THE THEORY OF THE TRAVELER

Zev was still inside his dream, after seeing everything black the light became, soon new images were created and he was already in a completely different situation with Ocean by his side.

"Has everything been fixed yet?" was his first question.

"What do you say?" she laughed.

He looked around him, they were in a museum, specifically at number three or that's what a sign said, in front of them was a huge painting painted in oil, the image it reflected was a fleecy sky with pastel tones and it had a curious title.

"The most beautiful woman," he thought.

"I don't see any women in the painting," Ocean was saying, putting her hand to her chin and leaning closer to take a closer look at the painting.

"If you come closer you will be able to see your face, you are the most beautiful woman," he said without thinking.

Ocean was pleased by the compliment and smiled kindly at him. Zev was really confused, she hadn't been nice to him since what had happened before, plus he couldn't explain why he was having a date with her.

"And if I already died?" He thought, "This must be heaven."

He looked at the painting again, it caught his attention. He got a little closer and noticed that it changed color, it became dark with aggressively drawn shadows, he quickly moved away, disconcerted and returned to normal.

"What abstract art," he told himself in his head.

The people in the museum suddenly became static, as if they were mannequins. The same thing happened with Ocean.

"Ocean?" he called her.

"Tell me Zev," she answered with a smile.

He looked into her eyes as he rambled and realized that if he immersed himself in the voice of his thoughts, everything around him would stop, and by being aware, everything would advance.

"What's happening to me?" He scratched his head. "Am I crazy?"

Zev started walking around the museum without calling Ocean, indeed the others were just as paralyzed, he didn't want to continue the tour and went back to the girl to get her out of there. When he got to her he took her hand to leave the museum and suddenly they were inside again looking at the painting.

"I don't see any woman in the painting," Ocean repeated, putting her hand to her chin and moving closer to look carefully at the painting.

The boy began to hyperventilate, he felt an inexplicable fear, the hairs on his body stood up slowly as Ocean repeated the same phrase over and over again. Between his thoughts he remembered what the commander had said about time loops and he feared he was inside one.

"Maybe the answer is to get out of here without her," he thought and ran out of the museum.

When he came out there was a light waiting for him, he swore he had changed the course of the loop but it was not like that because Ocean was waiting in the same place.

"I don't see any woman in the painting," he said.

"That's just what I was going to say," she said, drawing a huge smile on her face.

"You don't feel like…this has already happened," he commented.

"Like a deja vu?"

"Aha, like that," he looked at her carefully while she only smiled.

He looked everywhere, the scene was the same regardless of the change in dialogue, before falling into despair he closed his eyes trying to fall asleep but couldn't, he opened his eyes and saw Ocean approaching the painting of the sky, he went on and looked at it again. As he approached, the shadows were still visible, so he thought that perhaps the exit was the painting.

He cautiously reached out one of his fingers and touched the painting, it felt strange, as if it were a portal, he turned to her and spoke to her.

"Come with me."

"I can't, I have to go home, we'll see each other later."

She walked away with a smile on her face while he still didn't understand her strange behavior, he turned towards the painting and threw himself on it. When he regained consciousness he was on the table in the laboratory and apparently a not very pleasant face was close to him. Zev got up slowly, yawned a little and fixed his gaze on a single point in the room to regain his balance, after a few seconds he saw the person who was with him.

"What am I doing here?" He asked.

"You fainted last night."

"And what are you doing taking care of me?"

"I'm not taking care of you!" He responded aggressively, "I just came for more oxygen."

Evander turned his back on him and walked towards the lab exit but Zev stopped him.

"Hey, wait."

The boy felt how Zev held his arm without fear of anything. Evander glanced at him over his shoulder.

"Yesterday you were mentioning something about a theory and I remember that the commander was talking about time loops," he paused as he felt a slight headache. "Ahhh.

Evander looked at him heavily but ended up helping him sit on one of the chairs.

"Maybe you need to eat," he took something from his pockets, "here," he offered her an apple.

Zev accepted it with a twinkle in his eye but before biting it he examined it.

"It's not poisoned," Evander mentioned, rolling his eyes.

The boy began to eat it eagerly because he had already been fasting for many hours and eating something would do his stomach good, while he enjoyed the fruit, Evander told him the rest of the last conversation.

"The traveler's theory," he frowned, "it is said that there are travelers in all temporal dimensions and the community discovered them thanks to the breaking of their loop, they have the firm belief that a traveler destroyed their perfect world."

"I'm not understanding you at all," Zev said with the apple in his mouth.

"In this world or dimension, whatever you want to call it, travelers break the balance of actions prescribed by life so everything gets out of control."

"If everything is planned, then why don't they kill the travelers?" He interrupted.

"Because they are counted and many of them don't even know they are counted, so it's hard to find them," he pulled out a chair and put it next to Zev, then sat down. "Travelers can easily get out of the loops, that's how the loops are deactivate, also if they can remember the repetitive sequence of actions, other people don't even notice."

"Wow! That is very impressive," he said with a lot of emotion in his eyes, "but then, when they deactivate the loop, the others already realize it, right? I don't know if I can explain myself."

"Umm," he leaned towards him, "well, if a traveler accidentally falls into a loop and having contact with the people inside that loop can make them realize they are locked in there, the traveler decides whether to help them escape or not."

"Hey, that means that," before he could say more, one of the soldiers abruptly opened the door to indicate that there was a meeting in the commander's office.

Zev and Evander had to cancel their interesting talk and immediately went to where the others were, when they arrived they noticed that Luna was missing, so the boy asked for her, the commander mentioned that dinner had hurt her and she was curing the pain in her stomach. He asked everyone to take a seat.

"Listen, this morning Barret went out to investigate near The Community, a few kilometers from there he found out thanks to the snipers that several walkers would be sent to catch the possible travelers."

Zev and Evander looked at each other.

"Jolene, the leader of the Community, believes that there is a traveler in this city."

"I think so too," Ocean said, raising her hand showing a lot of security.

Kylen was surprised to hear her but proud as he had come up with another great plan that he was about to share with the soldiers.

"The plan we had is still valid, only I decided to add something, before attacking we need to find the traveler and bring him here, when the community facilities are destroyed," he remained silent looking for the right words to let them know the decision he had made taken, "we lock them in a loop and then we will disappear the traveler."

"What?" Ronda interrupted. "You mean, kill him? We couldn't try to convince him not to break the loop."

"We could put the traveler in a loop, too," Barret suggested.

"No," Kylen denied seriously, "even if we lock him up, he would realize that he is in a loop, they are very difficult to deceive, I don't want to do it but the only option would be to end his life."

They all stayed analyzing an infinite number of possibilities but they ended with the same resolution, to kill the traveler to prevent The Community from destroying the world again.

"Luna would know what to say about it," Zev thought, remembering her.

For now, the traveler's death was the only solution, when Luna felt well they would ask her opinion about it.

"No rest today!" The commander snapped, "we have a mission, to find the traveler."