In the year 3050, the terrifying disease called Covid19 wasn’t something of the past. It was still the future, the present. Efforts to alleviate the virus hadn’t worked at all.
—---------------------------------------------------
“Seriously, Futur, this has got to stop. Since the day I’ve been born, corona has been rampant. Now I’m 14, and still, it’s here!”
“Cadeau, I wasn’t the one who created it! It really isn’t my fault,” Futur tried to reason. He had been subjected to Cadeau’s rants for a while now.
“No, but your great great grandad did... and just call me Cade.”
“Come on, he was messing about and created it! You know I didn’t want that to happen!”
“Yeah well, that killed my mother. The doctors still weren’t able to treat her in time. Corona just keeps amazing us with its adaptability, doesn’t it?” Cade’s face was devoid of emotion. “Anyway, you know how I said I created a time portal?"
Grateful for the subject change, Futur replied, “Yep! Did you actually make one?”
“Yes! The other day, I visited my great grandmother. She baked good cookies.”
“And? What does that have to do with me?”
“Well, you’re going with me to 2019. You’re stopping your great great grandad.”
“Cade! If we change the way things are now, then all the advancements made during covid will be erased. The future would be changed drastically!”
“Yeah… but my mother wouldn’t be dead.”
Cade took out a small gadget from his pocket. He pressed in a few buttons, and the gadget expanded. It projected a hologram of a door. Cade keyed in the numbers “2019.” Then, he typed “Passé Dans Temp’s house” and pressed a red button. The door fizzled in and out, then solidified.
“Come on, Futur. We’ve got some explaining to do. That is your great great grandfather’s name, correct?”
“Yes, but-” Cade pulled Futur along with him and jumped through the door.
—---------------------------------------------------
“What- oh my gosh.”
Futur and Cade gaped at the world around them. They had only read about it in textbooks, and they never expected it to be so.. unadvanced. The cool hover-cars were gone, and a mailman delivered the mail, not the drones that they were accustomed to. They were standing in front of a bright red house. Cade knocked on the door, while Futur stood with his mouth open.
“I know why your parents named you Cadeau. It means “present” in French, the gift kind. Personally, you aren’t exactly acting like a gift to the world. You’re destroying it. But, in a related sense, your mind is stuck in the present. You need to worry about what will happen in the future.” Futur mumbled underneath his breath. Cade paid him no attention.
The door swung open, and a man with graying hair stepped out.
“Hello? I’m pretty busy,” the man said.
“Listen, Passé. You have to stop experimenting with whatever you’re experimenting with. You’re going to start a world-wide pandemic that’ll last for quite some time.” Cade, always the straight-forward one, blurted out.
Passé’s eyes widened. “What?”
Futur started explaining what they were here for grudgingly.
“So, you’re saying that I’m the one to create something called “coronavirus?” And it’ll last for a long time? And you’re my great great grandson?”
Both nodded.
“Well then, come inside. We’ll have a cup of tea and discuss,” Passé holds the door open for them while they go inside.
“Alright.” Cade cracks his knuckles and takes a sip of his earl grey tea.
“Once coronavirus started, the world was in shambles. School was shut down. Doctors were furiously working for a vaccine, and managed to procure a few that the FDA approved. Many people got covid tests and vaccines, and for a while, it started to look a bit better in 2021.” Futur tried to start off positively.
“Alas, there came the variants. They were basically different versions of coronavirus. Not to mention, there were a lot of them. It’s quite a mouthful. Ok, there were variants Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Omicron, and so much more. The names of the variants were named after the Greek Alphabet,” Cade continued.
“Eventually, doctors weren’t able to keep up. The vaccines stopped working, and the world dissolved into chaos. We had to wear masks to stop the spread. They were terribly itchy. Also, dying by corona was a pretty gruesome death. You’d suffocate.”
Futur cleared his throat and added, “So if you don't start corona at all, that’d be great. That’s the whole reason Cade dragged me along.”
“My, my, Futur. You might need to get that throat checked out.” Cade took a sip of tea. “Mr. Passé, do you understand why we came here?”
Passé, who had been mentally freaking out, composed his face and closed his mouth.
“Young man, I apologize for all the toils and troubles that I’ve put you through. I really didn’t think that… it would lead to a world-wide pandemic…” Passé started babbling.
“Sir?” Cade spoke up.
“My sincerest apologies, I just went off to some random tangent. I assume you lad, that it will be taken care of. I will certainly never cause this COVID-19 to ever start.”
—-----------------------------------------------
“Well, Futur, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” Cade laughed as he keyed the information to the time-portal.
Futur, however, was sweating. He was mumbling underneath his breath.
Cade, completely oblivious, finished typing, then pulled Futur along with him into the glowing hologram.
—--------------------------------------------------
When they stepped out, Cade’s mouth dropped open.
The world changed from how they last saw it. It wasn’t as futuristic. The people in the streets weren’t wearing masks, granted, but the technology was less advanced. Just like what they had seen in 2019.
By taking away COVID-19, Cade had taken away all the technological and medical advances along with it.
Life had changed.
It had just become so much more inconvenient, corona-free or not.
He turned around when he heard a familiar voice. A voice that was warning him all along. A voice he had not heeded.
“I told you, there’s always a price for messing with the past.”
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