Now, I wouldn’t say everything went back to normal. Due to my muscle atrophy I was barely any use to anyone at first. My muscles weren’t all that bad so with a little exercise my movement became easier. But for a good day I was back and forth between my bed and the couch. During that time we brainstormed ideas on how to catch these two but came up with nothing.

Tim pretty much kept every moment of my rest to himself. Constantly bothering me and asking me crazy philosophical questions. On top of that the constant nagging about being too broken minded. He would always say that if it wasn’t for him then I would be having panic attacks every few minutes. I ignored it but it got me thinking. Why haven’t I broken down yet? After all that trauma you would think I was insane but I feel mostly fine.

Anyways time moved on peacefully for a while and as we came up with ideas I realized that I was truly home. There was nowhere else on earth that I could give that name in any part of time. This was all I needed. Of course as I thought this it hit me.

“You want to what?” Elysif asked in bewilderment.

“I want to go forward in time and ask future versions of yourselves where the murder occurred if ther was one. If not I repeat the process until I can come up with something.”

“That sounds easy enough. It might be our best bet even.”

“Well, it’s not that easy. I still don’t entirely understand how to travel though certain increments in time. I deduced that when I escaped I only traveled an hour ahead at most. To add to that, when I did travel I had no control over the activation. Last time my watch got destroyed and that triggered it. I don’t know whether I have to destroy another watch or if I can just do it on command now.”

“Well can’t you ask your power… Tim?” Elysif asked.

“Yes, but Tim isn’t exactly the poster child of helpfulness. He’s more like a mosquito bite, you know it’s there and you want it gone but all it ever does is itch.”

“So you’ll just be shooting in the dark until you figure it out?” Scott asked.

“Pretty much.”

“Why don’t you try thinking about what caused the activation?”

“I would rather not.”

“No, I mean the watch getting shattered. If that’s the catalyst then maybe you mentally recreate that?”

“I’ll try but I don’t know how it’s gonna work.” I said closing my eyes and picturing my wristwatch as it was cut in two by the cleaver. Nothing happened.

Maybe I need to be desperate. I thought about being tortured, the knife being raised up before being slammed down on a body part. I started to feel dizzy like I was experiencing a flash of light and I was terrified. My mind shifted for a second and a similar sensation to that of being turned to dust came over me. I opened my eyes to see that the room was different. No, it wasn’t different. Scott and Elysif had moved, that was all. “Did it work?”

“Well, yes and no.” Scott said.

“You disappeared for about a minute then came back.”

“Well now I know how to activate it.” I said with an unenthusiastic smile.

“It’s a start.”

I wanted to ask Tim how to get the timing right but the more I thought about it the more I realized I couldn’t trust that kid. This was all a game to him. Toying with my life and making me suffer for some kind of twisted pleasure. I knew nothing about him and couldn’t trust the information that I would be given. For now, I would try it without him.