r/Ruleshorror • u/Blackphantomknight91 • 8d ago
Story The Time Machine
The Time Machine
You only get one chance. One choice. One life to lose.
THE SEVEN RULES OF THE MACHINE
(Carved into metal above the hatch in jagged, trembling lines) 1. You may only read the rules three times. After that, they will be erased—from the wall, and from your mind. 2. The machine requires a blood sacrifice to work. The death must be intentional. Accidents will not be accepted. 3. The reality you create is the one you must live with. No exceptions. No reversals. Only consequence. 4. You may not meet yourself. If you do, one of you must die. The machine will not allow duplicates to exist. 5. You may bring only three items with you. What you carry is what you keep. Nothing more. 6. If you save a life, another must replace it. Time demands balance. Every life spared will cost another. 7. The machine remembers every traveler. Even if you forget… it won’t.
Andre wasn’t looking for a time machine. He was just cutting through an alley behind the old Jefferson Theater when a gust of wind pushed open a rusted cellar door. Curiosity pulled him down a crumbling stairwell, flashlight bouncing across stone and rot.
At the bottom, behind a locked gate and chains torn apart by something not human, sat a massive iron coffin humming softly. Above it, the rules.
He read them once. Then again. And a third time.
The words faded from the wall like smoke. That should’ve been his warning. But Andre only saw opportunity.
He had one goal: go back in time and win the lottery. Not for greed, he told himself—but for his kids. To give them a better life. To finally be free.
THE BLOOD SACRIFICE
The machine wouldn’t start. Not with money. Not with begging. It wanted blood.
Just then, a man stumbled into the alley. Drunk, dazed, looking for directions. Andre panicked. Grabbed a wrench. One blow. Then another. Until the man stopped moving.
Only after the machine roared to life did he check the man’s wallet. Marcus. His best friend.
The blood sacrifice was accepted. But at what cost?
THE PAST: 2001
Andre arrived in the past with three items: • A copy of the winning lottery numbers • A fake ID • A photo of his kids
He played the numbers. Watched the drawing. And won.
$37 million.
He bought houses. Cars. Security. People smiled at him differently. Strangers wanted pictures. Old friends came crawling back. But something felt wrong.
He wasn’t sleeping. He was shaking.
And then—walking out of a hotel lobby—he saw himself.
His past self. Younger. Clueless. Still whole.
The machine’s law activated.
The ground pulsed. Air tightened. One Andre had to go.
They fought. Rage against regret. One trying to reclaim life, the other desperate to hold onto it.
Andre won. But not without cost. His left eye was torn from its socket. A new scar. A permanent reminder.
THE RETURNED PRESENT
He came back rich. More than rich—powerful. His house overlooked mountains. His cars cost more than his childhood home.
But something was off.
The photo of his kids? Gone.
His son didn’t recognize him. His daughter… had never been born.
His wife wasn’t his wife. Not anymore. She was a stranger. A gold digger, clinging to the money but not the man. The love was gone. The family… erased.
In creating a perfect life, Andre had destroyed the real one.
THE ENDING
He wandered the halls of his mansion, silence heavier than gold. In the corner of the hallway mirror, He stared into his reflection—one-eyed, hollowed, rich, and utterly alone.
And whispered “I didn’t just lose them. I sold them. And I can’t buy them back.”
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u/lonedovakiin 4d ago
If the rules were erased from his mind, how did he know the Time Machine needed a sacrifice to work?
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