[ WP ] You have the unique ability to travel back in time.You plan to travel 13 years prior to the time where your father murders your mother.Unbeknownst to you , your father foresaw this and is prepared to stop you .

It was the creak on the stairs that got me. I was heading downstairs for a drink when I landed on the middle step and the loud *creak* emanated from underneath me. At the same time as I saw movement out the corner of my eye, my father looked up and saw me there, witnessing him. He was raising a knife. My mother, lying on her belly, covered in red, red leaking from her mouth; my father sat on top of her, the knife in his hand. He growled when he saw me, his eyes dark. His hand shaking, coalescent with red blood. At the moment he lunged for the doorway my mother, in her dying moments, coughed flecks of blood onto the carpet and she looked up and directly into my eyes, her hand reaching out for me. I saw the pain in her white eyes and her face followed me as I Traveled for the first time. She had done it. I do n't know - I still do n't. But she had given me this power, somehow. Intrinsically I knew I had Traveled less than a minute in to the past. I caught myself crawling out of bed and, understanding suddenly what had happened, somehow, I returned to bed. From downstairs there rose a dull sound again and again. Like a blade sinking again and again into someone's back. I did n't sleep that night. I remained awake and listened to my father murdered my mother. But I knew what she had done: she had let me see the truth, and she had given me this gift and returned me to a moment where my father would n't know anything: he would n't know that I knew he had done it. 
 
 I was 9 at the time; that was thirteen years ago. 
 
 I ran away the day after, police could n't find me and when I found posters with my face on ( and before I ripped them down ) I read a heartfelt - albeit hollow - message from my father seeking my return. I read in the papers a tiny article about my mother; murdered after my father had failed to fight off an assailant who ran away. Son of a bitch. 
 
 I remained on the run, and when they caught me I Traveled back and was never in the same place. I stole as much food as I could; I quickly discovered anything I held Traveled back with me. I could steal from shops and Travel back with the item I had stolen - but ten minutes before I had even stolen it. Every time I Traveled I saw a white light, and the face of my mother appeared indistinct against the white, and I would smile at her visage. It was her gift, and every time I used it I thought of her, and I knew she was there, in some form, inside of me: manifesting in this power. 
 
 It has taken me thirteen years to get a grip on my ability, and to decide to make a move against my father. Tonight is the night. I have to return to the house. I have to stop my young self from going downstairs, it might mess him up: and therefore me, but I have to take the risk. I always thought I was a pretty smart child, he should fairly readily accept I'm a future him. 
 
 The house is empty when I return to it, has been empty for some time. I pointedly ignore the living room where I fear the bloodstains wo n't have been cleaned up, and with my eyes half shut I sprint up the stairs, leaving behind the broken-down door and rush into the room I had lived in for 9 short years. I gathered my thoughts, breathed in. And Traveled. 
 
 Just as I had planned I saw myself there, awake, contemplating going downstairs for a drink, a little while before I - he - moves. I moved in an instant and like a shadow grabbed my younger self, smothering his mouth. I would explain later, for now a sturdy knock to the head saw him back to sleep, entirely oblivious. Even thirteen years later the shock and pain of that attack hit me and I wince. I tuck myself back in, forcing myself not to ruminate - I mean, how many people *this* opportunity? *Later*, I order myself. I crouch low and listen, there are no noises. Father ca n't have started. I move downstairs the hard-learned stealth of thirteen years living rough on the streets directing me. I stop before the middle-step, smiling at it wryly, and move over it. I head in to the living room and there I see 
 
 mother, dead. Father, bloodied hands, breathing heavily looking me straight in the eyes. 
 
 I stare blankly at the corpse. This is five minutes before he should even have started. I ca n't move, I'm frozen to the spot staring at the fresh corpse of my mother, comparing it to the stored memory I retained from when I was 9. Suddenly thirteen years of preparation are n't enough. Suddenly everything has failed and all the bottled up anguish and loathing rush to the surface; all the times I had meditated against attacking directly, in favouring tactic, gone in an instant and I rush the bastard. 
 
 Hands grab me from behind, from the darkness of the hallway. I curse and fight but the hands are too strong and when the smell of his person hits me I falter and collapse. When I looked round I see into the eyes of my father. Another version. Two of them surrounding me. A Traveler. The bastard. The absolute bastard. The fight leaves me and I stop struggling. 
 
'How?' I mumble. 
 
 The father opposite me, the one above my mother's corpse chuckles. 
 
'Think you're mother was the first Traveler? Think *she* gave you the gift?' 
 
'What?' I look into this calm eyes. 
 
'What? What do you mean what? Come on you useless shit *think! *' 
 
 I shake my head. I ca n't. I ca n't. It's too much. Thirteen years dreaming of revenge to have lost the chance to save my mother before it had even began. 
 
'No? You give up. Come on, son. Think.' 
 
 I shake my head. He sighs. 
 
'Tell me,' I whisper.'How did you know?' 
 
'How did I know? Know what? That you were coming?' 
 
 I nod. 
 
'Because I let you get away the first time.' 
 
 I look up and meet his eyes.'You wo n't believe me, but I love your mother.' He looked down at her corpse, her white blouse doused with pools of red.'I did n't want to kill her. And I do n't want to kill you, my son; and thank God, I do n't have to. But, the first time you saw this' - he gestured to the floor -'you were n't so lucky. I had to kill you then.' 
 
'What are you talking about?' The hands from behind release me. They both know - are the same person after all - I can do nothing. So I listen, almost comatose and entirely useless. Defeated - before the fight even began. 
 
'When you Travel you do n't just Travel, you create an entire new universe. From the moment you arrive this universe follows the tangent you created. After your first Travel, you created a tangent where I had n't seen you on that step there. But in the universe you traveled from you still remained. In that universe you never got the gift. And I had to kill you.' 
 
'But you're a Traveler, how can you know? In this universe - by your own laws - you ca n't have seen me.' 
 
'Yes, yes. But I'm more than just a Traveler. I'm something else. And *they*, *they* are something else entirely. It's thanks to them that all of this has happened. All of this is possible. It's because of them I had to kill your mother, and why I let you survive for so long. Unfortunately, even though you tried to stop me, your mother still had to die.' 
 
 I collapse to my knees.'I do n't understand.' 
 
'No, I did n't first time around. All you have to know is this. You can only Travel through time into adjacent universes. I can travel through time *and* into adjacent universes. Understand?' 
 
 I shrugged. 
 
'Look at me, son. You hate me. So I'm going to tell you a secret, I'm going to tell you your future. In three weeks you're going to meet some new people. In four years you'll die for the first time. A month after your death, you'll come back here and kill me - saving your mother. That time I wo n't be able to stop you. You'll be fighting a different me. What happens after that... I ca n't say - I'm erased from every timeline. But those people, the one's who gave me this power, allowing me to pass it on to you - and it was always intended for you - will know more. They know everything. They were scared of your mother, so they made me kill her. But they'll allow her to come back. I do n't know why, do n't ask.' 
 
'You're a liar.' 
 
'Not in this universe. Here.' He approached me, grabbed me under my armpits and brought me to my feet.'That defeat in your eyes, son, that'll be gone in a day. Take this, go there.' 
 
 He handed me a folded up square of paper. Before I could open it something hard and wooden caught me in the back of the head. When I awoke it was dark and I was alone. Both father's had gone and so had my mother's corpse - though the blood remained: the last testament to her existence. I felt the wound on the back of my head, could feel the congealed blood in my hair, and the tender spot as my fingers probed it. In my other hand I held the slip of paper and when I opened it I read a name and an address. I wasted no time. I wrote my younger self a note. Setting him on the same course that I took - at least the I of that first universe. And I left that house forever.
