Random stories

It's really getting ridiculous.

I can't go *one day* without a time-travelling assassin popping up in front of me and trying to kill me for what I am going to do at some point - only to get stopped by *another* time-travelling assassin sent to protect me. I mean, I just wanna drink my latté in peace, without having to watch two madmen vaporize one another. Is that *so much* to ask?

On the upside, every now and then, when I wade through the ash or goop or bones or whatever is left of these pricks, I find a piece of tech. Something that survived both the journey and the fight. I'm starting to get a nice little collection for myself. And it just so happens that my engineering degree allows me to grasp the most basic of principles on which some of this stuff works.

I tried showing others, for sure. But, well... those people were, well...

Look, it's *time-travelling assassins,* and those people are apparently not important enough to protect. What can I do?

It is rather odd that as of late, the attempts have been getting more frequent, bolder. And I could swear wider - as in more different time periods have shown up. Call it a hunch, but the drastic differences in fashion and sophistication of the tech the assassins have used really do indicate that at least several millennia's worth of people wants to both kill and protect me.

Maybe - just maybe - it's got something to do with the machine I've been working on. My very own time-travelling watch. Why should they be the only ones to have all the fun? I always wanted to see a gladiatorial match in the Colosseum.

So I took the watch, waded through the fresh pile of bodies at my feet, tightened the last screw, and...

*Tick.*

*Tick.*

*Tick.*

**Ah.**

Of course. I get it now.

I forgot to carry the four. Sixth line in my equation, I believe.

Plus, it seems like technology from different millennia doesn't particularly like being used in unison.

Both of those seem like good explanations as to why time itself is collapsing around me now, being simultaneously stretched and compressed, ripping reality apart.

I get flashes of people making final attempts at my life - attempts to stop me from what I just did. I see flashes of the people who were trying to protect me this entire time - a doomsday cult eager to see my work through. *Morons*, all of them. Had they just left me alone, well...

Doesn't matter now. Whatever 'now' is at this point, anyway.

At least, in all that, I got a few glimpses of the gladiatorial match I wanted to see. Close enough, I suppose.

*Tick.*

*Tick.*

The irony does not escape me.

*Tick.*

I hope it doesn't escape them either.

**Tic-**

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Submitted by SirPiecemaker on Sun, Feb 19, 2023 to /r/WritingPrompts/

The prompt

You are at the center of a time traveling war. For every assassin sent back to the past to murder you, another warrior is sent to protect you and kill the assassin before they get a chance. As the bodies pile up, you still don’t have the slightest clue why you’re so important to these people.