Hidden Law of Time
[The Law of an Observer: An individual, of at least twelve years of age, may choose any point and location on the timeline to go back and observe the events of the past. No one from the past can interact in any way with an observer. With this, the observer may move freely among the world of the past without disturbing or altering the past in any way.]
Everyone knows about this law of time travel. Anyone can be an observer or a "ghost," as many jokingly refer to it. You get to go back in time and watch any event or moment they want to see, whenever they want without any concern for interaction with anyone or anything. However, as with anything to do with humans, there are flaws. Occasionally, we knock something over, or someone from the past sees or hears us. We do not understand why some individuals from the past can sense our presence but since they have no way of explaining what they have seen or heard the blame goes to the spirits of their dead loved ones or evil spirits watching them from another world. I always found it comical; they think they are seeing someone from the past when they are seeing someone from the future. No matter that is where we get the name "time ghost" or "ghosts of the past" so it is true, we are responsible for many of the past's legends and ghost stories.
There is another way of time travel that only a select few of ever get to know about called The Law of Replacement.
[The Law of Replacement: A qualified individual that is selected, properly trained and then approved by the Board of Time Travel, can go back in time and replace someone in the past. These individuals do have the ability to change history. They may never return to their birth time. The individual must follow the objective they are assigned by the board, without deviation. If, at any time, the individual is not carrying out their assigned mission, actions are taken to redirect the individual back to their assigned task.]
There is a principle that is in the unwritten fine print of The Law of Replacement; to "replace" someone in the past you must murder that person to take his or her spot. Also, the part about "never return to their birth time" means as soon as you kill someone in the past, you die in the present. That is because an individual cannot exist in two places on the timeline. To replace a life, you must take your own. Leaving everyone that had ever loved you with a corpse. Also, the part about "properly trained" in The Replacement of Time program means that once you are selected, you have no life outside of training. You spend years learning about a particular point in time: the events, people, and cultures of that time. You do not get to choose; the board selects your time for you. You learn, live, and die in a compound. That is what I am doing now. I, Mick, have been in training for four years for the replacement program. Some people say I was born for this, and they might be right. I am the boy whose parents were both part of this small group of the selected few for The Replacement of Time Travel training, and was even born in the training compound. Lucky me.
Now, there is not much I remember about my father. He was sent to the year of 1863 when I was just three years old. His assigned objective was to save Abraham Lincoln's life by replacing a soldier that would silently and without anyone there to see, take the bullet that was meant to take Lincoln's life in September of 1863. In return, Lincoln was able to deliver the Gettysburg Address less than a month later inspiring the northern public to stay active and changed the outcome of the Civil War. His mission was short, and he is in an unmarked grave on the edge of a small battlefield. The only thing I have of my father's are the notes that he took while he was in his training. The notes that always stand out to me are the ones that have anything to do with the family of the man he replaced. He wrote more like a diary or letters instead of school notes. But at the end of the day he is just another dead soldier with a name lost on a battlefield. Now, my mother, on the other hand, went back to replace Florence Nightingale. The first female nurse that changed the way women were being seen and encouraged more women to become nurses. Saving more people in wars as well as taking care of the sick; her legacy continues today, and everyone knows her name. Well, at least the name of the person that she left me to become.
That is one day that I will never forget. That day that I was finally left alone and I felt like that past was more important then my future...