Interrogation of a Time Traveller

For my previous university assignment, I was asked to create a short story portfolio. The first brief was simple enough: write about two people, one real and one fictitious. This was the assignment posted a few weeks ago.

The real person I chose was a close friend who lives with retrograde amnesia. Their story is powerful and deeply personal, and even in the short time I’ve known her, I’ve admired their resilience. The fictional character I chose was the Time Traveller from H.G. Wells’s The Time Machine—a story I’ve always found fascinating for its blend of science, imagination, and social critique.

When it came time to decide which of the two I would expand into a larger piece, the choice was unexpectedly difficult. Writing about my friend would have been meaningful, but the limitation of just 1,000 words felt like a disservice. Her life deserves more than a word count cap. Out of respect, I chose instead to expand on Wells’s character and write a fanfiction piece featuring the Time Traveller.

That gave me freedom: a freedom to invent, to experiment, and to engage with Wells’s world without worrying about compressing or oversimplifying a real person’s experiences.

The challenge then became stylistic. I had to keep close to Wells’s 19th-century voice while making it accessible to a modern reader. That tension shaped how I wrote dialogue, how I described scenes, and even how I played with etymology.

One of my favourite lines in the story comes from a scene where the Traveller is accused of committing genocide. Of course, the word itself is anachronistic — Wells wrote The Time Machine in 1895, and the term “genocide” wasn’t coined until 1944. So I asked myself: how would a man of the 1800s, steeped in classical learning, hear that word?

The prefix “geno-” comes from the Greek genos, meaning race, tribe, birth, or lineage. It’s a root connected with ideas of origin and generation. The Traveller, trained in Greek and Latin, would likely latch onto that sense of birth and babies. And so his bewildered reply became:

“I had nothing to do with babies…”

It’s a moment that shows both his literal-mindedness and his distance from the modern horrors implied by the word. For me, it also captured what writing this fanfiction was about: working between Wells’s 1800s mindset and our 20th-century vocabulary, bridging two worlds of language and imagination.

The feedback on my assignment was fair, but it did highlight the problem of writing under word count pressure. Besides a few minor formatting issues, adding a target publication and a reference list, the main critique was that I hadn’t included enough detail. But I was already jammed up against the 1,000-word limit, and every extra explanation meant sacrificing something else. If I’d had more space, I would have explored the Traveller’s motivations and the Eloi’s transformation in greater depth.

In the end, though, that constraint taught me something important: writing within limits forces sharper, more deliberate decisions. It’s not about piling on more information, but about choosing which details carry the most weight. Sometimes, the choice of a single word can shape the whole tone of a story — and sometimes, as I found, it can even lead to a line about babies.

Once again, this is my original work, unedited and raw from my assignment. 1000 words for the article and 50 words for the statement.

Interrogation of a time traveller

19 September, 829,682AD

Five unlabeled clocks ticked over the hour as one, and the grey walls emanated light like a frosted window. The room played tricks with the Time Traveller’s eyes, and he lost depth perception as to its size. He focused on the Auditor leaning over the table with their face mere centimetres from his.

The Traveller had encountered a few Eloi in 820,701AD, and the Auditor had the same androgynous appearance and vocal features. Now, a little under ten thousand years later, the Eloi have mastered themselves and, by the looks, time travel.

Confusion racked The Traveller to his core as he read the header of the strange illuminated paper under the Auditor’s hand; “ChronoCrimes Division”. He’d been to the end of time and seen the death of the Earth, yet he’d never encountered this ChronoCrimes Division.

‘We should run through the charges while we wait to confirm your identity.’ The Auditor straightened their posture and gesticulated as a bird would to attract a mate. ‘Time travel isn’t for games—there are serious repercussions in changing the smallest thing.’

When the Traveller last encountered the Eloi, they were a speechless race and used body language for communication. Although their words lacked emotion, he was impressed by the clarity of their current linguistic skills and humoured by the use of their dramatic body language. He absorbed the words with a smirk. ‘The future hasn’t been written. I cannot change the events of something that hasn’t happened.’

The Auditor tried to deepen their voice to intimidate, but the hand gestures ruined the effect. ‘Look around you. A scientist and traveller of time, and you can’t think in four dimensions? There is never a tomorrow, as it has, will always happen somewhere in time.’

‘Well, that’s fatally deterministic.’

‘It is as it is.’ The Auditor didn’t need to look at the glowing page, but the long pause was effective. ‘You are being charged on several accounts of Chrono-modulating—’

‘Speak plain,’ the Traveller snapped.

The Eloi glared at the Traveller and began speaking with a fresh set of hand signals that could have been frustration, but it was difficult to tell without further study. ‘Modifying the timeline. You created an entirely new branch in the continuum—’

The Traveller slapped his hand on the table. ‘How can I change something that always happens? If that is the case, then my act of time travel always happens. Your words contradict the last. Thus, the concept of this “Division” is an oxymoron.’

The Auditor’s body movements changed in what could have been confusion, but they continued unfazed. ‘One count of homicide when you left the individual, Weena, to die in the bushfire.’

‘I saved that poor creature’s life. She was to die in the river, and I saved her.’

The Auditor slammed their hand on the table. ‘But she died because of your inaction.’ The emotion in their voice copied the Traveller’s aggressive intonations from before.

The unexpected outburst stalled the Traveller’s thoughts while the Auditor glanced at the document again and continued.

‘You created an unrepairable tear in the continuum when you participated in genocide.’

The Traveller considered his ancient language teachings. ‘I had nothing to do with babies or …’ he trailed off as the door opened and a stranger entered.

This Eloi had the same features as all the others; brown or blonde hair, fair skin, a slender face, and a petite body frame. The newcomer handed a document to the Auditor and stood under the clocks. At least it was something else on which to focus.

The Auditor looked up from their page. ‘It seems we are having difficulties identifying you.’

‘How many time travellers have you pestered before me?’

‘We don’t have records from before the great fall, but we have pinpointed your origin.’

‘You haven’t answered my question.’

The Auditor placed the page on the table and spoke for the first time without using their hands. ‘Our justice is simple.’

The Traveller raised his voice in irritation. ‘How many others?’

‘You’re the first.’

‘If I’m your first, then you should build your justice system on historical events. I can help you do that.’

‘You? You destroyed a civilisation. The Morlocks never recovered from what you did. History recorded they died out after you left the first time.’

‘The Morlocks?’ the Traveller replied in shock. ‘That was purely self-defence.’

‘You are from a barbaric time. Unlike you, the Eloi won’t kill another. You must have mistaken their intentions.’

‘Their intention involved farming the Eloi as food.’ The table became visible through the Traveller’s hands as they became semi-translucent. ‘So if death is not my punishment, what’s this? Removal from existence?’

‘Our agents promoted your failure in designing your time machine.’

‘It seems you’re no stranger to changing the unchangeable timeline. Maybe this is why I’m your first captured time traveller. You never caught them if they never built it. Do you know what you have done? You have created a paradox. This Division isn’t just an oxymoron—it’s hypocritical.’

‘The CCD will not stand for unapproved modulations. Do the crime, don’t do the time.’ The Auditor’s eyes widened as the spectral image of a tree seeped into view, filling the corner of the room. ‘What’s happening?’

‘Did you know I helped the Eloi develop their language, mathematics and farming? I brought society to the voiceless savages of the future with three books.’

The two Eloi stared at the apparition and the disappearing walls with apparent aghast. ‘What you describe are the ancient texts,’ the Auditor said, then their eyes fell on their fading companion and showed the first emotional response since they entered the room. They stared at their fading hand, their fear turning to horror.

‘It seems you just altered yourselves out of existence. There are serious repercussions in changing the smallest thing. If you do not know what is going on, then the CCD are not the experts on time travel.’

As the Auditor’s panic grew and the tree became more solid, the room and its occupants inversely faded from existence.

Mrs Watchett poked her head around the door of the Traveller’s study, and her elderly voice crackled, ‘Sir, your guests have arrived for this week’s dinner.’

‘Thank you, Mrs Watchett,’ he said, still staring at the page of mathematical calculations in his hand. ‘Show them to the dining room. I will be there shortly.’ When the door closed again, he muttered, ’I know this should work.’

He stood, placed the documents on his desk and locked the door on the way out.

Statement: Time travel stories have a niche audience among sci-fi readers. This short story is fan fiction based on The Time Machine, a novella by HG Wells. I enjoy complex machinations and thought-provoking stories.

This brief 3-act story builds off my last assignment, demonstrating the Time Traveller using his blunt intelligence from a comparatively barbaric time to dominate the conversation and show he had been the proverbial Prior, spreading the word.