The Starling Vigilante [Watty's 2015 Award Winner]

Chapter 48

Feeling the boat judder, the glasses I held fell from my hands, smashing into smithereens on the wooden floor of the Gambit. As the boat started to tip, I realised what was happening.

We had crashed, and we probably weren't going to make it.

I then thought of Sara and Oliver. I hadn't even been able to find them, my last moments on this planet alone without my friends with me.

I really should have listened to Yellow Suit.

Suddenly hearing the piercing, signature scream of Sara from her room, I knocked down the door, which had come loose from the crash. Oliver was shouting towards a crack in the boat, Sara nowhere to be seen.

'Oliver!' I shouted in the midst of the panic of the storm, running up to him to try to get him out of the room.

'She's gone,' Oliver cried. 'She's gone!'

'No,' I shouted, crying too. 'No! She can't, she's-'

The remaining floorboards below my feet broke in unison, more water flooding into the boat. Feeling myself being tossed into the sea below, I screamed and tried to hold onto Oliver, but he was gone in an instant.

'Oliver!' I screamed as I tried to fight being sunk into the water. 'Sara!'

But no one was there. I was all alone, and towards the brink of death. Fighting against the cold waters, I tried to swim to somewhere, anywhere, with land. But all I could see was water.

Survival. That's all I needed now. If my body could hold up until I found a solution to all this, I would be fine. But the problem was, I could find no solution.

'Sara!' I screamed again, hoping I would find someone. Anyone. 'Oliver!'

No one answered.

Why was this happening to me? I always seemed to end up in trouble, no matter how hard I tried to avoid it. And why did Red Suit, someone who I thought was trying to help me, put me in a situation like this? Surely he knew that this was going to happen.

After an hour of swimming, looking for land, my body gave up. I couldn't go on for any longer. I closed my eyes, my life flashing before me. And even if I did cheat death, Oliver and Sara wouldn't have been so fortunate. I could never live like that.

And then gave in to my fate.

---

Coughing up water, I lay ashore, the morning light giving me a new found beacon of hope. It was impossible; surely I couldn't be alive?

'How did I-?' I spluttered, looking up to the figure towering over me.

Seeing a streak of red as the sun shone on the figure, I realised who it was.

It was Red Suit.

'I found you in the water,' he smiled, still only his mouth and eyes visible under his mask. 'When I saw that you were still breathing, I brought you here.'

'Thankyou, but why did you let me get on that boat?' I asked with a rasp, trying to clear my airways, still confused. Nothing made sense.

'To change your fate,' he explained, kneeling down to me. 'If you had stayed there, in Starling City, you would have done something terrible. And I didn't want you to carry that burden for the rest of your life.'

'But now I'm away from everyone I love,' I said sadly. 'I didn't even tell Tommy where I had gone. And Sara and Oliver are probably dead.'

Hot tears falling down my sandy face, I felt a hand rest on my bloody shoulder.

'I know you're gonna be fine,' Red Suit tried to reassure me, but I felt far from reassured. 'And, trust me, Oliver and Sara are gonna be alright.'

'How do you know?' I challenged him, angry and upset. 'They looked pretty doomed to me. And you didn't save them.'

'They're safe,' Red Suit persevered with me, understanding my grief. 'I made sure. And, I know what happens in the future. That's why I decided to save you from your original fate.'

So he was a time traveller. It all made sense, I tried to kid myself. Superhuman speed was one thing, but time travel? Maybe I was just in some sort of hallucination. But everything felt too real.

Trying to accept that this guy was a time traveller, I thought of all the science fiction movies I had watched as a child. If Red Suit had changed the future, for me, then wouldn't all our futures have been altered? I remembered how changing one small detail in the film Back To The Future altered the course of history, so if what Red Suit had done was going to end up like the film, I really dreaded what was to come.

'Won't you have changed the complete timeline?' I pondered, clearly worried for my future.

'Only for better, not for worse,' Red Suit told me. 'I've seen things, Aria, unspeakable things, that are only undoable by time travel. If your future self was here, she'd tell you the same.'

'Who are you?' I gasped. 'You seem to know me, well my future self, very well. Are we... friends?'

'That's... complicated,' Red Suit said slowly. 'But, I hope you remember me as a friend when you meet me before I meet you. You won't know, and you can't know, who I am until you find out yourself. But for now, I'll see you later.'

Speeding into the sunset, he was gone in a flash.

Flash.

Maybe that's what I should call him, I thought to myself as I stared after him into the distance.

But for now, I had to survive.