Unpaused: Dwell of the Past

Chapter Nine - The Trio

​"How... how do you know? Did somebody tell you anything?"

​"Your face is all over the place in the bulletin in the west bridge," she said. "I'm sorry, let's start it all over again. Hello, I'm Alexandra Wes-,"

​"You're Alexandra?" he was surprised.

"I'm sorry, have we met before?" Alexandra asked while recalling if she had met this man before.

"Uhh, umm, never mind," he shook his head. "How did you discover this place? I thought I did good enough to avoid this place from the touch of students,"

​"You broke the padlock, covered the CCTV, and I went in. It's that simple," she said. "Beside, I've been here before and well, strange things happened ever since. Like I went in to that lift and came out of it seven hours later and I got bru-,"

​"You mean, you time-travelled?"

​"Oh wow you love interrupting, huh?"

​Alejandro pulled two chairs near him and placed it in front of each other. He gestured Alexandra to let her take her seat. She trusted him somehow.

​"Yes, I knew things about The Trio and the rumored about kidnapping and all that. In fact, the three of us made that up," he said and left Alexandra with twitched eyebrows. "You see, this place used to be some sort of girls and boys hangout, only certain people can enter, mostly if you're a cheerleader, footballers, and popular and rich kids. Me, Theo, and Jeff were not one of them. We managed to enter to this school because of a scholarship, that most people who earned that scholarship were nerds and hated by the jocks. Honestly it's the first time I'm proud of being a nerd,"

​"Anyway, one day, the three of us watched a documentary about time machines and we were planning to make one just as a joke. But then it became addiction and we kept making it. We came here late at night every single day for months just to make it right in this room because there was this old lift that was once used for teachers and principal, but they removed the machine and left the 'box' instead. We thought it was a good opportunity since it is made of iron. We bought a special lock for this door so no one was able to get here. Don't get me started on complaints from students because we locked this room. Anyway, after hundreds of failures, we finally made it and tried it. First we tried using it with Jeff's cat, and well, it came back two minutes later. Then one of us tried it, and after all considerations, Jeff volunteered,"

​"There were buttons to decide how long you want to skip the time and Jeff chose an hour. He did it, an hour later he arrived back healthy, although there was a bruise on his arm, but that didn't matter because we thought it wasn't caused by the time machine. We all tried it, sometimes to do the exams or for betting with the whole school about who wins in football match. The more we used it, the more the bruises appeared. Jeff was addicted to it, he even used it more than three times a day, until one day, he didn't come back. No one knew where he was. His jacket and wristwatch were in this room, but he couldn't be found. His parents reported it to the police and they investigated the whole school, including this room. They found a big stain of blood on his jacket. We knew where it came from because a day before he was gone, he complained about his bleeding ears, but we decided to keep it shut. The police pronounced him dead, and there was funeral, with an empty coffin,"

​"We started spreading rumors about serial killer wandering around the school and stuff, even now they called it 'The Dark Hallway' which is ridiculous in my opinion, but good enough to scare everyone away. Then we found out that the school banned anyone into going here, so Theo decided to disappear for good. Theo used the time machine to travel to avoid being seen and eventually decided to travel two years forward. I decided to not to because I wanted to take SAT, but then I failed getting into MIT so I traveled two years forward, which gave me a massive headache and nosebleed, and met Theo around a month later. And a few weeks later we both traveled two years forward again. Then we were married to our wives and remained shut about this. Though sometimes we still come back to use it. Actually now, I'm about to travel again to deliver some files, but Theo forgot to put them here," he said.

​"You decided to travel because you failed getting into MIT?"

​"Well, before Theo traveled, he told me to go after him if I failed so that we could co-operate to open a business together,"

​"Why didn't you just stay?"

​"We were devastated by Jeff's death and the police began their suspicion on us. We panicked," he lowered his tone.

​"But your family? How about them?" Alexandra asked.

​"I'm an orphan, so there was nothing much to worry. But it was hard for Theo though. When he was missing, people thought he was dead too. And you have no idea how many times the police interrogated me, they thought I killed them both," he laughed.

​Alexandra was glad that she finally knew the truth. She was glad that they were alive, at least two of them were known to be alive. She thought that if the world discovered the time machine, it would be the most amazing science breakthrough.

​"Come on, let me show you something," he said as he stood up.

​Alejandro pressed the down arrow button and red light appeared. The doors were opened and made a small screeching sound, unlike the last time. "Down button for backward, up button for forward," he said as they walked inside.
​"These eight buttons are your guide, the more buttons you pressed, the longer you will travel. You said that you skipped seven hours the first time you used this, so I assumed you pressed the '1' button, am I right?" Alexandra nodded. "We traveled two years, so we pressed all of them but the 'B' one. The travel only took around two minutes, but the sensation is massive,"

​"Have you tried pressing all of them?" she asked.

​"Well, based on our calculation, it can take us at least three and a half years, and we doubt that anyone can survive that," he said. "We've been discussing to stop travelling forever, but we don't know to whom to inherit this to, we thought you might be interested," he continued.

​"How come? After years of travelling, and not to mention your success in making something that everyone thinks is impossible, you just let it all go?"

​"I have three kids and own a big business and Theo has just started working for NASA, we're happy now and we're ready to live our life as it is," he said. "There's nothing much to do, but just make sure no one else knows but you, unless you want them to. Beside, we've been trying to get rid of it while ago but sure it'll take big machines which we can't bring here,"

​"Are you sure about this? It's kind of odd, we just met and you just gave me this?" she asked.

​"I know you deserve this, I just do," he said and grabbed his bag and walked towards the door. He looked back and took one last glimpse, "Just make sure you don't run into yourself and don't press the buttons after the doors closed. Always press the buttons before the doors close," he finished and walked away.

​"Wait! Wait! What will happen if I meet me?" she asked and ran outside.

​"Just don't," Alejandro said while walking towards the other end of the hallway. "Use it wisely!"

​On the floor, there were piles of papers. Mostly were notes about the machine and blueprints. There was "The Guide to Time Travel" written on one of the paper. It has the manual and instructions on how long you would want to travel, both forward and backward. The paper had turned yellow-ish and on the right top was written 'AJT '97'.

​"Alright, here goes nothing," she said and entered the lift. She pressed the 'B' button before the doors close, "Forty-five minutes later, here I come!"