Daily Flash Fiction Challenge

Oliver had always had an odd relationship with time. He felt it stretching and bending around him, each moment as tangible as the wooden floorboards of his old home. But today, time felt different; it felt distorted.

Oliver came down the stairs, every creak louder than the last. His heart was a sledgehammer, pounding away. He stepped into the kitchen, but it felt alien. It was a tableau from his past: the ceramic tiles, his mother's cherished coffee mug on the counter, his father's newspaper tossed haphazardly on the kitchen table.

A shiver ran down his spine.

"Something is wrong here," he muttered. His voice echoed eerily in the lifeless room. He'd returned after years away, but the house hadn’t aged. It was like stepping into a photograph, one captured decades ago.

Suddenly, the newspaper headline caught his eye: it was a date, the very day he had left his hometown. The coffee in the mug was still steaming, the chairs were pushed back as if someone had just gotten up, a half-eaten piece of toast was left behind.

He turned to look up at the stairs. From this angle, he could see his old room's door, ajar. Heart racing, he ascended. Inside, he found a photograph on his old bed. It was him, or someone that looked like him, but much older, much more life-worn.

Confusion gripped him. He was in the photograph, with the kitchen scene in the background. The toast, the paper, the steaming mug—all of it. He looked closer. In the image, his older self was pointing towards something scribbled in the corner: "Some timelines aren't meant to be visited."

A chill ran through him. As he looked around the room, then back at the picture, he realized the truth. He was stuck in a loop, a ripple in time. Fear set in, but with it came a strange sense of understanding.

It wasn't his parents' home that was out of place. It was him. Time had become his labyrinth, and he had to find his way out.