Ever wish you could go back to a perfect moment? What would you risk to relive it?

Everyone said time travel was dangerous, but no one ever said it felt this good.

For Alex, the machine in the corner of his room was more than metal and wires — it was a doorway back to the days when his parents laughed together, when his friends still called, when the world felt bright. The government had banned temporal revisits years ago, after too many people stopped living in the present. But Alex wasn’t addicted… not yet. He just needed a few minutes. A few minutes to remember how happiness used to sound.

At first, it was harmless — a quick visit to last summer, watching the sunset from the old rooftop where he and his friends had spent every golden evening. The laughter echoed so vividly he could almost reach out and grab it. But each trip made the present blur a little more. Colours dulled, voices softened, faces seemed just out of focus. He missed calls from his best friend. His mother knocked but got no reply. Or maybe they hadn’t stopped — maybe he had just stopped noticing.

Alex’s days became a rhythm of fleeing and returning. The past was warm and familiar; the present, cold and demanding. He noticed the difference in small moments  — a birthday forgotten, a late homework assignment, a conversation he could barely remember starting. His machine hummed every night, and every night he hesitated, tempted by yesterday’s perfect moments.

Then one evening, he arrived at his favorite memory — the rooftop at sunset. The sky glowed orange, just like he remembered. Laughter floated around him, yet it sounded hollow this time, as if the voices weren’t really his friends’. Alex reached out, and the echoes of yesterday slipped through his fingers. The city had moved on without him, alive with people who didn’t exist in his chosen past.

He stepped back, trembling. For the first time, he realized that chasing yesterday was slowly erasing today. The warmth of memory couldn’t keep him alive; it could only distract him from living. With a trembling hand, he shut the machine down. The silence that followed was heavy, but it was real.

Outside, the sky was gray — imperfect, unfiltered, alive. Alex felt the wind against his face, cold and unfamiliar, and for the first time in weeks, he truly breathed. He glanced at the city, alive with people who laughed, stumbled, and moved forward. He smiled, small but certain, understanding that happiness didn’t belong to the past.

You can’t live today if you’re forever chasing yesterday.