Chapter 7: Reality (Kael)

"About?" I asked her. She's looking intimidating sitting across from me, arms crossed and looking straight at me as if she could see through.

"About you." She said, "About how you ended up, here." There was a lot of pressure in her word 'here'.

"Now, don't think I'm crazy." I pleaded again. My palms sweating, I rested them on my lap.

"No, I won't. Just go on." She was all demanding now.

"I think I have stepped through time." I looked at her. She was all composed, not even blinking.

"Like, you know, traveled through time." I clarified.

"From?"

"What?"

"From what time you came?"

"21st century," I answered.

"So, you say, you traveled nearly 2 centuries ahead__"

"The future." I finished for her. "Yeah, I think so." I shrugged. "At least," I added.

She shrugged.

"You think_" I tried to ask but she stopped me shaking her head.

"You knew?" I changed my question this time.

"It was just a thought" She shrugged. "A lucky guess maybe."

"You aren't surprised?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Actually, there's this person, a professor, who experiment about time travel, you know. I've heard about it. So, it's not complete news."

"Here?"

"Yeah, sort of. I don't know much. But I've heard about him."

Suddenly, I have hope.

"Can you take me to him?" My voice is sounding too eager.

"Listen, Kael, I don't know about this person, I've only heard of him, a couple of times maybe. I just said, to let you know that you're not crazy. At least for now." She added. Her voice was even, emphasizing each and every word she said.

I sighed, my hopes vanishing the second they appeared.

"Maybe you can return to your time, I guess. The way you came."

"It's not easy." I looked down at my feet.

"Why? You came here. There should be a way back."

"Yeah, maybe." I stared at the ground like it would swallow me up and the next time; I'll be there, where I belong.

"But it wasn't supposed to bring me here. It was a mistake."

"I can't understand," Ziola said, after few seconds of silence between us. She's that kind of people who clearly says what they want, I give her the credit.

"I worked on it," I looked up at her, to find the disbelief in her face. But her face was all concerned. She meant it and wanted to hear me out or skillfully composed her emotions that say I'm crazy. Either of them, she's really good at both, "It was an experimental stage." I added.

She nodded. But before both of us could speak an alarm beeped from the kitchen.

"Oh! I'm hungry." Ziola stood. "I think we should put something inside us before we fill our heads. I guess you're pretty starving."

My stomach felt empty, too empty because she mentioned food.

She led me to the kitchen. In the center of it is a small round table made of glass with four chairs. The console consisted of many things, which I never had seen. And on the table, there were two cans, a box, and some packets. We took our seats there. Maybe she already made lunch for us, I thought.

"I don't know what you'd like." She said opening the box and passing one of the cans to me. I tried to pay my attention to the blue can in my hand. It was pretty small to be a can of soda. So, I took a look at the can, but I've left my glasses upstairs, which makes it pretty hard to make out the small letters in the label. Ziola took small Tupperware like boxes from the big one she was opening and slid it across the table to me. It had a transparent flip cover. Inside it was something looked like pasta. I tore it open.

"Put the sauce in it," Ziola instructed while opening hers and pouring a blue colour sauce over her pasta. I had a sick feeling in my stomach like it stopped eating for the rest of my lifeline. "It's called Noodles." She added. I wanted to throw it away because of the sick feeling inside of me. But Ziola was looking at me. It's rude of me to not eat after she did help me a lot.

I opened the can, put the sauce on the noodles; and took a forkful bite to my mouth. It tasted like cherry and something cheesy. I didn't expect it to taste good but it did. We emptied our boxes without speaking and when I'm done, she passed me a small glass and a packet.

"What's this?" I raised an eyebrow, confused.

She tore open her packet and exposed a water bubble to me. The thing is, it's not exactly the kind of water bubble I have seen for my lifetime of 18 years, but nothing extraordinary from what I'm seeing lately. It was like a packet of water inside a plastic wrapper which makes it look like a touch-able water bubble. I followed her and took mine out. It feels like water on my palm – a little bigger than a golf ball. Even the plastic cover felt like water in my hand, like a wibble-wobble jelly on the place.

"So, we're gonna swallow it up, whole?" I asked Ziola who was looking at me, a smile playing across her lips.

"Seriously, are you that dumb?" She smiled this time, full-on her face reaching her eyes. "Put it in the glass and shake it." She instructed.

I put the little water ball inside the glass she passed to me earlier. It did a small bounce; I looked at Ziola again unsure what to do. She took her glass, put her water ball inside and shook the glass, it sounds a little crazy but, the water inside the bubble dissolved and the glass was filled with water, instead of a water ball. I would probably think she poured a glass of water from the faucet if I didn't see this.

"Are you a magician?" I couldn't hide my amusement.

"Seriously, it's a self-destructive packing. When you shake it or disturbs its existence, it destroys itself."

"Then why does it come in a packet?"

"Because that's how things you buy from the grocery store comes from." She rolled her eyes. "Healthy and customer friendly."

"I'm impressed," I said.

For that, she laughed louder.

"Why?"

"You are funny, Kael." She laughed more.

I joined her. "Why should you buy water?"

"Isn't it obvious? To drink." She rolled her eyes.

"But can't you just open the faucet and fill the glass?"

Instead of a snarky comment, she looked horrified. "Don't you even think of it!"

"What?"

"Drink from the tap!" she exclaimed.

"It isn't healthy. You know, what comes from the tap line. It's fine to wash but NOT TO DRINK!"

"Oh."

"So, what are you gonna do?"

I shook my head. "No idea."

"What brought you here?"

I put my hand into my pocket and took the remaining portion of my project and placed it on the table for her to see.

"What?" She raised an eyebrow.

"It's what brought me here, actually part of what brought me here."

"You say that small little metal thing brought you, what, hundred years to the future?" She scoffed.

"It's a part of it," I said.

"So, what?" she snapped. But then again, she shrugged and added: "What is it?" Calmer this time.

"I was experimenting with time travel," I explained. "For a few years."

She nodded, encouraging me to go on.

"I wasn't sure, actually. But I was thinking about bending the time curve." I looked at her; she might think I'm crazy. But she was listening patiently.

"You know, time is the 4th dimension." I said, not sure if she knows, (but whatever, now that the table is laid, I have to unload.) "So, time has one more dimension, the direction." I continued. "Either past or future. And so far, the experiments are done trying to manipulate the time curve." I checked on Ziola, she just smiled and gestured me to keep on.

"And when you bend a time curve, and if you have a speed faster than light, the loophole created from this disarray of universal matter allows you to step through time. For that, you should have special equipment to gain a faster velocity." I breathed a lung full of air.

"Is that the thing?" she eyed the metal piece I've laid on the table, half curiously and the other half of her tone cannot be guessed (maybe she's thinking I'm crazy).

"Actually, I don't know. It's just magnets which also can be__" I stopped midways.

"Yes?"

"It's crazy." I punched my thigh. I'm frustrated.

"It's okay, Kael." She pronounced my name slowly as if she raised her voice a pitch, I might explode.

I took a deep breath. "You wanna hear?"

"Yeah, go on."

"I have no idea what brought me here, I was in our basement, where I work. And I had this idea about what if I use the high magnetic power to challenge my relative gravity and, I was just – I was working on it..." I shrugged.

"Something was off?"

"Maybe, I can't guess."

"You had a magnet with you?"

I nodded. "I borrowed it from my professor; he experiments on the subject too. This is supposed to be a high-power magnet." I explained to her.

"You had it with you?" she asked again.

"Yeah," I replied. I had it in my pocket, and was working on my time machine (She's probably thinking I'm stupid) and then I got a call from my mom, I was going to take it from the table and then_" I stopped midways.

'And then you were here?" she completed for me.

I swallowed hard and nodded to agree with her.

"Don't you think that something in the phone and the magnet you had effected this?"

Wow. She's smart. Man, I guessed.

"Maybe, yeah. A miss-array of the time or universal components. I can't be precise. But I suspect that the energy from them affected the time machine or the possible time curve." I added enthusiastically, happy from this new concept to try on.

"Wow, you should be celebrating if this is true." She added.

But then again, I was disappointed remembering home. Ziola's smile dropped when she saw my face.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to," she said but I cut her off.

"No big deal."

"You have no idea about how to return?"

I shook my head. Even after desperately convincing myself, it's hard to admit it louder.

"I at least had hope, back then,"

I smiled a weak smile.

"Maybe we can find a way." She surprised me.

"How?"

"Come' on dummy, you're in the Golden Era of technology." She said. "We can find away."

"You are sure?"

"Don't be so negative." She complained.

"That 'Golden Era' thing, it was used back at my time too."

"Seriously, it's better now than then." She pointed out. "So, technically, this is the Golden Era of technology."

"Yeah, you can say." I felt a little relaxed from her words. "You're gonna help me?"

"Let's see." She said concerned.

Then she got up from her chair.

"But you'll have to pay me," she added with a playful smile. It was reassuring to have someone help, with that smile. I agreed with myself to face the reality.