In those days when emails were popular before texting became a thing, I loved to read through them. And I received tons, a few relevant ones and many spams.
Then I found one interesting email in my spam box titled KYF—Know Your Future. I was a curious teenager then so I subscribed and became hooked on it. The predictions were one lined and exact like: Don't go to school tomorrow. Wear a white scarf to that party. Do not drink punch at your aunt's wedding.
And I learned to obey them because the messages appeared in my box exactly twenty four hours before the incident ahead. I changed computers and phones and still continued to receive the mails.
When I turned twenty nine, I'd become dependent on the predictions and I couldn't make a decision without checking my email first.
I was on lunch break at work when my phone buzzed. It was an email and the subject said: KYF: DON'T CLICK THE LINK!
I stared at my phone wondering if it was broken. My colleague who sat beside me leaned over and saw it too. “What link?” She asked. I shrugged. “I don't know.”
For the rest of the day, my mind was on the ominous email. It occurred to me that I'd never wondered who the sender was. Surely it must be someone who knew about me and that was scary.
My chest started to pound and twitch with panic. Was I in trouble? At home, I paced my apartment, staring at my phone when another email dropped. It had no subject, only a link attached.
My heart lurched and my palms itched. By 11.58pm, I was done worrying and gave in by clicking the link. My screen went black then lit up to a live video feed of me.
I gasped, hand covering my mouth. It was my future self staring back at me in an unfamiliar environment, her brows arched in irritation and anger. “I said, don't click the link! But you had to,” she snapped.
“How…how is this possible?” I whispered. “You can see me?”
She rolled her eyes and sighed. “Of course, I can. I've been sending you those emails, the best way to get messages across to you away from the monitoring eyes of the government. No one sends email anymore except me…and the man after you,” she shook her head, “I mean…after us.”
“What? Who?”
“We…invented a secret device that some people are after. Dangerous people. I won't give it to them so they planned to reach out to you through a timestat—”
“Wait, what's that?”
“A device that lets people go back to the past. A year from now, a young woman will release the device. But first those dangerous people will send a link that will connect your devices to their timestat permanently. Do you understand?”
I nodded slowly, my brain struggling to process the sheer strangeness of the situation and everything my future self was telling me. She watched me with visible skepticism.
“Uh, what is this device that we,” I pointed to her and me, “created? What does it do?”
She shook her head. “I can't say. You'll know when the time is right. But remember, don't click the link please.”
Then my phone screen went black with a sharp hiss and smoke curled out from the thin edges. I flinched and dropped it.
I hope you enjoyed reading this short piece. It's inspired by the Freewrite #dailyprompt phrase "don’t click the link!".
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