777: A Choose Your Own Adventure Story

Page 66

You make your way down a very long hallway with a worn carpet. Torches line the walls, but none are lit. The hallway gets darker and darker until you can't see at all. You hear voices far behind you, and break into a run. You run directly into a wall. 

Rubbing your nose, you feel around the wall. One stone moves slightly when you touch it, and a white light peeks out from the edges. After fiddling with it for a short while, you manage to pull the face of the stone directly off of the wall. A screen is revealed, bearing the prompt, 

SCAN FINGERPRINT FOR ENTRY.

Hearing the voices behind you getting louder, you place your right index finger on the screen. The screen flashes green, and the floor falls out beneath you. 

You fall about seven feet onto the cold floor. You hit your head pretty hard. Perhaps this is what causes you to remember the day you went missing. 

~~~

After congratulating Paola Reyes on her science fair win, Dorothy Watson, the coordinator, asks if you'll stay afterwards to help clean up. You accept. You've gone to school with Dorothy since the seventh grade and don't want her to have to clean it all up by herself. 

She asks you to run garbage out to the dumpster. When you return, she's not in the auditorium. The lights are off. The only reason you can see is the bright green light being emmitted from a circular platform in the middle of the room. You recognize it as Dorothy's project. She's presented it at the science fair every year that you can remember. You think it might be some type of clock? You feel guilty about not knowing what it is after so long. 

The light is hypnotising. You step closer and closer. 

You hear Dorothy's voice behind you, but don't turn to look at her. 

"It's a time machine." She says softly.

You open your mouth to reply, but you are engulfed by the light before the words come out. 

~~~

You open your eyes. You're on the cement floor of what appears to be an unfinished basement full of bulletin boards and computers, machinery. One the boards holds pictures of people... most of them you know.

A boy two years ahead of you  who went missing just as you were starting junior high.

The older brother of a girl in your grade who went missing in 2010.

A boy you used to go to school with until he went missing in the ninth grade. 

A girl two years older than you who was six months from graduation when she went missing.

Your best friend from the tenth grade, Kate, who went missing last year.

A photo of you.

 Another board holds six first place science fair ribbons.

A third board holds blueprints for a time machine, a fourth has blueprints for a memory erasure device. 

A high-backed computer chair containing Dorothy Watson turns around to face you.

"You made it back!" She says. "I knew you would."

YOU GOT HOME

CONGRATULATIONS!