Thomas Lane never wanted to be a hero. He was a man of the present, grounded in reality, but with a growing frustration that history seemed to repeat itself. Wars, revolutions, famines—each a scar on the human story, preventable if only key moments had gone differently.
So when he was approached by the mysterious organization running Project Chronos, he was skeptical at first. Time travel? The very idea seemed like the plot of a B-movie. But when they showed him the evidence, the equations, the technology—the gleaming, futuristic device that pulsed with the potential of the past—he couldn't resist. For the first time, he saw a chance to truly make a difference.
He agreed to the mission. It was a simple one, or so they said: travel back to 1789, Paris. A small riot outside a bakery had lit the fuse for the French Revolution. The people, driven by hunger, had taken to the streets and looted the shop, a seemingly small event that spiraled into something much larger. If that riot could be stopped, perhaps the revolution, and the bloodshed that followed, could be averted—or at least delayed.
"Prevent the riot," they said. "Change the future."
But the moment Thomas stepped into the past, he knew things wouldn't be that simple.
---
As his eyes adjusted to the dim light of 18th-century Paris, the sounds and smells of the past overwhelmed him. The clatter of wooden wheels on cobblestone, the scent of unwashed bodies mingling with freshly baked bread, the hum of conversation in a language he knew well but that sounded so foreign on the lips of the people around him.
He was here, truly here. The time jump had worked.
His heart raced with anticipation as he quickly scanned his surroundings. The bakery was just up ahead, a small, modest building on the edge of a narrow street. The wooden sign creaked in the wind, and a few people were already gathering nearby. The crowd was small now, but growing by the minute. Hungry, gaunt faces stared at the loaves of bread in the window, eyes filled with desperation.
Thomas felt a pang of guilt. These weren't just names in a history book. They were real people, living real lives, struggling to survive. For a moment, he hesitated. Was it right to stop them? Could he really prevent their anger, their desperation, from boiling over?
But the mission was clear. Stop the riot. Change history.
He stepped forward, pushing his way toward the center of the crowd. His heart pounded in his chest as he tried to make himself heard.
"Please, wait!" Thomas shouted again, louder this time, trying to force his voice above the rumble of voices and rising tension. "There's another way! Don't do this!"
But no one in the crowd seemed to hear him. The shouts of hunger, anger, and desperation drowned out his pleas. A man near the front, his face gaunt with hunger, clenched his fist and raised a stone above his head. Thomas watched in horror as the stone sailed through the air and smashed into the bakery's window. The glass shattered with a deafening crash, and the crowd surged forward.
"No!" Thomas cried, pushing his way through the throng. His heart raced as he lunged toward the man, grabbing for his arm. But his fingers passed straight through, as if the man were made of mist. Stumbling back, Thomas tried again, this time reaching for a woman who was shouting for bread. Once more, his hand slipped through her shoulder, his fingers grasping at nothing.
Panic set in. He pushed through the crowd, trying to get their attention, but it was no use. He was invisible to them—worse than invisible. He was a phantom in their world, unable to touch, to intervene, to change anything.
The riot was growing. People were now forcing their way into the bakery, their hands grabbing whatever food they could reach. Others began to fight amongst themselves, scrambling for the few loaves of bread that hadn't been crushed in the chaos. Thomas stood in the middle of it all, helpless.
He tried again, this time stepping directly in front of a man about to throw another rock. "Stop! Please, you don't have to do this!" he shouted, but the man walked right through him, as if he wasn't there at all.
Thomas felt his stomach drop. The realization hit him hard. He wasn't just invisible to them—he couldn't interact with the past at all. He couldn't change anything. All the preparation, the careful planning, the hope that he could prevent this small spark from igniting the flames of revolution—it had been for nothing.
---
As the riot continued around him, Thomas staggered back, watching the scene unfold. The once-peaceful crowd had descended into chaos. A group of men had broken down the bakery door and were now ransacking the inside. Others were smashing barrels, fighting over scraps, and shouting in rage. The baker himself cowered behind the counter, helpless to stop the destruction.
Thomas felt sick. This was exactly what he had come to stop, but now it was happening right in front of him, and he could do nothing.
For a moment, his thoughts drifted back to the lab, to the scientists at Project Chronos who had sent him on this mission. They had been so confident, so certain that history could be altered. They had talked about cause and effect, about how one small change could ripple out and rewrite entire eras. But standing here, watching the past unfold exactly as it had before, Thomas realized how arrogant that idea had been.
History wasn't something you could bend to your will. It was like a river, flowing in one direction, and no matter how many rocks you threw into it, the current would always carry on.
---
The hours passed in a blur. As the sun began to set behind the buildings of Paris, the riot finally started to die down. The bakery was in ruins, its windows shattered, its shelves emptied. The streets were littered with debris, and the crowd, having taken what they could, slowly dispersed.
Thomas remained standing in the middle of the street, watching as the last of the looters disappeared into the shadows. He felt numb, his mind swirling with a mix of emotions—anger, frustration, guilt. He had failed. He had thought he could change history, but now he understood that the past was immovable. It was fixed, like stone.
For a long time, he stood there in silence, staring at the ruined bakery. He couldn't shake the feeling that he had been naive to believe he could make a difference. The people who had rioted today weren't just figures in a history book—they were human beings, desperate and hungry, driven to act by forces far beyond his control. Hunger, poverty, inequality—these were the real engines of history, not the actions of individuals.
Suddenly, he noticed something. Amid the wreckage, a woman was standing near the bakery, holding a small loaf of bread. She was a mother, clutching a child to her chest, her face pale and lined with exhaustion. She tore the loaf in half and handed part of it to a stranger—a man she had never met. The man, too, looked starved, but his eyes filled with gratitude as he took the bread.
In that moment, Thomas felt a strange sense of clarity. Even in the darkest times, even in the chaos of history, there were still moments of kindness, of humanity. Maybe that was the point. History wasn't about grand gestures or single acts of heroism—it was about people, struggling to survive and finding moments of compassion in the midst of suffering.
---
The device embedded in Thomas's wrist began to hum softly, signaling that his time was up. The pull of the future was calling him back. He took one last look around at the streets of Paris, now quiet in the fading light, and felt a deep sadness settle over him. He had come here with the belief that he could change the world, but now he realized that history was beyond his control. All he could do was witness it.
As the hum grew louder, the world around him began to blur. The colors of the past faded, and he felt the familiar disorientation of being pulled back through time.
---
When Thomas opened his eyes again, he was standing in the sterile, fluorescent-lit lab of Project Chronos. The hum of machinery filled the air, and the scientists gathered around him, their faces alight with curiosity and expectation.
"Did you do it?" one of them asked, eager for a report. "Did you stop the riot?"
Thomas looked at them, feeling the weight of his experience settle in his chest. He shook his head slowly, his voice hoarse. "No. It can't be changed."
The lead scientist frowned, clearly confused. "But… the theory was sound. One small change, and—"
"It doesn't work that way," Thomas interrupted, his voice quiet but firm. "History isn't something we can just rewrite. It's… bigger than that. Bigger than us."
The scientists exchanged puzzled glances. They were still thinking in terms of equations and variables, cause and effect, as if history were something that could be manipulated like a machine. But Thomas knew better now. He had seen the truth. History was not a series of events waiting to be altered—it was a force, powerful and inevitable, shaped by forces far beyond the control of any one person.
As he walked out of the lab, Thomas felt a strange sense of peace. He hadn't changed the past, but perhaps that wasn't the point. Maybe the real lesson was to stop trying to control what had already happened and to focus on living in the present. History wasn't something to be feared or manipulated—it was something to be understood.
And in that understanding, there was power. Not the power to change the past, but the power to shape the future, not by altering what had come before, but by learning from it and choosing, in each moment, to live with compassion and wisdom.
As he stepped into the bright light of the present day, Thomas knew one thing for certain: The past was written, but the future was still his to make.