I wrote this for Writing Club last Tuesday. The prompt was: Imagine you go back in time, killing a butterfly in the process. How would the future be different?



I place my hand on the time machine and squeeze my eyes shut. The machine vibrates violently; it scares me. I'm about to pull my hand off the metallic monster when it abruptly stops.
I force my eyes open and quickly scan my surroundings. I've successfully taken myself back to the prehistoric era. Or should I say, the end of it. The Earth has been freshly tattooed with hurried footprints and every hundred yards or so lay a huge, rotting carcass of some unknown creature. The peaks in the distance ooze with molten lava that blends with the color of the fiery sky.
It's very eerie; I take a step back. Something crunches under my feet. I look down and see a butterfly. I can't believe that I killed it! Horrified, I step back once more and run into my time machine, accidentally flipping the switch. I can feel myself being transported back to the future. Quickly, so I'm not left behind, I grab the handle and hold on for dear life. Next thing I know, the spinning has stopped. I had unconsciously closed my eyes again, and I now opened them with relief.
OH MY GOODNESS! This couldn't be the year 2008. But the number on my time machine proves that it indeed is. Like the prehistoric era, it was barren on all vegetation. There was no grass or trees, and no birds chirped from above. No ants journeyed through the damp, brown earth. There was not even a fly. No buildings could be seen, because there were no people. Just endless, dark dirt meeting an endless, pale sky at all corners of the Earth.



I wrote that in less than half an hour, and I didn't edit anything except for a few spelling errors as I was typing it in. It's not that excruciatingly good I don't think, but I liked the prompt and it's the first thing I've written in a long time that I was particularly proud of. So I felt like sharing it with you.