Leaving Reality

I woke up in my chair, my body leaned forward and my head resting on the keyboard of my laptop. This is how I normally woke up now, either with my face in a computer or a book.

I looked at the machine in front of me. "You really should stop letting me fall asleep like that, it's a bit rude." It remained indifferent to my complaints, and only replied with its constant hum.

"Ohh, the silent treatment I see." I was silent for moment, before realizing what exactly I was doing, and put my face in my hands.

"I really need to stop talking to inanimate objects. But it's not like it's any better than talking to myself." I lifted my face and looked back at my machine.

"What do you think?" Again, it only replied with it's constant hum. I stood up and stretched.

"Oh well, old habits die hard." I wasn't even sure if I was talking to myself or my...

"Damn it, I really need to think of something original." I looked around the interior of my machine that I was currently standing in.

"But it's a bit late for that I suppose." I said, flopping back down into my chair. The interior, well, to put it simply it looked like the interior of the ninth and tenth Doctor's TARDIS.

Because I'm just so creative.

"Well, at least it actually works, bigger on the inside and everything. Actually maybe that's not so bad, I mean, I think if anyone could create a bigger on the inside time traveling box, they'd go with a TARDIS."

"I mean yeah, you're not technically a 'TARDIS' as in something that's alive, but I think I hit it pretty close considering what I had to work with." I think I've heard the sound of my own voice enough today, time for thinking in my own head like a normal person.

I think the most striking similarity between my 'TARDIS' and the Doctor's Type-40 TARDIS is that both of them only take you where you want to go half the time. Actually for mine I think it's less than half the time. You know, I don't think it's ever actually once worked completely now that I think about it.

My machine cannot use a time vortex, nor is it alive. I'm not even sure if time vortex's are real, they might not even exist in this universe. I make do with throwing my TARDIS into a wormhole, and faster than light travel. And they're both terrible at traveling through time.

Let me start with wormholes. Basically, a wormhole is a hole in the space-time that can allow you to go to any time and place. The only problem is, it's a completely random thing. And more so, it's a one way ticket, I can't keep a wormhole open for very long before it collapses in on itself. I've used a wormhole only once, when I was drunk (I know, I really shouldn't get drunk when I have a time machine) and I wound up the next morning on the roof of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. To be honest, I was just happy that I didn't appear a few light-years from Earth.

Well, I suppose I am technically using one right now, that's how it stays bigger on the inside. This somewhat helps the multiverse theory in a way. You see, a wormhole isn't just a hole in space and time in this universe, sometimes you get one that takes you to an alternate plane of existence. In this, I don't even know what it is, place I opened a doorway to, there is literally nothing. It's just space. And I do mean nothing, no electromagnetic fields, gravitational fields, radiation, just nothing. I'm not even sure that it is a different universe, it might just be some incredibly remote part of the universe. But, it does make a good place to put the inside of my TARDIS.

And now, faster than light travel. This is a bit more reliable, just accelerate the shell of a TARDIS past or near the speed of light, and off you go into the past or future. Except it's not exactly accurate, it seems like every time I've tried to use it, it always takes further or not as far when I use the same amount of power for the same amount of time. I've overshot dates by 50 years before, it can be more than frustrating.

And it doesn't make the cool vworp sound. I think that's the worst part.

All of that was part of the reason I had given up time travel a while ago, the other part was, well...

"Don't think about it." I muttered to myself. "That just seems to make it worse."

Anyway, I had moved onto space travel, looking for new life in the stars!

Funny how boring it gets when there isn't any. So far, I've been to somewhere around fifteen-hundred planets and around two-hundred moons, with not so much as bacteria on any of them. I even took the extra step of jumping forward a few million years on each of them to see if anything happened, and still nothing.

I was on my way the planet Keppler-22b, it was supposed to be in the Goldilocks zone like Earth, and could develop life. I began the routine of checking that I was still on course for the planet. Then I started laughing to myself.

"Well, it seems I've developed a routine, that's a bit ironic isn't it?" I glanced around the control room.

"As I recall, I built this place to get away from the dull routine that was my life, and yet, here I am in the dull routine of my new life." I grinned at the irony of the situation. Granted, most people probably wouldn't think going from planet to planet as a 'dull routine'. But do anything long enough, and you get used to it. I shot up from my chair and began pacing around the controls.

"Well, last time I wanted to remedy a dull life I built a TARDIS. Whats the next step, build a DeLorean?" I chuckled to myself.

"Well, there is always the wormhole option. Not exactly safe though. On the other hand, I could travel to an alternate reality, maybe one with more than nothing." I began to ready the controls to open up a wormhole. I paused my actions, my hand hovering over the final lever required.

"I could actually die, I could appear on a sun, or a universe where no living thing can survive. There are literally an infinite number of ways this could kill me." I lowered my arm and just stood there for a spell.

"Well, I guess if I do wind up dying, it'll be a good way to go. Besides, there are also an infinite number of ways this could not kill me, so either way, All-." I stopped myself from completing the catchphrase. "I should at least think of something else than 'Allons-y' and 'Geronimo'." I muttered to myself. I tapped my foot while I though about something cool to say.

I snapped my fingers and grinned when I got the idea.

"And down the rabbit hole we go." I said as I pulled the lever.