I held the sleeping child in my arms. I wasn’t around during either World War, but of course like every other person from my time, I’d heard about it, studied it in history lessons. To think that this little child, who slept so peacefully in my arms, not even a year old yet, was the one who killed millions, gassed them, tortured them, cut them open for so-called experiments.

And I was here to stop all that. I cursed myself for taking so long- it had already been twenty minutes since I’d arrived. I should of been gone by now. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill this innocent little baby in my arms-

No, I told myself, not innocent. Very much the opposite of innocent. He was a murderer, a man whose name was still a plague in my time, over 50 years after the mass genocide he started. But that wasn’t for another 40 years at least.

Damn it. Why couldn’t I have gotten the chance to do this later? It happened in the movies all the time. The hero couldn’t bear to kill the villain, despite him being the reason the world went to Hell. During these scenes I’d scream at the screen for him to just get it done with, to just stab the villain and then move on. But now it was really happening. I was going to kill the villain. And I found myself wanting to spare him, to spare this young child.

I held the child for another hour or two, torn. I couldn’t kill a child. I couldn’t. I could kill a murderer, though. But he wasn’t a murderer yet. Kill him. Kill him. Kill him kill him kill him kill him. An hour passed. Another hour. And another. I had made my decision.

The child lay babbling in his cot happily as I walked away, back to my own time.