The Master of Time
In the year 3015, humans had advanced enough to make groundbreaking discoveries in interstellar travel, artificial intelligence, and most interestingly, time travel. The man at the center of this marvelous innovation, was Professor Eugene Arcturus, a scientist widely acclaimed as the 'Master of Time.'
Professor Arcturus' life was consumed by his work. Ever since the accidental death of his beloved wife, Fiona, he had devoted himself entirely to science, hoping to invent a way to travel back in time and save her.
One morning, after a marathon stint in his state-of-the-art lab, Eugene finally made a breakthrough. He had invented a Time Machine. He felt a surge of both excitement and fear. The machine could either turn out to be a divine miracle or an apocalyptic disaster.
The professor, however, was desperate. He set the coordinates to 15 years in the past, to the day of Fiona's accident. The machine hummed to life, and within seconds, Eugene found himself standing in his old house, surrounded by familiar sights.
Fiona was there, alive and radiant. She was surprised to see Eugene, her loving husband, in the house at this hour. He was usually working in his lab during the day. Eugene, trying his best to hide his tears of joy, spun a lie about taking a break from work.
He was nervous. He didn’t know how altering the past would impact the present.
The next day, he stopped Fiona from going out to the market, and hence, avoided the accident. He stayed with her for two more days, living in a rented room in disguise. Soon, he realized he needed to return to his present time.
Before leaving, he met Fiona one last time, promising to always be with her. That brought him back to the future. A sudden surge of intense light and he was back in his lab, 15 years forward.
His joy was short-lived when he returned to a dystopian world. His great invention had disrupted the space-time continuum leading to a world where technology was unused, cities were ghost towns, and mankind had reverted to an almost primitive lifestyle. The idea of time travel had proven to be a disaster, like every science fiction dread painted.
Heartbroken, desperate, and racked with guilt,
Eugene was baffled. Between saving Fiona and saving his world, he was torn.
However, he was the Master of Time, and he knew he had to do something. He had one option left - to go back again and undo his changes.
So, he traveled back in time, not to prevent Fiona's accident but to prevent himself from stopping it. It was the hardest thing he had ever had to do - to see his wife alive again and let her die. But he knew he didn’t have a choice.
When he returned to his original timeline, everything was as it was before. His world was back to its usual technologically advanced self, bustling with life. The time machine was still there, but he promised never to use it again. Yes, his heart ached, he missed Fiona every second of his life, but he came to understand that time was a river meant to flow in one direction.
This heart-wrenching journey taught Eugene the most valuable lesson of his life - time was not meant to be mastered or controlled, it was made to heal, to change, and to lead forward. Eugene's life was stained with the pain of his wife's death, but also enlightened by the wisdom he gained from his intense journey through time.
'The Master of Time' is thus a poignant tale of love, loss, responsibility, and wisdom, where a man, once obsessed with changing the past, learns to appreciate the present and the natural flow of time.