The Aether Project

Chapter 2

I wince as I open my eyes to an empty hallway looming in darkness. An empty feeling fills me. Confusion and fear.

I lift my head and scan my surroundings.

Concrete brick walls. Glass windows. Lights made of tungsten. A coffee maker. A row of plants lined along the wall. An elevator with metal doors. Not a screen in sight.

This is definitely not JSRE.

Where am I...?

My shoes click against the floor as I walk forward in a daze. It's 11:15, but as I look out the nearest window, the city is still lit, with people walking along the streets, dressed casually, talking to each other. Vintage-style vehicles move along the road and everything seems familiar...except it's not.

After a split second, I freeze.

No.

A hand suddenly touches my shoulder, and just as I am about to throw the person over my shoulder, he speaks.

"Addie."

I whip my head around and see Aydan, looking calm as usual, with his hair ruffled and a little messy. I look into his mesmerizing ocean-blue eyes, and somehow they calm me down.
"You're here." I breathe.

"Yeah." He nods, "the machine malfunctioned," he adds.

"Dang...this is all my fault..." I mumble as a wave of guilt hits me. "I should've checked. I'm so sorry."

"It's not your fault," Aydan says, biting his bottom lip. "You wouldn't have known that. We did check yesterday."

As the guilt sinks in, all sounds from the outside world disappear and I get a drowning feeling I'm all too familiar with. I can't breathe. I sink to the floor, breathing heavily, going over that last scenario in my head. I checked all the data, It's impossible. I've always been so careful not to let people down...what have I done? What will everyone think? My hair, originally tied up in a messy bun, falls down my shoulders, my hair tie gone. This isn't what was supposed to happen. This wasn't the plan. Oh god...now everyone else is probably stuck here somewhere...

"Hey." Aydan taps on my shoulder and touches my cheek. "Calm down, Addie. It wasn't your fault. Deep breathes."

In. Out. In. Out. In. Out.

I inhale deeply as I push my ginger locks out of my face and get up.

"Let's find the others they are probably somewhere in the perimeter—" I say as I dust off my pants and turn to Aydan, but he cuts me off.

"I contacted them. They're fine, still in the future—I mean—our original time. We're the only ones who are stuck here, but I got that before my wristband lost signal." I look at the wristband he shakes in front of me.

"I will get us out of here, okay? I'm a history major too, remember? I know enough to help us survive while we find a way back." He laughs as he makes an obvious attempt to lighten up the mood. "Nice, huh? For once we don't have a curfew. And we can actually eat out."

"We don't have any money." I point out. "We can't do anything. Their currency was made out of paper, right?"

"Our technology contains elements they deem rare. We can sell them for money." Aydan replies.

"We also don't have a place to stay." I argue.

"We'll stay at a hotel."

"Our clothes don't fit in."

"We can buy new ones."

"It's the middle of the night."

"There's a motel nearby. We can sneak in."

"We don't know h—"

"Addie. Calm down." Just as I'm about to protest again, Aydan cuts in. He bends down to the same height as me and then looks into my eyes. It looks so sincere I feel like I'm bare, with him staring straight into my soul. "We're gonna be fine, okay? Don't worry that much. I can probably figure that all out."

I nod, blinking my eyes. That was the most Aydan has ever said to me. Even with us being friends and all. Suddenly, I get a warm and fuzzy feeling in my chest.

"Okay."

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"Are you sure we should be doing this?" I whisper to Aydan as I watch him peek his head out by the side of a building we found, seemingly a place people stayed in back in the 2010s, looking at the front door through his digital screen. He nods but doesn't lift his eyes.

I stare at the building in front of me. It looks far more vintage than the ones I'm used to, with half-crumbling walls and a huge neon sign above with the word "Motel" carved into it. The outer facade is made of solid materials, unlike the adaptive and self-repairing surfaces.

Its structure is simple, displaying no hint of the energy-efficient, self-renewing materials, the exterior lighting is rudimentary, and I can't help but wonder why these structures relied on static, power-consuming bulbs rather than the adaptive bioluminescent panels we use.

The parking lot, hosting rows of fossil-fuel-dependent vehicles, strikes me as both outdated and somewhat charming. If it were in our time, such primitive modes of transportation have long been replaced by clean, autonomous vehicles and eco-friendly means of mobility. The concept of manual driving, with the exhaust fumes and limited efficiency of internal combustion engines, feels antiquated in comparison to the sustainable and eco-conscious systems of my time.

The surrounding landscape, marked by traditional flora and fauna, lacks the lush, technologically optimized green spaces that grace modern cities. In my time, buildings seamlessly blend with nature, featuring advanced climate-controlled biodomes and self-regenerating ecosystems.

He zooms in with his sleek long fingers in quick motion, with amazing precision as if he had done it numerous times. His blue eyes are fixed on the screen, darting around as his fingers fly across the different keys. The bluish-white illuminate light up his face, and I stare. He looks different...is it just my nerves or is his eyelashes longer...and his hair color is a little darker too... I shake my head. I'm probably just imagining things.

"Done." Aydan suddenly says, lifting his head up to look at me.

"Oh." I snap out of my daze. I need to stop staring...what if he catches me? In a matter of seconds, I suddenly realize he had already gotten up, and had walked a few yards forward already. I scurry after him.