The future past (eBook)

the course of humanity

sh.chilli dreams (Autor)

chatgpt (openAI) (Herausgeber)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
580 Seiten
Publishdrive (Verlag)
978-0-00-110570-6 (ISBN)

Infos

He set out to escape the present - only to awaken in a past unlike any history book.

Drawn into an unfamiliar world, he finds himself in a time where humanity thrives on unimaginable technology, gifted long ago by an ancient alliance of worlds. But beneath the surface of this utopian past lies the shadow of a forgotten war... and a punishment that shattered the course of human progress.

Haunted by echoes of his own life and driven by something he can't name, he navigates a world where the future is buried behind him, and the truth is hidden in time itself.

A poetic blend of romance, loss, and time-bending sci-fi, The Future Past explores what remains when time, memory, and love collide.

Textauszug

Chapter 3 – Between glance and proof

Part 1: Approach & Trust

The rain had washed the campus clean.
Everything smelled fresh, almost new, as if even the trees were bracing for something unknown.

Daniel sat on the library steps, a closed book resting on his lap.
His eyes didn’t follow pages — they followed people.
The crowd was alive: backpacks, laptops, warm coffee cups, voices like waves crossing the square.

But he searched for just one face.

And then he saw her — as he had more and more these past few days.
Ai Lin, with her light steps, her hair like a soft ribbon resting on her shoulders.
She wore a long beige coat, oversized for her frame, but it suited her — like it protected her from a world she hadn’t yet made her own.

She walked toward the steps.
He waited until she was near and lifted his hand in a cautious greeting.

“Library your sanctuary too?” he asked as she noticed him.

She smiled. “I meant to study. But it smells like old paper and silence in there, so I’m still deciding.”

He scooted over. “Then you’ve found the right person to decide with.”

Ai Lin sat. Not too close, but not distant either.
Her fingers rested lightly on her knee. She looked up at the sky, where cotton-thick clouds layered gently over one another.

“Do you ever feel it too?” she asked suddenly. “That you just want… no sound. Just sitting. No voices. No noise.”

Daniel nodded. “More than you’d think.”

She said nothing for a while, and neither did he.
The silence wasn’t empty — it was full.
Soft. Real.

Then he said, “Want to grab something to eat later? Nothing fancy. Just… actual food.”

She laughed. “As long as it’s not microwave lasagna.”
“You underestimate the power of bad lasagna.”
“And you overestimate my stomach.”

It was a conversation like many they’d had lately — light, full of undertones, full of pauses that didn’t need filling.
Since that first meeting in the cafeteria, something had begun between them.
For her, it was new — a soft confusion without a name.
For him... it was coming home.


That evening they sat together on a bench in the courtyard, each holding a steaming bowl of noodle soup.
A food truck selling Asian dishes stood nearby, surrounded by students glancing at phones while ordering.

Ai Lin blew on her soup. “This smells like home.”
“Shanghai?” he asked.
She nodded. “It’s not the same. But it tries.”

He watched her profile — the way her lashes traced the shadow of her gaze, how her lips moved slightly when she tasted.
She ate slowly, like every moment was part of something larger.

“You miss it,” he said.
“Always,” she replied. “But I find it… strangely beautiful here.”
“Strangely beautiful?”
“Yeah. Everything is strange, but not unfriendly.
Like I’m remembering having lived this before — in a dream.”

The words hit something in him — a soft vibration behind his ribs.
“Maybe we dreamed the same dream,” he said quietly.

She looked at him, curious, but didn’t answer.
Not everything needs to be understood right away.

—

In the days that followed, more moments like this appeared.

Daniel noticed their worlds beginning to overlap.
They sometimes sat together in lectures.
Not planned — just naturally.

When he walked in, she’d already be there — and she’d move her bag aside.
Small gestures. No words needed.

During a seminar on visual culture, he noticed how she underlined her notes with a kind of tenderness — as if every word held meaning only she could see.
He watched her handwriting — neat, elegant, with small curls at the ends of certain letters, like she couldn’t help but leave something personal behind.

After class, they walked together.

“What did you think of that piece on iconography?” she asked.
“Too dry. And way too Western.”
She nodded. “I figured you’d say that.”
“Why?”
“Because you… look at things the way I do.”
He grinned. “And how’s that?”
“As if things are memories, not objects.”

She looked at him.
And he knew she meant it.

—

On Thursday afternoon, they sat in a quiet corner of the library.
Daniel helped her with an assignment on mythological symbolism.

As he spoke, he noticed how she listened — not with her ears, but with her whole face.
Her eyes followed his lips.
Her breath synced with the rhythm of his words.

“I get it now,” she said after a while.
“Really?”
She nodded. “You make it clear.
Like you’re not explaining — but translating.”

He blushed a little.
She noticed — but said nothing.

Instead, she reached into her bag and pulled out a small notebook.

“I sometimes write down thoughts,” she said. “Not poems. Not a diary. Just… fragments.”
“Can I see?”

She hesitated.
Then handed it to him.

On the first page, in her graceful handwriting:

“Sometimes I think I’ve already left myself somewhere else, and I’m just on my way back to her.”

Daniel looked up.
She shrugged. “Weird, right?”
He shook his head. “No. It’s beautiful.”

—

That evening, back in his room, Daniel couldn’t sleep.
Not out of restlessness — but because his mind was full of her.

Her voice.
Her gaze.
The way she said “beautiful” with that soft g.

He picked up his sketchbook.
Opened a blank page.

His pencil began to move.

Not a portrait this time.
Just her hand — resting on her knee, as he’d seen that afternoon.

He didn’t know why.
But it felt right.

—

Friday morning brought warm sun over the campus square —
a soft promise between trees and buildings.

Daniel sat on a bench near the art building, sketchbook open on his lap.
He flipped through recent pages — fleeting outlines of faces in the square,
the curve of a branch in the wind,
a hand holding something unseen.

And there —

A few lines of her profile.
Ai Lin.

Not like in his dreams.
But like she was yesterday, sitting by the window.

Her head slightly tilted.
Her fingers curled around a coffee cup.

Simply… real.

Not a mystery this time,
but present.

Ai Lin,
with eyes that could catch light like they were asking questions no one dared to answer.

“You’re drawing again,” said a voice.

He looked up.

Ai Lin stood in front of him, a cardboard coffee cup in hand,
her hair in a loose braid over her shoulder.
She wore an oversized cream sweater — the kind you borrow from an older brother who wants to keep you warm.

“I had ten minutes before class,” she said. “And I thought, maybe you’d be here.”

He smiled. “You thought right.”

She sat beside him and looked at the sketchbook.

Her gaze rested on the drawing of her hand.
She didn’t speak.
Only her breathing shifted, just slightly.

“I don’t always recognize myself,” she whispered.

Daniel looked at her. “You don’t look like anyone else.
And still… I see you in everything.”

She was quiet for a moment.

“I used to think I was more transparent than other people.
That if someone looked hard enough, they’d see everything about me.”

“And do you want that?
To be seen?”

She thought. “Maybe not by everyone.
But… by someone.”

She looked at him — long, deep.
His heart beat harder.
Not from nerves.
But from that soft, silent energy that appears when the world is, for a second, exactly right.

—

Over the weekend, they met again —
without planning it.
It just happened.

On Saturday, they sat on the southern field, under a tree whose leaves had begun to change.

Ai Lin brought a thermos of jasmine tea that smelled like her childhood.

“My grandmother used to make this,” she said, pouring. “She said you can’t go to war over jasmine tea.”

Daniel took a sip.
It was floral, soft, with a slight bitterness.

“I believe her.”

They spoke of small things.
Of cats in alleys.
Of how the air smells after a...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 7.11.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• ISBN-10: 0-00-110570-1 / 0001105701
• ISBN-13: 978-0-00-110570-6 / 9780001105706