ᴛᴏᴍ ʜᴀɴꜱᴏɴ x ʀᴇᴀᴅᴇʀ ᴏɴᴇ-ꜱʜᴏᴛꜱ

11. Love Across Time I

Reader is an intelligent high school senior in the 50's who somehow manages to build a time machine and travel to 1987, where she meets a certain handsome student. Little does she know, he has his own secret...

Requested by: storiesRrandom

I set up the machine like I had already done several times before. Adjusting my glasses on my face, I squinted at it again. Even though it was so close to working, there were still a few more tweaks to be made, and I knew I couldn't enter it into the science fair if it wasn't perfect.

"Trial number seventy-one," I sighed. I precisely turned the small dial on the machine's left-hand side, and smiled as it whirred to life. It was incredible how I had managed to put together a few random items, such as a television screen, a hose from the local general store, and a kitchen timer to create a device that would allow me to travel through time. I had always been fascinated with the idea of time travel, since I had heard some of the boys from the science club speaking about how they would change the events of the second world war.

The thought of changing past events intrigued me, and entering into the future as well. Would any of that affect the past or present? And if I talked to anyone, could I completely alter the space-time continuum? I had done my best research on the subject, even though there wasn't much to go off. Just a few of Newton's laws and Einstein's calculations. Still, I wanted to make it work.

"Here we go," I whispered as the machine began to shake. As I watched the screen come to life for the umpteenth time, I made a silent prayer.

Please let it work this time.

Suddenly, the machine began to shake more forcefully than it had in past trials. The entire science room felt as though it were moving. I nervously looked around, hoping not to cause any damage to this room, or any of the other rooms in the school. I winced. Maybe working on this machine during school hours in a tiny classroom wasn't such a good idea.

But at least something was happening.

I grinned, my faith increasing by the millisecond. The glowing screen began to glow brighter and brighter.

Maybe this time...

The glow became rather blinding, so I began to squint. The last thing I heard was a teacher furiously banging on the door of the science room before everything went white.

── ⋅ ⋅ ── ✩ ── ⋅ ⋅ ──

I slowly opened my eyes, and tried to take in my unfamiliar surroundings.

Where was I? The room certainly looked different. Had I actually done it?

I frantically checked the date on the machine.

August 11th, 1987.

"1987?!" I shouted aloud. "I'm supposed to be in the past!"

I scrambled around, trying to change it back. But it was no use. The machine was out of power.

I was stuck in an unfamiliar time.

The reality of the situation was hitting me now. I looked around at the room again. Everything was different. The posters, the equipment. I began to take a closer look at everything. I had never seen many of the items before, and it was rather fascinating.

I walked over to the back of the classroom and saw a large square device with some sort of buttons that had numbers on them. I recognized a few arithmetic symbols as well.

Perhaps they can do more advanced mathematics in 1987 than we can.

Suddenly I realized something. The future is full of new knowledge, is it not? Perhaps I can find an easier way to power up my machine here!