When Back In Time

IT WAS 2019, to be accurate, May 17, 2019.

Esperanza was dashing towards her room. She immediately opened the door and entered. She locked it and looked at her wristwatch.

'I need to change it. I can make things right,' she said to herself as she remembered what happened.

Her tears started to fall as she remembered her parents delivered the news. Maria, her friend, was found unconscious in the park with bruises and blood.

'It's my fault. I need to make things right,' she thought to herself.

She then wiped her tears and turned the crown from her wristwatch and adjusted the time to 11:30 a.m., the time before it all happened.

Then, everything moved as she saw herself and other people moved backward. Meanwhile, the black sky turned to blue and its host from moon to sun.

Finally, Esperanza was on her desk on exactly 11:30 a.m. Her teacher was at the front of the class announcing the afternoon class suspension.

Maria, who was sitting in front of her, looked back and smiled. "Now we can go home early, sa wak------ huh?"

Without hesitation, Esperanza, happily, hugged Maria. The latter was safe with no bruises. But she was only safe for now.

"Thank goodness, " Esperanza mumbled.

"What's going on Esperanza?" Maria asked.

Esperanza let go of her and shook her head. She smiled, "Nothing."

"I'm going to make things right. I'm going to save you, I promise, " Esperanza said.

"What?" Maria asked as her face questioned her.

Esperanza grabbed Maria and their stuff. When they get outside, she told Maria not to take the road near the park but instead to make a detour. Maria was skeptical but Esperanza kept insisting to make a detour in going home. Finally, Esperanza convinced her.

Right on time, Esperanza saw the fat guy she saved awhile ago from the three guys. She did the same thing she did to him a while ago.

At that moment Esperanza thought she finally saved two people but everything she did is in vain.

As Maria and the fat guy were safety get themselves at home, two more people were victimized at the park.

Esperanza turned time back to past, again and again. But whatever she did, even if she tried to save people, other people were still beaten up. She even tried to get the police involved and get the three guys to stop bullying the fat guy at the park, but still, they kept victimizing another one, if not in the park but in another location.

It seems, whatever Esperanza did were wrong.

History kept repeating per se over and over.

"That's it. One last turn to past," she said, irritated, and turned the crown.

But the crown on the wristwatch would not budge.

She tried to turn it but it was not moving. "Come... on," she said and turned it counterclockwise. She tried it again and then again.

It did not turn.

In irritation and desperation, she drew her wristwatch towards her face. She used her teeth to move the crown. She tried to turn it with all her might. The taste of metal was already on her mouth.

"Why you won't move?" Esperanza gritted her teeth in annoyance.

She used her fingers to move it. "What is wrong with.... this thing."

Standing up in irritation, she went downstairs. She went inside their garage.

Looking from left and right, she sought the pliers of her papa. Laying the wristwatch on the desk of his papa, she clipped the pliers tightly on the crown, holding the handle tightly, Esperanza started to turn it counter clockwise. The crown was hard to move. Esperanza tried it again and giving it with all her energy, the crown finally move.

She was about to set the hands back to 11:30 a.m. when suddenly the second, minute and hour hands kept rotating nonstop in counter-clockwise.

'Oh no. What now?' she asked herself and stared at her wristwatch.

Eyeing it, she vigorously shook her wristwatch. The hands would not stop revolving. This time the hands rotated faster. A strong wind came and took her father's tools in the air. She took a step back as not only the tools were kept twirling on the air as a big tornado occurred inside the garage. Papers, table, chairs hovered and swirled in the air.

"What's going on?"

Turning her back, she saw the walls starting to crack and give in. The cemented wall was s.u.c.k.e.d by the tornado, destroying the garage.

Esperanza began to sprint but she felt her feet were off the ground. She looked down and saw she was floating.

"Whoa! No! Help!"

Her hand grabbed the doorknob. Her body was being s.u.c.k.e.d by the big tornado which was not only destroying the garage but the entire house. The roof was nowhere to be found and she saw the sky shifting from night to dusk, noon, sunrise, twilight and then night and repeat again the cycle.

She jerked her head as she heard a crack. The door was cracked in the middle and before she could blink, the door was finally wrecked and s.u.c.k.e.d towards the tornado. And so was she.

She let out a shrieked as the strong wind harshly hustled her in the air.

Her eyes were shut down. 'Please God help me,' she silently prayed.

She felt her body was kept moving in the air by the harsh wind.

Then, there was silence. She could no longer hear the strong wind, could no longer hear the cracks and clashing of blocks of cement and desk and the flap of the papers. None. She heard nothing but silence.

Opening her eyes she saw nothing but darkness.

Where was she? Her heart started to palpitate. She looked around and saw totally nothing but darkness. She could only now heard her heavy breathing.

Then finally she heard a faint voice. It was a peal of laughter. It was faint but she was sure she heard it. It was coming from her back. She turned around and followed the sound.

As she drew nearer, the noise became louder and louder.

She ran faster. Up ahead she saw a small light. What was that?

She ran faster and faster, the light became bigger and bigger and the noise became louder and louder.

After a minute of running, she was finally out from the darkness and entered an alley. At the end of the alley, she saw people.

She ran towards them.

She lifted her head and saw buildings made of woods and rocks. She was awestruck. She had never seen, in face to face, such architecture before. But she had only seen these before on the internet, these looked like ancient ancestral houses.

She turned around. Where was she?

"Tabi!!" (Step aside!!) She heard a voice shouted behind her. She looked at her back and saw a young man sitting behind a horse with a small open carriage at the back. Wait.

That type of vehicle no longer exist in their place nor in their time.

"Is that a kalesa?" stupidly, she asked before she was hit by the kalesa.