Bill of Human Wrongs

Eve stood where the tree had grown over her exit. She turned around to see Claire watching her with an odd expression on her face. “Oh God, I’m going to throw up.” She reached out for the shiny brass knob protruding through the tree’s appendages, and just as before, the branches shriveled up to expose her exit. She grabbed at it and in a panic, dashed through the portal.

Claire stood in shock, she’d witnessed the tree wither and expose a door where the strange woman had disappeared. But now there was no exit, only a wall covered with limbs of a very old tree. “God, am I dreaming?” Her worries about her perception of reality had nagged at her over the years. Her nightly dreams were so real to her. She went back to the table and grabbed the paper. It was real. She studied it, she read the name Sandy Phillips, the name Scarsborough Meadows, all the key words that she hadn’t found with her computer searches.

Then her eyes saw it.

Claire dropped the paper on the table, she slowly sat, her head felt light. After a few heavy breaths, she looked again. The date. The publication date on the top corner of the paper.

It read 2045, 30 years in the future.