Chapter 15: Ancestor

Teleportation doesn't inherently cause time travel. However, the idea of teleportation leading to time travel can occur in concepts such as teleportation through wormholes or instantaneous travel at relativistic speeds...

"Lola," I greeted her.

"Julian, hijo." Lumapit siya sa akin, then opened her arms to welcome me in a hug.

Lumapit at yumakap din ako kay Lola. She's my mom's mother.

"Gusto mo raw akong makausap—tungkol saan? Did you find something interesting at our old ancestral house? I actually told your mom na roon ka na ipagbakasyon."

My eyes slightly widened at my grandma, then I nodded slowly. Ngumiti sa akin si Lola.

"Mamaya na lang po iyan, Ma. Mag-dinner na po muna tayo. Nandoon na sina Papa at ang daddy mo—Julian, batiin mo muna sila at ang lolo mo. Nasa dining room na sila."

I nodded at my mom and excused myself from her and Lola. Nauna na muna ako sa dining room to greet my dad and Lolo.

"Julian, you're back. Your Lolo's here. Magmano ka sa kanya," si Daddy, who welcomed me as soon as I entered the dining room.

"Dad," I said, kissing his cheek.

Then I turned to my grandpa and went to him after. "Lolo."

"Hijo, how have you been? You look even taller now than the last time I saw you." He smiled, the age lines at the corners of his eyes deepening.

I smiled back. "I'm fine, Lolo. Kayo po ni Lola? How was your vacation? Did you enjoy it?"

Tumawa bahagya si Lolo. "Yes, hijo. We did."

"Okay, you can continue that later, Dad. Julian, maupo ka na muna, anak, nang makapag-dinner na tayo."

Sumunod na rin ako sa sinabi ni Mommy, na nakasunod lang din sila sa akin ni Lolo pabalik sa dining room.

I had dinner with my family first. And then, after that, I finally got to talk to Lola. She liked having tea after dinner, kaya naman sinamahan ko na rin siyang mag-tsaa.

"Lola, I want to talk to you po about something."

"Hmm? What is it, hijo?" She smiled at me gently.

Napangiti na rin muna ako sa kaniya. My grandma's name is Ines Dela Torre, and she's the last to carry the Dela Torre family name. She's beautiful, gentle, and kind—although there's still an air of mystery in her...

"Lola, can we talk about our ancestors?" panimula ko sa topic.

She looked at me and gave her full attention after taking a subtle sip from her teacup.

"Oh. Now you're interested, hijo? May nakita ka bang kakaiba sa luma nating ancestral house?" She smiled at me again.

I nodded. "Opo, Lola. And I want to know more about our ancestors."

My grandmother nodded at me like she understood, then started telling me old stories about our lineage...

She told me about the origin of our family's ability to teleport—when I thought she wouldn't believe me at first when I mentioned it. I told her about the old records I found in our ancestral home. But I was wrong. She knew. She had always known. After all, she's still a Dela Torre.

One of our great ancestors, a brilliant but tormented physicist, fell deeply in love with someone he met too late—after fate had already pulled them apart. Desperate to rewrite their story, he turned to the one gift passed down through our bloodline: the family's mysterious ability to teleport across space.

But teleportation wasn't enough. He needed to break the boundaries of time itself.

Obsessed, he began experimenting with wormhole theory, quantum entanglement, and timelike correlations—believing that if quantum particles could be entangled across time, perhaps souls could be, too. He theorized that our family's teleportation wasn't just spatial—it was a primitive form of traversing a spacetime web, anchored by emotion and memory.

Pushing the limits of science, he attempted to create a stable wormhole by combining teleportation with principles similar to the Alcubierre drive, using the rare quantum signature our bloodline carried—possibly linked to exotic matter. His hope: to go back, change the moment they met, and realign the future.

But something went wrong. The experiment split timelines, fractured memories, and scattered echoes of their connection across generations...

So that's why my attempt at teleportation led to unintended time travel. That "simple error" wasn't just a mistake at all—it was the echo of my ancestor's desperate act.

It was because of love and regret... and the consequences of trying to change the past.

One of my ancestors tried to manipulate his teleportation ability to reverse a tragic loss—just like what I'm doing now with Noelle.

His desire to alter the past for love, his manipulation of the teleportation process, led to unintended consequences—which then affected my own experience with time travel. His failed attempt in the past became the accidental success in my time. That legacy shaped my journey.

"Love really knows no boundaries, Julian... It can even try to manipulate time just to see one last smile of a loved one again," Lola said.

I looked at Grandma and smiled, realizing she was right.

I now understand why it worked for me—why I was able to time travel in a way my ancestor couldn't. It's because we were the same. We both just wanted to save someone we loved.

I stood at the foot of the tower again. And once more, I felt the strange environmental effects surrounding it—the vibration in the air, light distortions, and the subtle magnetic pull drawing me in. This always happens during teleportation attempts...

But now I understand. My ancestor's grief and longing had imprinted themselves into the tower's mechanism, creating an unintended time-travel effect when someone uses it under similar emotional conditions.

At first, it was just curiosity... that led me to meeting Noelle in the past. Then came the frustration of what I learned about her fate in the present. And finally, the longing—the deep ache to change it.

And somehow, all of it aligned with my ancestor's emotions... activating the time-travel aspect of the ability he left behind.

This clock tower isn't just a machine.

It's a legacy... a vessel powered by the weight of love, memory, and regret—tied to our family's collective emotions.