Time Traders

Rick was supposed to die in 1918. A devastating car accident leaves him clinging to life through sheer force of will—a will so powerful it unlocks something impossible. Rick discovers he can move through time and space itself. But survival comes at a cost. The same mysterious power that saves him traps him forever in the body of an eighteen-year-old. Seeking anonymity, Rick settles in the 1980s, careful not to interfere with the fragile threads of time. During a reckless trip back to his own past to quietly retrieve comic books he knows will be worth a fortune in the future, he encounters the unthinkable: his younger self—a boy named Tom. What begins as curiosity becomes connection. When tragedy strikes and Tom is left orphaned and alone, facing an uncertain future among distant relatives, Rick makes an impulsive decision that will alter both their lives. Breaking every rule he has set for himself, he takes Tom forward in time and raises him in another era. From mentor to brother, Rick watches as Tom grows older, stronger, and socially alive, while Rick remains unchanged—eternally youthful, increasingly isolated, and haunted by the loneliness of near-immortality and the paradox of loving someone who is, impossibly, himself. Bound by identity yet divided by time, the two must confront a disturbing truth: though they share the same past, they are becoming entirely different men. And the further Tom grows from the boy Rick once was, the more uncertain the future becomes—for both of them.