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writing-prompt-s :
In a future where time travel exists, criminals are punished by being sent to a random point in time. Having been convicted of a crime, you now face your punishment.
I stand in the pod thing. It's transparent, so I can see the moment they activate the machine. I don't regret what I did. I did it because I was probably going to die if I didn't.
Of course, just a second after the button is pressed, I feel a deep buzzing in my chest, like the one you might get after drinking a lot of caffeine.
What we weren't expecting was for another version of me to appear right in front of me, just outside the pod, who immediately opened the door of the pod and jumped in with me.
I was confused, of course, but simply stepped to the side of the pod. It was about the size of a small bathroom so it wasn't hard. The pod around us sparkled, which was likely only a vision thing from my perspective, and both versions of me appeared on the other side of the pod door, where there were now two people inside.
We both dash into the pod before it actually goes off, and the cycle repeats a couple times, until no more people could fit inside. I have no idea how time travel works exactly, but it seems to be working in my... our... favor.
This massive crowd of mes immediately dismantles the time travel machine, an idea I just thought of, and seemingly everyone else but the newest 2 people did as well. An equal crowd of mes stepped out of the pod, and also instantaneously realized what was happening.
I'm saving the shock for later. Right now I'm punching through a massive glass pane. And the people on the other side are panicking. A lot. Of course a massive crowd of people suddenly appearing in a room would be able to overpower a couple of guards, even with guns.
I hear very few gunshots, and it's actually remarkably quiet. I mean, I'm a quiet person, but you'd think that a massive crowd of yourself would at least have tactical chatter. No, we know what we're going to do next. Not exactly like a hive mind, but not exactly not like one. I duck as someone behind me punches the guard in front of me, and we all funnel out of the door.
Really slowly actually. We're all too awkward to go first so it's just kinda slow. The actual exit of the building is really close, and we burst through the doors a lot faster this time because not only did we learn from the first door, but this one is a double door. A natural solution. I look back to see if anyone had been injured, but everyone who had been shot seems to be being carried by at least two others.
The sunlight is blinding and hot, not great because we're all wearing full black. We can deal with it. The road is right there, if we can get a car- well, a lot of cars- we can escape and all that. As if our collective prayer had been answered, although with this many versions of myself thinking and wishing for the same thing would probably have more praying power than one person, a yellow school bus rolled down the road and stopped in front of the massive crowd. It was empty, thank goodness, aside from the driver.
We all hop in and are driven far away. I have no idea where. It's somewhere better than this, and one of us grabs the first aid kit and holds it up for all the injured to see. I'm glad I have this much coordination with myself, it's nice to see this clearly. I think once we get to a place where we're more safe, we'll assign a number to each of us, just to make identification more easy.
I'm safe. That's all that I care about, other than the safety of more of me. Yeah. This is probably gonna be cool.
[
This version of the character, the one we follow, actually gets their number to be 2. Great coincidence, since the numbers were selected randomly and they were the second version of themself to pop up.
cool
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