The van sat in the middle of the dry, hot savanna, not too far from a pride of lions that lay lazily in the sun, seemingly uninterested in the vans sudden appearance. No one had seen where it came from, only that when they had turned from where the tour guide had been directing their attention, it was just there. An American couple started making obvious remarks like "Look Ted, that van weren't there before." and "Yea I know Gladys, it just appeared out of no where!".

One minute...

Two boys moved away from their mother on the other side of the bus to get a closer look, even the tour guide had gone silent and was now gazing ponderously at the van in the distance.
The van itself sat motionless amongst the tall dead grass, wavering in the heat waves. It was a good hundred meters away or so, but even at that distance, the shape of a man moving around inside the can could be made out, at least they all thought it was a man.

two minutes...

One of the boys turned to the other, his brother, "You think he's a poacher?"
The other boy scoffed, "Don't be stupid, why would a poacher be out in broad day light? And why would he be in a van like that? it'd be one of those trucks with lights and guns and stuff on it!"
"oh..."
As the boys squinted to see if anything else was out of place on the van, the first boy spoke up again, "...that don't look like any normal van to me! Look it's got all sorts of wierd things on it!" he almost yelled, trying to speak over the growing conversation from the other people on the tour bus behind them.
Sure enough, odd markings could be made out on the van, bits of metal or junk hanging off odd spots. Infact closer observation revealed that it barely resembled anything like a van, though it did have wheels. Maybe it could be driven? But then no one had seen it drive to where it stood silent now, nor did anyone hear it start, stop or run.

Four minutes...

The American woman spoke up again, "He's stopped moving Ted...I...I think he's looking at us."
Sure enough the man appeared to be looking out the window towards the tour bus, then he turned head toward the pride of lions before looking down, then slowly up again. The whole tour bus was quiet now, a nervous silence fell over them as the van's side door slowly slid open.
Suddenly the man bolted out of the van and straight for the lions. A few of the passengers gasped aloud, but as the man raced closer toward the pride, making a wordless commotion as he ran toward the lions, the tour bus erupted in screams and panic. The man skidded to a halt as one of the lioness' suddenly jolted upright, and with a loud roar summoned the males to protect their young. The largest of the male lions stood up quickly and started running toward the man, whom upon seeing their reaction started running back toward the van as fast as he could.
The tour bus erupted in commotion from people screaming, fainting and screaming for other passengers to do something. The two children sat open mouthed, staring in disbelief as the lion quickly closed in on the running man. The man was only meters away from his van and the lion would catch him before he would reach the side door again, let alone close it.

The lion pounced from just a few feet away, the man dived, reaching out for the back of the van. Just as he touched the back of the van, time seemed to halt a moment, then as it slowly caught up again, the image of the man and van quickly flickered and then vanished making a great boom like a crash of thunder.

Five minutes...

The tour bus was silent now, no one moved nor said a word. The silence carried on for minutes until one of the children spoke up "Can we get a van like that ma?" the child chirped wide eyed.
The lion, baffled and tired from its run, swished its tail and looked around a moment before lazily walking back to its pride.


--==Prologue==--

For as long as Diego Crawford could remember, his life had been lived five minutes at a time. He often chuckled to himself when he thought about his life like that, it was hardly a joke even to him but then he had to be optimistic about it - there was nothing he could do to change that fact. Diego was a no one really, had no special feelings saying he was going to be something special one day, no out of the ordinary genius in him or anything like that – he really was just like you or me. What made him what he was now was simply accepting to fill out a form that he was told would take him, ironically, five minutes. His family had always told him those sorts of things were just a ruse to get your mailing details so your letter box would soon be buried in junk mail, and that sort of an annoyance was not worth a life time supply of the cheap 'freebies' they would offer in return.
The Crawford family too was very ordinary, if not a tad odd in their social habits, tending to keep to themselves with an apparent gene of arrogance that was passed onto every generation. Diego too mostly kept to himself, not arrogant like his relatives, just timid and quiet. He did averagely at school, he passed all his classes at least, though a bit of a late bloomer into the working environment. At Twenty four, he had only just gotten his first full time job as an apprentice electrician but was doing reasonably well in his first seven or so months.

The day his normal way of living ended was slightly peculiar, just odd things like strange looking people staring at him, freakish accidents happening nearby as he walked through the early morning streets to work. The most bizarre was a child handing him a rugged leather bag; Diego had all but forgotten what the child had said at the time, but something was disturbingly familiar about the boy even though Diego had been so sure he had never seen him before. Only one or two blocks away from his workplace, a well dressed woman had approached him and asked him to fill out a survey for her. She explained it would just take five minutes and he would be paid a small amount of cash for his trouble. Diego figured he was a little early for work anyway, and he could certainly use the cash since his wages were pretty low, her good looks may have also swayed his decision.
The next few moments had happened so quickly to him, he remembered several large men jumping him as he followed the lady into a tall building. He must have been knocked out, but for how long he was not certain. He woke up strapped into a bizarre device, there were people that looked like masked scientists that made a fuss around him. The lady came up and placed a metal trunk on his lap but he could not hear what she said, something about being a pioneer and to find something or someone, his head hurt so much. There was a countdown, lots of lights and noise around him, then a bizzare sensation that Diego remembered clearly but at the same time could not explain how it felt, like being torn apart and put back together countless times whilst hurtling into a bright abyss.

That was when it all began, Diego woke up in a foreign country with people standing all around him making a fuss. It looked as though he had crashed landed in a dinning area of a cafe. He could not understand the people around him as they spoke another language other than english, they sat him in a chair and tried to comfort him as they tried to work out what happened. Then suddenly they vanished. The very scenery too completely changed and Diego found himself on a cliff face looking out over snowy peaks!
And on this went, on and on and on, without stopping. Every few moments, Diego would be transported somewhere random. He quickly began to make small discoveries about what was happening. First he found he would change areas every five minutes exactly, secondly he eventually discovered that he was still being transported around earth, but at random times in its history, or rather random points of history before his own time, but no time in what would normally be his own future.
He stole food or blankets where possible, and found that anything he touched at the five minute interval would carry with him into the next five minutes, though it had to be movable to some extend. He could not take buildings with him, the largest thing he had managed was an empty dump truck.
These discoveries went on for what felt to be a couple of days, though Diego could not be certain as he lost track of his own sense of time quickly and day or night was another random factor in his transportations. Diego quickly wore out, sleep was impossible as he changed scenery every few minutes and each new place brought all sorts of noises or weather conditions or dangers. He had crawled up into a fetal position and cried aloud, squeezing his eyes shut praying for it to stop.

Diego woke up feeling relaxed, like he had a decent rest, though he did not remember feeling sleepy or even falling asleep. The air was warm and comforting, there were birds outside chirping...outside? Diego jolted up right, he was in a remarkably comfortable bed, in a large room with a peaked ceiling. The room was painted in calming blues and greens but made of wood, like the wood had grown with those colors rather than have been painted and in the wood work were strange and intricate markings adding to its beauty. He wondered out of the room, the door opened up onto a giant covered balcony, with overlooked the most beautiful valley Diego had ever seen, the view painted gold as the morning sun greeted him. The balcony was as long and wide as what he would consider a standard house, with doors leading to other rooms, some larger and others smaller, but all with the same beautiful wood make as the room he had woken up in.
Other than a toilet, the bed and a few empty tables, benches, taps and other bare essential necessities, the house was empty. Diego felt safe here though, and he was sure he had been there for much longer than five minutes by now. He sat out on the front balcony looking out at the dense jungle that surrounded the house, no signs of human life to be seen anywhere. He still had the box the lady had given him and the bag from the strange boy. The bad was full of pockets and separate areas that all sealed up with sturdy zips all made with tough leather. It was a really good quality bag and Diego instantly took a liking to it. Inside was a large, thick leather bound book that fit the back compartment of the bag perfectly; unlike the bag it looked brand new and all the pages inside were blank. The only other thing inside the bag was a pen, no doubt to be used with the book.

Suddenly an uncomfortable feeling hit Diego, familiar but at the same time not quite so familiar. The he realized it was the same sensation he had been getting when he was moving every five minutes. It got stronger and stronger until in an instant his location changed again to a busy city street. Diego screamed out, hurling the metal box he had been holding onto into the crowd of people. He had thought it was over, but he could feel it was back to as it was before. The feeling was not like anything else he had ever experienced, it was not annoying or even noticeable if he forgot about it, but it was always there, somewhere in him.

Diego soon found a clean and thankfully unused portaloo and locked himself inside it after a couple of location changes and began to think hard. He did not want to die, but he did not want to go on like this either. He pulled out the book from the leather bag and stared at it for hours. He could hear the outside world changing around him as he sat quietly in the portaloo contemplating what he should do. Diego sat lost in thought for so long he barely heard the knocks on the door and the pleas from an unfamiliar woman's voice, "'scuse me, could you hurry up in there? It's an emergency!" she wailed, trying to be cheery at the same time.
"Sorry, i'm having a hard time in here." Diego mumbled without thinking.
He heard a slight chuckle from the other side of the door, before it was cut off, as if realizing the occupant might hear her. "I didn't mean it like that...I...I meant..." he nervously called out.
"Are you ok in there? You don't sound like you're being relieved in anyway?" the girl chirped trying to make light of the situation.
"...I think my life is ruined." he found himself saying, he didn't care what she would think of what he said, she probably cared more when he was going to get out.
"That's no good." she sighed before pausing a moment, "What are you going to do now then?"
Diego frowned, what was he going to do now? What kind of question was that? He had no idea what he was going to do, what could he do? "I...there's nothing I can do!" he blurted.
"Well you could start again couldn't you? You know work your way up to the top from the bottom and all that. It can't be that bad can it? I mean you're still alive right? Though the smell from in there kinda suggests to me SOMETHING in there has died though." The girl burst into laughter, Diego had not used the portaloo at all and it was clean, but he could at least see she was trying to make him feel better.
"I don't know where to start...how can I live the way I am now?" he sighed.
"Just see where fates puts you I guess...start from there! Today could be the first day of the rest of your life, It's never too late to become something great you know."
Diego went silent a moment, those words in any other situation would have meant nothing to him, but he saw something in them now. Fate could put him literally anywhere in a few moments, somewhere amazing, dangerous, wondrous; it could be somewhere no one has been before, the people there may teach him something he never knew about the world or himself. He could go places, see things, meet people and experience life as no one had experienced it before.
"I think...I think i'm...i'm ok now." Diego let out a great sigh of relief, for the first time since this all started he felt in control in some small way of his life again, just enough so that he could get by.
"oh i'm so glad you're relieved!" the girl cheered, "because I desperately need to be relieved myself!"
Diego slowly sat up, feeling like a great weight had been lifted off him, "Thanks, for everything you've said. I'm Diego." he said as he reached for the door.
"Genevieve..." was all Diego heard the girl say as he swung open the door.
The location changed again and he opened up the portaloo to the balcony of the empty house in the jungle he had appeared in before. This was the first time he had been to the same place twice, and he marked it as the first day of his new life, which he was going to live just five minutes at a time...

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Ok so the initial editing is bad and all, but in this immediate instance i'm more concerned about what you thought about the story and idea in general. I know it's a little 'doctor who on (finger quote) acid' but i'm going to be a little more adventurous with this idea. Rather than traveling freely through time and space, this is going to be more of a survival story. Again I'm going to change that aspect often too though, adding new problems and introducing an underlying plot a little while into the story if people like it.

One thing, I would like a better story title, so if you guys have got any ideas please leave them here. Thanks for reading.

Dr Whippy