The Past, Present And Future: The End Of The Earth

Chapter 1

THE DISCOVERY

It was a stormy night. The wind was howling. Jake was trying to get home after a long, tiring day at work. He was walking down the road leading to his house when a stormy gust of wind came and blew his umbrella right out of his hand.

‘DRATS!’ he thought. ‘Now, how will I get home? I will have to find shelter quickly!’ He stopped for a minute and looked around. He saw the silhouette of a shed and ran towards it. ‘This will have to do,’ he thought. He looked around inside the shed and saw that it was filled with things like old tires, something covered in cloth, all kinds of weird tools and devices. He got curious and took off the cover of the mysterious thing. What he saw shocked him: it was just a chest with a cell phone-like device sitting at the bottom. He took it out and brushed it since it was very dirty and found something written there – ‘The Key to the Past, The Key to the Future, The Destruction of the Present. Use Wisely.’ He said to himself, ‘Is this a time machine?’

Chapter 2

THE PAST

He saw three buttons on the device, but there were no labels. He thought that he would just press one randomly, and that’s what he did. For a second, nothing happened but then he felt that he was no longer being pulled down. The gravity around him had gone and he started floating in the air. A sudden gust of wind spun him around and he felt dizzy. He fell unconscious and awoke to the sound of a blood-curdling scream. He was face-to-face with a baby brachiosaurus. The cute little thing licked him and he smiled. But then something struck him. ‘A brachiosaurus? Here?’ And realized that the cell phone-like thing, which turned out to be a time machine, worked. He had been taken back to the past when dinosaurs still walked the face of the earth. He looked around and saw a herd of brachiosauruses and quite a lot of baby ones. He wanted to go back to the present but he thought that he should explore the lands a bit. So, he went away from the herd and into the forests. He found a herd of triceratops by a lake and went near one to pet it. But as soon as he touched it, it ran away. He could not figure out why?

        

Chapter 3

STARING AT DEATH

He turned around and saw a rock. He sat on it. But then he felt air coming out of some holes in the front. He turned around and saw two eyes staring at him and he realized that he was sitting on a T-Rex. This is why the triceratops had run away. He calmly got off the T-Rex and as soon as his feet touched the ground he ran for his life. He used the trees to run zig-zag, maneuver himself cleverly out of the T-Rex’s way and arrived at what looked like the edge of a cliff. He looked down and saw water, but he heard the T-Rex stomping his way through the shrubs, bushes, and trees, so he did what had to be done: he jumped into the water below. He hid in the water till he could hear the T-Rex, and came out of it.

Chapter 4

HOME OR NOT?

He swam up to the surface and went to the river bank and took out the device. He wanted to go home again but his grip was slippery and the device fell into the river. He had no choice but to follow the river and, thankfully, it was just a tributary of a big one, and it ended up in a lake where the water was crystal clear. He dove in the lake and found the device but the water was very cold, so he came back up and started a fire. He stayed there for a while and slept at night right next to the fire. He woke up very early the next morning and took out the device. He pressed a random button hoping that he would be home and thought ‘Home or Not?’

Chapter 5

THE FUTURE

He ended up in the old shed and jumped with joy. But then he heard the sound of a laser and got out of the shed. He saw towering buildings almost touching the sky. Alas! He was not home, but rather, he was in the same place but at a different time – the future. He got out of the shed trying to figure out what that laser-like sound was. And then a levitating car landed next to him and an A.I. with a robotic voice asked, ‘Where to, Sir?’ Jake was confused and did not know what to do. He got into the driver's seat to find that there was no steering wheel. So, he got out and started to walk, leaving the taxi behind.

Chapter 6

CAUGHT STEALING!

He walked for twenty minutes and was dead tired and starving. But he did not have any money as it had been swept away when he had jumped into the water when he had gone back to the past. He thought that these robots would be stupid enough to not catch him stealing but he was wrong. While trying to steal a piece of steak being grilled in a restaurant being run by robot-like creatures, he got caught. He tried to make his escape but failed miserably. He was taken to the local prison and thought he could easily make his escape. But the walls were made of titanium and the bars were ray-shielded. He was stuck.

Chapter 7

HOME, AT LAST!

He spent three days trying to escape but he could not do anything. The prison cell was too advanced for him to break out of. But then he realized that they had not taken his clothes. That meant that the device was still in his pocket. He took it out and decided to wait for the guards to make one more round so that he could escape right in front of them. An hour later, one of the guards came by. Jake told him that he wanted to show them something, but he needed all the guards to be there. The guard activated his comm. the device, and called the other guards. Jake pressed a random button and got his wish. He ended up in the same shed and knew right away that he had come back to the present.

Chapter 8

A HORRID SHOCK

He looked out of the window and got a shock. There was no sign of life. There was no vegetation. There was no water. The earth was a desolate wasteland. And now he understood what ‘The Destruction of the Present’ Meant’. Everything in the present had been turned into energy to power the device and he had not used it wisely. He had destroyed EVERYTHING!

Genre: Science Fiction

Writer: Aarush Srivastava