Those Lose in Time (and Those Not)
DAUGHTER’S POV.
It is the father’s birthday and his daughter gifts him a watch. He was deep in his work and was elated about the surprise. The next day…
The father and his daughter catch a train to leave the country. He is holding his time machine and promised his daughter a new life away from suffering and oppression from the government. He was going to show her all the other dimensions he saw last night, finishing the time machine, and the wonders mankind could achieve.
But what he didn’t realize was the government was already on his tail and have boarded the train.
Her father on a train, in a chase with the government men, gets separated and triggers a time warp. He disappears and leaves his daughter in the train. She is now left alone and the government discovers her.
FATHER’S POV.
He is in a new time and world. He is lost and must find a way to go back and rescue her. He embarks on the journey, at whatever the cost.
However, he was able to return back to where he was and finds out that his daughter was captured and died. He leads a rebellion to destroy the government, causing death and destruction in his wake. An usurper arrives and takes over the throne. He betrays the cause, but the father didn’t really care. The father leaves, feeling he has caused enough damage and guilt.
He eventually finds out, in several timelines he must have done something in the future that changes their course, which is why he is seeing so many weird events happening. So he goes back to fix them by finding out what happened that wasn’t suppose to, and remove them from (by killing them usually), hoping by undoing them and eventually killing himself before he can create the time machine, he can bring back his daughter’s timeline.
DAUGHTER’S POV.
The government bring her in for questioning and some isolation/torture and put to death. Or so it was recorded but she was actually spared and released under a different identity to an orphanage, while they keep a vigilant eye. Her father didn’t know that.
She makes many trips back to the train, hoping her father would come back. But each time she returns defeated.
Her father in that timeline becomes a martyr, a religious figure that a rebellion rallied together for. And somehow, after several years, the rebellion won and took over the government, but it turned into an extreme tyranny. The government cracks down. The documentation of her release has long been lost, but the government discovers her relationship with her father, and her father’s work, and want to capture her and interrogate her. So she is back on the run.
She is lost in many time warps and it is because of her father. Her father then tries to go back and tries to fix it. But each time, it just makes another one where she eventually dies or disappears.
FATHER’S POV.
In another, she lives in 18th century France with a bunch of whom were on a future train (stuck with her, though the audience doesn’t know this yet). Her father jumps to this time, trying to fix his past mistake of bringing the train people here (by finding what he did then correcting/killing them) and tries to get back to his own time, but discovers her here in her young adult years here. At this point in her life, she truly resents her father and refuses to go back with him. She found love here and a start of a life, although meager.
But her father was still being followed. The agents show up and killed her partner. She escapes her father and denounces him. Her father has a moment where he must decide whether to kill her to fix the timeline, but he leaves unable to do it. (He was aggressively possessive and forced his aspirations and dreams for her, onto her. This is their conflict.)
He returns back to his base of operations and is in rage. He has lost his daughter to the time warp. He is defeated.
Initially, she grew resentment against her father: why did he leave her? Why did he keep messing things up? She was not much older than 10, so she didn’t really knew much about the world, but still sensible. Of course no one believe her story that her father was a time traveller. And as she grew older, the memories grew more and more distant.
DAUGHTER’S POV.
One day, she was travelling on a train, when she sees her father, sitting there, reading the newspaper. He was very weathered and is showing his age. She was initially dumbstruck and tried to check if she is hallucinating. But it was him. He was wearing the watch. He didn’t recognize her and she used this to her advantage to pry into his story. He was very secretive about his past and didn’t say much, was very depressed and nihilistic, but she knew he was her father. [SOMETHING HAPPENS]. But her father still does not recognize her and time travels away.
FATHER’S POV.
But it messes up and the entire train cart of people disappears into 18th century France. Realizing his mistake, he decides to jump out of the timeline to save himself.
At the last moment she cries out, “Wait! Dad!” But her father was no longer there.
He hears this and this reignites his search. (He is much, much older now)
He has been going through as many timelines as he can trying to find his daughter and bring her back. In every timeline, she was either dead or dying. We find out that his later travels have been more and more reckless, often leaving people to die and in horrible circumstances just to find his daughter.
His meddling with the time has caused numerous splinters and therefore many versions of her being split across the multiverse. Unfortunately, he can’t seem to control where he travels to, or really, control himself.
DAUGHTER’S POV.
But then in one of the universes, the father accidentally left his watch that she gave him. She grows up to be a scientist and is able to decipher the mysteries behind the watch. She reveals what her father has been trying to do all through all these timelines. She keeps it secret.
In this world, the world has been torn to the ground in civil war, but a large, lovecraftian force, a common foe, unites everyone. They build a giant robot and fight a giant alien monster that feeds on iron. They fail, but she finds a way to record a video of her final words. She escaped the oppressive government and learned to live by herself. She got an education, had a child, survived a nuclear winter, and lived her life. She thanks him for it. Even though he wasn’t there, and that he was the cause of the civil war, she knew he cared for her through the multiverse and was trying to come back.
FATHER’S POV.
As his little girl lay dying, the father, having finally made it there and is trying to bring her back, to stabilize her. But she refuses and accepts her death. She has lived a happy life and thanks her father. She gives him the recorded message. She has gotten all that she could have ever wanted and more.
“I got to see the world. Just like you promised.”
“No– you didn’t. You weren’t supposed to die like this. You have your whole life– I’m sorry–”
“Dad. It’s okay.”
A beat.
“I love you.”