I came across this gem in my old stories, so I've decided to share it with you. I wrote this four years ago. Enjoy!
The Science in Time
“It’s the end of the world!” shouted Rachel.
“David, make it stop!” Joseph yelled above the wind which was increasing its power.
Deborah screamed as the tree stump on which she was standing was wrenched from the ground. She quickly jumped down and raced to Rachel’s side.
“I’m trying,” said David in a frustrated whisper. He was fidgeting with the sphere of buttons in his hands.
The entire building behind them got caught in the wind. It flew above their heads and into the black hole in the sky. Deborah screamed again as a nearby lamppost came very close to hitting Joseph.
“I think I’ve got it figured out!” David said triumphantly. He clicked some buttons on the sphere and the four of them disappeared in a flash of blue light.
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“Your assignment is to write about a science-fiction idea that is popular among people, that can include teleportation, time travel, flying cars, aliens, or anything that comes to mind. Feel free to mix two or more ideas and at the end of next week your team will give an oral report answering why, what, where, when, and how the events would happen.” Mr Rodriguez said to his class.
He then assigned everyone into teams of four. David, Rachel, Joseph, and Deborah were assigned as a team. They sat down together at a table and started tossing ideas around. The boys wanted an apocalyptic approach, while the girls suggested time traveling to the Renaissance or Baroque period.
“Okay, how ‘bout this,” Rachel said. “We use both of these ideas. Time traveling to an apocalyptic time?”
“Hey, that's a good idea!” said David. “That way we all get what we want and the timeline of it all works out great! So now we will get started.”
**************************************************
Once the blue light had disappeared and no longer blinded them, they saw that they had merely teleported a little ways away. The black hole was to their left in the sky, bot moving as slow as clouds do, coming nearer to them.
“It didn’t work,” muttered David. He started fiddling with the buttons again. “Why did it work?” cried Deborah.
“Try readjusting where we’re going. Set it to— set it to the 19th century and if we arrive there we can fast-forward to our time,” Rachel suggested.
“Worth a shot,” said David. He hit some other buttons. The blue light came again and they disappeared in time.
**************************************************
“I can’t believe we got an A+ on our report!” exclaimed Deborah, while licking the melting ice cream that was sliding down the side of her cone.
“I’m glad it’s over. I think of all of this science-fiction stuff is just that—fiction,” Joseph said.
“I kinda wish it lasted longer. It was fun to think of impossible scenarios that could happen,” said Rachel. She was eating plain frozen yogurt with fresh blueberries.
”I’ve been thinking,” David said, slowly taking sips of his milkshake. “What might happen if someone could time travel to the end of the world and come back and tell everyone. So I’ve been doing extra research.” David put his cup down and leaned back in his chair.
“I’ve started making what you might call a ‘time machine’. I have proof that it works. But I was wondering, once it’s finished of course, if any of you would want to help test it.”
Deborah agreed at once, but Rachel and Joseph were a little more skeptical. “Many people have tried time travel in books and almost always end up missing or dead.” Rachel said.
Joseph agreed with her. “Yea, and what makes you think that you can do it?”
“I’m not most people,” was David’s answer. “Plus, if I get it right, we’d be the first people to ever time travel!”
**************************************************
The blue light disappeared, but this time, they were in a zero-gravity black room. They could see each other, but nothing else.
“Where are we?” asked Deborah.
“Inside the black hole, I think,” said David. “I think the apocalypse is making it impossible for us to travel out of here.”
“So we’re stuck?” Rachel demanded.
“Yes,”
“Darn it David! We told you to leave things alone and now, because of you, we’re going to die in this place! You just had to see the future, didn’t you?” said Joseph angrily.
“Wait a minute!” cried Deborah. “What if that’s the key to getting out of here? We need to travel to the future!”
“Preposterous,” muttered Joseph.
“It could work,” said Rachel thoughtfully.
“Well, I’m going to give it a try. If that doesn’t work, then we’re screwed,” David said. He pressed some buttons and in a flash of blue light they were gone again.
**************************************************
“Well, where should we go?”
“The American Revolution?”
“Too brutal. Anyone else?”
“The Mesozoic Era?”
“Too many dinosaurs. Too unpredictable.”
“I’ve got the perfect idea!” exclaimed David. “We’ll go to the apocalypse and come back to be famous for two things! We’ll know how the world ends!”
“But that can be more unpredictable and dangerous than dinosaurs,” countered Joseph.
“I’m the captain of this voyage,” said David. “So I’ll decide where we get to go. You can come if you want or stay here, your choice. But when we’re famous I won’t say I told you so.”
**************************************************
This time there were two flashes of light, about two seconds between them. The kids were back where they were before time traveling. “It worked!” cried Rachel. “Good thinking, Deborah.” Deborah grinned.
“Well, that was exciting. Please don’t tell me you’re planning another trip like that any time soon,” Joseph said, turning to David.
David was busy taking a mallet to his sphere, breaking it apart, sweeping up the shards, and throwing it away.
“Nope. Never doing that again,” David said. “The machine is gone for good.” The other three cheered and David couldn’t help but join them.
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