When I awoke, I tussled around, as one who desperately wished to find a more comfortable sleeping position. The headache I felt was bad, but not the worst I’ve ever had. Even so, I had no desire to get up. I had yet to even open my eyes, believing in my subconscious that the last day had been a very lucid dream. That is, until I heard something familiar.

“Hey you, you’re finally awake,” a voice that sounded like a scratchy mix between an old man and a pubescent boy said.

After hearing this, my eyes shot open, half expecting to wake up in a moving carriage as if it were the most natural next part of my lucid dream. Instead, I was in a yellow, candle-lit room with no windows. A desk sat on one end of the room, covered in old papers and books, while on the other, a lavishly designed door stood with more locks on it than on that of a paranoid crack-head. Otherwise, the room had nothing but the cot I was laying on, and the person whose voice I heard upon waking up.

He was rather old, or at least I thought it was a he, with long white hair and a rather younger-looking face. He adorned a grey robe that made me think that he was a cosplayer, or part of a cult. Actually, with all that has happened to me recently, that would be the least surprising thing I would’ve seen. Along the linings of his robe were interwoven gold markings that looked like a mix of old Norse, Latin, and Greek. It stood out a bit, but not as much as the creepy smile that he wore.

“I was worried that you might be extremely hurt the way Langston brought you here, the drunk bastard, but you seem alright.” the man said with a now more caring than creepy smile on his face. I sat up in a slight rush so as to not show him any disrespect before speaking.

“Where am I, and who are you?” I asked calmly but with a wince of pain from my hangover.

“You are in the safest place in all of the world, my bedroom,” he said before waving his hands around to show it off, but I was not impressed. “And my name is Iscariot, master of sorcery.”

To be frank, not much surprised me at this point, but something about this guy was giving me a ton of mental red flags. I don’t know whether it’s his insanely scratchy voice, pride in his bedroom, or the fact that he unironically called himself a sorcerer, but it was creepy. Instead, I figured I should ask why I was here. That’s logical right? Just avoid the crazy and get straight to the point.

“What am I doing here?” I asked.

“Well, as I said before, Mr. Langston brought you here unconscious. Don’t know exactly why, but I think it’s because he wants me to look you over. What I want to know is, are you from the future as he said? Other than your watch, I could find nothing on you that seemed futuristic.” Iscariot said with a curious and dubious tone.

“Yes… I am from the future. That watch is digital and solar-powered, something that isn’t available in the 1880s,” I said with a sigh.

“Okay, you’re from the future. I believe that, but how can you obtain power from the sun?” he asked in the same way a science teacher would ask the class idiot. It was as if he was completely disregarding the fact that I was actually from the future and just wanted to know how the technology worked.

“... The sun generates solar rays, and that watch collects rays and converts them into electricity, or energy. It then powers the watch and shows the time on the screen, I don’t know any more than that. I am not an expert on it,” I said, hoping that would quell his desire for knowledge of future machinery.

“Fascinating, the future holds such great things. I just hope I will live long enough to see it,” Iscariot said with mild enthusiasm.

“I doubt it. That’s over a hundred years in the future,” I said, instantly crushing his dreams. He kinda looked depressed when I said this. Maybe I should have encouraged him rather than stomping on his dreams, or so I thought. He got happy again, almost joyous even after a second. I don’t know what made him so happy, but I could tell it wasn’t good; Screw me for pitying him.

“If you time-traveled then maybe others could too?” he almost yelled. “What caused you to time travel?”

“I-I don’t know, I kind of just walked through an alley and the whole world changed on me,” I stammered out as I didn’t have the slightest clue.

“Oh, well that’s disappointing…” he said redundantly.

“Ya, sorry,” I said, feeling a bit sorry for the guy.

“Mmm… So have we been across the galaxy by the 2000s?” Iscariot asked, reluctantly curious.

“No, we only got to the moon, and the Americans do it first,” I said with the thought of that giving him some hope for the future.

“Really? How did the colonies get more advanced than us?” he asked angrily but his scratchy voice made it sound utterly hilarious, like a bog witch shrieking about not getting tax benefits.

“I don’t know, I’m not a history nut,” I replied, as I wasn’t exactly a model student. At this point, the conversation had gone in a strange direction and the news about the space race seemed to anger Iscariot, thus I wasn’t going to continue. Thankfully a knock at the door ended the conversation.

“Who is it?” asked Iscariot.

“It’s Scott, the code is rapture,” replied the knocker, who I was not pleased to hear was Langston. After hearing this, Iscariot hobbled over to the door, spending roughly thirty seconds unlocking the insane amount of locks adorning it, and opened it. In stepped Scott, smelling of booze, his clothes ragged, carrying a faint scent of the docs' water, and looking fairly tired.

“Well…, is he from the future?” he asked with a raspy tired voice the moment he was inside and the door was shut behind him.

“Yes,” Iscariot replied with a very monotone voice. He barely asked me any real questions, yet he was so willing to accept it as fact... Was he actually crazy? Scott sighed, took a deep breath, and as he released his breath, a word escaped his lips.

“Bollocks…”

The room was quiet for a while, too long actually. Iscariot and I could tell that Scott was contemplating things, and neither of us was going to interrupt. I thought about asking Iscariot if he was up for a game while we waited, but that didn’t sound very mature, and I didn’t want to make a fool of myself in front of a sorcerer and a monster hunter. The good news was that Scott finally spoke before I had the chance to make a fool of myself.

“Iscariot, what have you learned from him?” Scott asked.

Iscariot turned from facing me towards him before saying, “Not much. He has a watch that works far differently than anything I have ever seen that was either magical or normal. Also, his knowledge of machines from the future is rather small, as he can’t tell me how to recreate them, but his basic knowledge surpasses that of common scholars of today.”

“So he’s a bloody genius here, but in the future, he’s an idiot?” Scott asked rhetorically.

“Hey, I’m right here,” I protested.

“And I couldn’t care less,” Scott replied with more sass than a mom after their child talked back.

“Yes, you could say he is a genius to us because of his future knowledge. Although, that doesn’t matter. The fact that he is from the future in itself is a danger to the universe. He could accidentally alter the timeline without us knowing that it was even altered,” Iscariot said to try and get the conversation back on track.

“Then he needs to be quarantined until he dies, is what you’re saying?” Scott asked.

“I don’t wish to be quarantined,” I interrupted.

“You don’t have to go that far. He is dangerous as an existence, but nothing happens without reason. I believe it would be more beneficial to have him join the Table and shadow you until we can figure out who or what caused him to come to this time period,” Iscariot said. Scott looked like he was about to say something, but then he stopped, taking a long pause before speaking.

“Well, I was already planning on taking him on as an apprentice. I want him to join the Table, but I want to send him to the Table for his training. I already know that I would be an awful teacher,” Scott finally said. I was starting to think that his slower reaction time was due to him being drunk.

“You do realize if you don’t train your own apprentice soon, the Table heads are going to force one on you. Your father-in-law can only bail you out for so long,” Iscariot replied.

“Don’t talk about that, please... I get it, I will contact the Table about registering him as my apprentice. But he needs to stay here until then,” Scott said, finally giving in.

“That’s fine. You know time is altered in this room,” Iscariot said.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, not because of the Table discussion, but because of the comment about the room I was currently in.

“This room was created in a synthetic dimensional space where time is far slower than the outside. Just since we started this conversation, which has only lasted a moment, an hour has passed outside. It also cannot be opened except from the inside or by using a magic key, which is why this is the safest place on earth,” Iscariot answered. I was unsure of how to react to the bomb that was released from Iscariot’s mouth; it was something that seemed impossible except to the imagination of theoretical physicists.

“If you think that’s amazing, Iscariot should tell you the story of why his voice is that of an old man who somehow hasn’t reached puberty,” Scott said with a chuckle.

“I don’t think I want to tell him that story, for my own pride's sake,” Iscariot replied sheepishly.

“Well, now I want to hear it,” I said hoping to coerce Iscariot.

“Yeah, tell the twit your bloody hilarious story!” Scott said, encouraging him more.

Iscariot sighed. “Fine, I was messing around with an alchemical experiment and caused an explosion that sent my family jewels into my stomach permanently. This gave me a very high-pitched squeaky voice and the older I get, the more insane I sound,” he said with an almost reminiscent tone.

“But you are insane, so it’s more like a warning siren,” Scott said jokingly.

I did everything I could to not chuckle, so instead, I just acted concerned. “Remind me to never mess with magic,” I said with a pained look of warning.

“Oh, I wasn’t using magic. I was experimenting with gunpowder,” Iscariot corrected. Well, now I think he might just be more idiotic than he is letting on, or maybe he’s just eccentric, as Scott said.

“With that, I will take my leave. I leave the future twit in your hands, Iscariot. I will return with news from the Table,” Scott said, adjusting his coat and then unlocking the many locks on the door. Once he had left it was just me and Iscariot in an uncomfortable silence yet again.

“Want to play chess?” he asked, to finally break the silence. Apparently, when I was wanting to ask if he wanted to play a game, he was thinking the same thing. Wait, if he's thinking the same thing I am, and he’s insane, what does that say about me?