Part 3

Zenara showed off all the buttons on the Mystique’s dashboard. It was surprisingly uncomplicated - just a few controls that needed to be memorized. 

“So, who’s gonna drive?” Zenara asked. The five looked shocked. 

“You aren’t coming with us?” Alec exclaimed. Time traveling was one thing, but time traveling with zero experience was on a whole other level. Zenara just scoffed.

“You think six people are gonna fit in that convertible? And besides, you’ll be fine, it’s pretty easy. You’re just tweaking one mistake from each time frame and coming back,” she said simply. No one in the group said a word. After a moment of silence, Zenara asked, “So, how many of you can drive?”

Everyone in the group raised their hand, save for Vivian. Zenara pointed a finger at Semolian. “How bout you drive?” She said. Semolian looked surprised.

“Well, I only have my permit…” she replied, shuffling her feet. Zenara just shrugged and turned to the girl with the dog, who hadn’t said a word their entire journey. 

“You. Got a name?” Zenara asked.

“Kit,” she replied.

“Wanna drive the car, Kit?”

“I have to sit with Nero,” she said simply, patting her dog on the head. It was a lie, Nero could sit by himself, but Kit was not in the mood to drive. Zenara rolled her eyes and turned to Alec. 

“How about you?” She asked. Alec had no excuse, so he sighed and said, “I guess so.” Zenara clapped her hands together. 

“Perfect. We can fix your past first because you’re driving.” Everyone else mumbled, suddenly wanting to drive. Alec looked pleased. Zenara showed him how to set the control panel to travel to his preferred date - the day his house burned down. A day he had never, and would never, forget. 

“Everybody climb in,” Zenara said. Alec hopped into the driver’s seat, Jack took the passenger, and Semolian, Kit, and Vivian squeezed into the back. “Oh, and a few more rules before you take off,” Zenara said. “You can’t have any interactions with your past self, or let them see you. And you can’t stay in a past time frame for more than 12 hours at a time, or you’ll partially destroy the space time continuum.”

“Wait, so you’re saying that-” Jack started, but before he could finish his question, Zenara pulled back a throttle on the dashboard, and the car took off. 

The Mystique shot forward, took a sharp left, and started doing donuts around the small room. Everyone in the car screamed as the car continued spinning in circles. Suddenly, the air around them began to ripple and a rip appeared in front of them, expanding into a large hole. It wasn’t attached to anything, it was just a hole in thin air. However, they had no time to ponder this phenomenon as the convertible hurtled ahead through the hole, and it closed up behind them.

Their adventure had officially begun.  

Part 3 ~ 

Semolian was squished in the middle of the backseat of a blue convertible cruising through the space time continuum. 

Needless to say, she was not very comfortable. 

The space-time continuum was not what she was expecting. It felt like they were driving through a dark, endless train tunnel that would stretch on forever. Occasionally, they would spot a swirl of purple around them and think it might be a sign that they were close to their destination. But nothing changed, and they were still trapped in darkness, the only light in this tunnel coming from the headlights of the Mystique.

On one side of her, Vivian was silently writing in a small notebook, and on the other side, Kit was scratching Nero behind the ears. 

“Cute dog,” Semolian said. It was true; the white husky was adorable, but he would’ve been cuter if he hadn’t been taking up half of her already too-small seat. Kit made an mm-hmm kind of sound in reply. Hardly anyone in this group seemed like they wanted to talk, so Semolian returned to awkward mode and shifted in her seat. The group had settled back into silence when, suddenly, the car jolted forward and everybody screamed. 

~~~

Jack screamed. “Alec,” he shouted. “What did you hit?” Alec was shaking in the driver’s seat.

“Nothing!” he snapped back. They both frantically started hitting buttons on the dashboard. 

“Stop! You’re going to break something!” Someone in the backseat shouted. 

“Well what do you suggest I do?” Alec screamed back. Then the car unexpectedly stopped. The darkness of the space-time continuum dissolved, and a world materialized around them. 

“Where are we?” Jack asked, looking around. 

“We’re back in the alley. But it’s daytime,” Vivian replied in a small voice. Jack glanced at her, and then realized that she was right. It was the same alley they had stopped in last night - or, depending on how you looked at it, the night a few years later.

“So we’re really in the past,” Jack said in awe. 

“That’s crazy,” Semolian added. The group mumbled their agreements.

“Hate to ruin the moment or whatever, you guys,” Alec said, “But my house is going to burn down in about seven minutes.” Everyone turned to look at him. “Like, that’s why I needed to travel back here, ‘cause my house is going to - oh, never mind, let’s just go.” Alec pointed the group in the right direction, and they took off down the street. 

Yo Darkling, it has occured to me that on your charrie sheet you put your charrie's name as Kit, and then later mentioned it as Lyra. For some reason I just noticed this, and I was wondering which name you would prefer I use. If you don't care, I'll probably continue to use Kit, to make things less confusing. Sorry for any inconveniences. 

Tootles! 

Part 4

Alec found his old house quickly. It was a little ranch-style house on a corner lot, painted gray with a teal door. Without hesitation, he ran inside. 

He knew exactly where he was going - the exact shelf where the catalog of his life was neatly stacked. 

He ran through the foyer, crossed the living room, and dashed down the hallway. Throwing himself into his room, Alec stumbled and nearly fell over onto his old carpet. His heart raced as he picked himself up. As he crossed the room he began scanning the shelves that lined the far wall, looking for the familiar 3-inch white binders that were usually sitting on his fifth shelf from the bottom. But as he got closer, the harsh reality became obvious.

His binders were not there.

~~~

Jack, Vivian, Kit, and Semolian stood awkwardly on the sidewalk outside Alec’s house. There was nothing to do other than wait for Alec to emerge from his house that he had so anxiously rushed into a few minutes ago. 

As they shuffled their feet and checked their watches, Kit began to stroll away from the group. 

“Where is she going?” Jack wondered aloud. Turning back to the group for barely a second, Kit replied, “Corn dogs stand down the street.” Jack perked up when he heard that.

“Ooh, I’ll take one. Time traveling makes me hungry.” He began to follow Kit. Semolian and Vivian looked at each other, shrugged, and followed Jack and Kit towards the corn dog stand.

They headed down the street, not glancing back at Alec’s house, and not noticing the small flame that was beginning to dance in the window.

@TTT, oops! Sorry. Her name was originally going to be Lyra, but I liked Kit better and forgot to change it in the backstory :p 

Sorry I wasn't able to post this weekend :/ I was busy and wasn't able to write. But don't worry, there's an action-packed part coming your way this Wednesday!

So sorry this is late! I might have to go to weekly updates instead of bi-weekly, because I'm busy with school. But anyway, here's part 5! It's an exciting one. 

Part 5

It was Vivian who noticed first.

“Um,” she said quietly. “Does anyone smell smoke?””

Semolian turned away from the corn dogs and sniffed. “All I can smell is corn dogs,” she said. Everyone else sniffed and agreed. 

“Wait,” Jack said suddenly. “It kind of does smell like smoke.” He stepped farther away from the corn dogs so their scent wouldn’t get in the way. The rest of the group followed. 

“Uh-oh,” Semolian said nervously. “I smell it now.” 

“Maybe it’s not a burning house. Maybe someone’s having a campfire,” Jack said skeptically. 

“In the middle of the day? Right,” Semolian replied, and she and Vivian immediately turned to run back down the street. Jack tapped Kit, who was smothering her corn dog in mustard, on the shoulder and nodded down the street. Reluctantly, she followed. 

They caught up to Semolian and Viv, and together the four ran down the street, and as they got closer to Alec’s house they could see it clearly.

Half of it was up in flames.

~~~~~

Alec stared at the empty spot on his bookshelf.

How could his binders not be there? That was where they lived. Once a binder was full, he would place it on this shelf, and that was where they stayed. He never took them down, except to review them every once in while - 

That was it. All the forgotten memories of that day were coming back. With his publishing deal coming up, Alec had been looking over his work to make sure the story made sense and all the lines were still darkened in. He had been sitting on his living room couch, reviewing the full binders before going to work. That was where they had to be. 

Alec ran out of his room and down the hallway, but before throwing open the door, he stopped and sniffed the air. Was that… smoke? Cautiously, he pushed open the hallway door. 

His carpet was ablaze. 

Alec was clearly terrified. His binders were in the living room, on the other end of this vast sea of flames. He was tempted to turn back, run to the nearest window, and jump out, but he knew he couldn’t. He had risked his life traveling through time to get back here so he could save his binders, and there was no turning back now. He lifted his shirt over his nose and ran into the fire.

Beads of sweat immediately began pouring down his face. Flames surrounded him. Stop, drop, and roll! He reminded himself. He dropped to the floor and rolled into his living room. There on his coffee table, glittering like treasure, were his binders. He picked himself up off the floor and grabbed his binders, holding them as if they were his children. 

Now that the binders were in his possession, Alec needed a safe way out. Looking back, he saw the fire following him into the living room, so he turned and ran toward the kitchen.

Not a very smart move. It looked as if that was where the fire had started, and the flames were hot and thick. Alec shrieked as a flame brushed his face, burning him. He turned and rolled back through the living room, crawling around the burning furniture. After what felt like eternity, he was able to cross the scorched living room to the front window. He threw it open and took a heaving breath of fresh air before throwing himself outside.