you mean?

"It feels like we've been here and done this before."

"Well, yeah. We guard this same lab every night."

"Yeah, I guess so." The two security guards worked the night shift at a secret government lab. It was so secret, in fact, that neither of them knew what experiments the scientists conducted. They only knew that the job paid well, and that every night was uneventful. Every night but this one.

"ALERT," the PA system blurted, "TEMPORAL INSTABILITY DETECTED!"

The two guards jolted up in their seats, completely startled by the blaring alarms that were echoing through the hall.

"What's going on?"

"I don't know! This part wasn't in the job description!"

"Is anyone else in the lab?"

"I think it's just us. I'm sure that the alert isn't that serious."

"You're probably ri-"

"ALERT, TEMPORAL CATASTROPHE IMMINENT!"

The two guards stood up and rushed down the hall, heading towards the door that was flanked on either side by glaring red lights. They swung open the door to see an immense, whirring machine covered in blinking lights and levers. Upon closer inspection, the machine seemed to be smoking.

"What do we do?"

"I have no idea, I went to security guard training, not engineering school."

"There's a cord leading to the wall. Maybe we just need to unplug the machine."

"If it might prevent a catastrophe, then it's worth a shot."

As the guards tugged the cord out of the wall, a scientist who was in the bathroom burst into the room. The machine sputters to a stop.

"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?", the guard shouts.

The guards whip around to look at the scientist, but are blinded by a bright light reflecting around the room from the machine. Then everything goes dark.

"Hey, do you ever get the feeling that you've done this already?"