Everyone in the TimeGuild warned me about “the darkest timeline.” I assumed they were joking, since the scans showed a timeline without disease, famine, or war. I had to go.

Upon arrival, I spied a newspaper headline: “Princess Bride Reboot Coming 2027.”

I jumped home, horrified. The TimeGuild was right.

David Dezell Turner is an aerospace PhD student at the University of Colorado Boulder. When he isn’t giving directions to real spaceships, he’s writing about fictional ones. Check out more of his work at daviddezellturner.com.