STOP
It was his own voice, he'd heard it a thousand times, a thousand times a thousand times, but it echoed by the hundred
He looked back. The line behind him did not stretch into infinity as he'd expected. There was of course no one before him, no one else to go through the white-blue explosion, he was the next, he was going to the very beginning of all things because all things had failed if they had reached this point and so he stepped
STOP
This time, it had the force of a command, and an irresistible one at that. He paused, and turned again. The one behind him opened his mouth and every one behind that one opened his mouth, not at the same time but as if dominoes falling rapidly
NOT AGAIN.
The heat and fire were so great he knew he needed to turn back and step forward but he could not, his skin his soul were burning
And suddenly they weren't. The heat and the light and the fire were there, but he was cool. The one right behind him stepped out of line, which should not have been possible from what he'd seen but there it was.
We must. He didn't so much speak as will the thought, gathering energy coursing through his body as his throat tried to heal enough to make words.
The one behind him, his mirror, burned and charred, closed his eyes for a moment before speaking. When he did, he spoke with the voices of everyone behind him, mirrors stretching impossibly back, though their lips remained closed. And when he spoke, he spoke with words.
"This will not work," he said, and then paused, surprised that his throat and lips and vocal cords had worked. He continued, his voice gaining strength with every syllable. "You go through there, into there, every time, and it never works. You merely start everything all over again." Another pause. "This is the first time you have ever stopped."
Jon shook his head. Even in an eternity a split-second long, this made no sense. He was about to say as much, but the Other Jon spoke again. "Please. Answer me this and you'll see. What year did Grandpa leave you the stone?"
That really was an odd question. That had been just ... a day? ... ago. "2000," he croaked.
Other Jon nodded. "What year did you wish for something interesting?"
This was pointless, but as the fire had stopped -- indeed, everything appeared frozen -- he figured he'd play along. "2007," he responded. It had been just hours ago, after all.
"What video game did you play just before bed?"
"Uncharted 2," he replied.
"What year did Uncharted 2 come out?"
"I got brand-new just last week. 2009." There was a pause. "Wait."
Other Jon nodded. "The stone broke everything," he responded. "Time and space. Nine years and more passed in a day from getting the stone to making that wish and going to sleep.
"But it's worse. This -- all of this," he waved his hands around to the cataclysm frozen around them, "has happened before, so many times. You go back, the last of us to go back, to the beginning of everything and cause the stone to exist. When we get the stone, we make a hundred, a thousand, a million different wishes that spiral off into their own realities -- and then we always end up here again.
"This is the first time you've listened. This time, it's different. We have to stop it now."
Jon was 16 and loved sci-fi, so he saw the problem right away. "But if we undo the thing that caused all of this--"
Other Jon nodded. "To correct our own paradox, we must create another, and surround it with stability. We," he gestured to the hundreds behind him, "realized this many cycles ago. We traveled down the thousands of branches. We know what has to be done."
--
She made entrancing noises as she rode him, rocking back and forth, gripping his shoulders, bending down to kiss him and place his hands on her large breasts. "Harder," she growled and moaned. "They won't break." She picked up her rhythm. Her long red hair cascaded back and forth across her face.
A minute later, she came, bringing him with her. When he could speak again, he looked up at her smiling face. "Wow," he said. "I don't want--" he paused for breath. "I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but what's gotten into you? This has always been great, but it's on another level now."
His beautiful wife of so many years smiled down at him. She casually rocked, occasionally closing her eyes and moaning. She'd always insisted on doggy-style in the past, almost exclusively, but something had happened in the last year that had turned her into a total demon who wanted every position imaginable. Idly, she traced on his chest with her left hand. "I need to go up to Lake Point this week," she said, ignoring his question.
He started to respond when suddenly he saw her eyes -- green, then blue, then gold, then--
"Yes of course," he responded. He was semi-retired and wouldn't mind playing house dad for a while. Cate needed to deal with important things in Lake Point. He would just have to make do.
