Professor Vitax was trapped. He wanted to fall asleep but knew very well that would be a fatal mistake; a glance in the direction of Jonathon’s half eaten remains near the cave’s entrance reaffirmed that fact.
Jonathon had been one of his brightest students at the university. He had possessed a brilliant mind as well as an incredible imagination, unparalleled by any other person he knew.
He had always liked Jonathon and saw great potential in him. He recalled fondly the first time Jonathon had walked into his classroom. He was pencil thin and sported a mismatched set of clothes, the stereotypical nerd. But intelligence shone through his odd exterior very quickly, overriding any preconceived notions anyone had of him.
He had only been twenty years old but had already managed to successfully fuse his computer like mind with a boundless grasp of imagination. He traveled to the outer reaches of possibility and beyond. He would access a situation, weigh all possible solutions and their consequences and apply the most feasible one, regardless of its origins or structure. He was a true genius, undoubtedly capable of great things.
But his life ended far too early and much too violently. A frown replaced the smile on the professor’s face as he again realized his current situation. Jonathon was responsible for it although somewhat indirectly. His advanced mind, coupled with his boundless imagination, had unlocked one of the great and terrifying secrets of mankind. Jonathon had himself remarked that he had resided somewhere between fiction and non-fiction; one of his allegorical labels that he enjoyed placing on himself. This moniker had allowed him to tap into the realm of fiction while he was researching the aging process and how to best slow it down.
A deep, guttural snarl filtered into the cave from a short distance away. Professor Vitax straightened up and tightened his grip on a tree branch that he had managed to pick up earlier; it was his only defense. He whispered a prayer mixed with a vow of not ending up like Jonathon, a promise that he could only hope he could keep.
Jonathon had been nearing a breakthrough and had confided in the professor what he was uncovering. It had been an unusually warm day when he strolled confidently into the professor’s classroom. He seemed excited but also agitated and disturbed. The first thing the professor had noticed about him was the sweat, which coated his face and the wild look in his usually placid eyes. He was very close to a breakthrough with his research and needed someone to talk to. The professor set aside the paperwork he was working on and attempted to calm him down. Seeing his brightest student, whom he also regarded as a friend and even a colleague to some degree, stressed to the point of a nervous breakdown was troubling to say the least.
Jonathon was babbling. His words were nearly incoherent and the speed with which he was talking was truly astounding. It was as if his mouth was incapable of keeping up with his brain. The professor strained to decipher them.
Jonathon raved on and on about discovering the true source of time and its origins. He said that time itself was a malevolent entity, possibly even organic in some twisted and incomprehensible way and that it worked with death. The two forever labored together on the demise of everything, from mankind right down to the smallest and most insignificant microbe. Time wielded its most common and effective weapon, aging, the majority of the time but occasionally it struck with a much more devastating form of attack…time displacement. He added that time could not alter reality however but only change when reality occurred. The look in his eyes shocked the professor.
Jonathon took a deep breath and attempted to steady his nerves. After downing a large glass of water he looked the professor straight in the eyes and delivered the most frightening words yet…he was afraid that time was going to come after him.
The professor originally scoffed at his pupil, summing up his erratic behavior to too much work and too little sleep. The possibility that Jonathon could have actually been correct with his results hardly occurred to him; a mistake that he would learn to dearly regret.
A shudder stung his spine as he recalled when he and Jonathon were transported to the place he now found himself in. One minute they were standing in his classroom and the next thing they knew they were running for their lives in a dense predator-filled forest.
He had a completely new perspective on mankind’s place in the world. God, time, death, fate, all were powerful forces who controlled all existence. Perhaps they were one in the same; merely different branches on the same tree meting out rewards and punishments at their whim.
The growl was starting to increase both in its intensity and its tone. It smelled him and knew there was prey nearby. The professor wondered what fate time had originally planned for him. Maybe it would have been a much less violent end.
It was getting close now. Heavy sniffing and panting punctuated the snarls and groans as it plodded towards the cave where the professor was holed up. A rudimentary excitement filled its pea-sized brain as it swung its thirty- foot long bulk through the foliage.
Professor Vitax lifted the tree branch and held it as tight as his weakened condition would allow. Sweat beaded on his forehead and matted down his thin gray hair to his head; he was ready as he would ever be.
He laughed to himself when he thought about the prospect of calling out for help. It was just the basic reaction of self- preservation, oblivious to the fact that Homo sapiens didn’t exist yet.
The Allosaurus poked its formidable snout into the cave opening and sniffed. It sensed prey was near, it could smell it, and although it would be a far smaller meal than the roaming sauropods it was used to devouring, it was much too hungry to pass on it.
Professor Vitax tried to remain still, hoping that the beast would not be able to sense his location. But when the carnivore reared back and crashed its two-ton bulk into the cave, the professor knew he was doomed. And as the carnivore’s teeth sliced into his flesh he heard time laughing at him like a little girl.