When fear overtakes Eckels, he changes history. Eckels sees the Tyrannosaurus Rex and he panics. “Eckels, not looking back, walked blindly to the edge of the Path, his gun limp in his arms, stepped off the Path, and walked, not knowing it, in the jungle”(Bradbury 85). When Eckels spots the dinosaur, he panics which makes him forget about the rules. He turns and runs off the Path, which disturbs the ecological system. By breaking the rules, Eckels changes history. “Embedded in the mud, glistening green and gold and black, was a butterfly, very beautiful and very dead”(Bradbury 88). Eckels changes history when he steps on a butterfly, a symbol of freedom, and kills it. Once Eckels steps off the Path, his action changes the ecological process, which changes the past to the present.