A bullied child receives a visit from her future self who consoles her that everything will be alright. Sneakily, the child steals the time machine and her bullies and teachers are wiped out of existence.
A child curled in a corner of his dark closet around a belly cramping from hunger and bruises and the earlier tension of waiting for his mom to get bored of calling him a freak, lifted his head toward a stranger who was crawling into the closet.
"I was you— I'm you from the future;" the new arrival whispered as they curled around the child, "but it was too hard trying to make things better— having to trust people who offered to help and to make decisions and be a responsibe adult with working and cleaning and completing forms and talking and thinking about mote than the present— because "it gets better" only if you're lucky enough to get to try so hard again and again for a future you can make different than the past— and that's why... that's why, little me, I will replace your spirit... and take your place...."
