Our Summer || NCT DREAM

Chapter 13. Our Summer

When Mark and I said our final goodbyes, we held hands together, and thought about our own timelines.

Our own homes.

Him in 2023, five years after Elizabeth died, and me in 2118.

When I pressed the button, a white light surrounded us slowly.

And it finally answered the last question in my mind: the colors of the portals.

Red for the glitch, black for dimensions, and white for time.

I didn't feel anything as we traveled through time.

In fact, it felt like I was in a dream. A long, deep dream.

When I woke up, I immediately sat up on my bed.

I was back in my room, the morning sun seeping through my floor-to-ceiling windows.

I looked at my phone, it was September 1, 2118.

The day Minhyung went missing.

Why does it feel like it was all a dream?

Everything looked normal and in place. It seemed as though I had dreamed all of that. Like it didn't happen at all.

The time traveling, the multidimensions, the numerous versions of my friends.

Haechan!

I scurried out of my bed when I remembered about Haechan. I hadn't seen him since being in Saemi's rather glamorous dimension.

When I got off the bed, something fell off on the floor.

I glanced at it and found the watch, old and worn out.

So everything was real?

I opened the lid and expected to see numbers in the year and coordinates screen.

But instead, I was met with blank spaces.

What?

I rubbed my eyes and checked again.

There really was nothing.

I turned it around, examining it, when the back lid suddenly opened and something small dropped to the floor.

When I picked it up, I saw the small circular metal piece that Dr. Renjun put inside when he was repairing the device.

Then I remembered his words about how there must be thousands more of dimensions out there in existence, we just don't know how many.

"I guess, we will never know."

He had said to me then.

So, he put this inside to make sure the device will never be used again?

I thought to myself, staring at the watch.

It no longer worked.

The numbers, symbols, and letters from the year and coordinates screens ceased to be visible.

And the once shiny silver color was replaced with a dull and aged exterior.

It was as if it had become a vestige of our insane travels, a remnant of what had been a dangerous venture.

But I knew, despite the pendant's quiet end—and Dr. Renjun's resolve of not creating another device like that—these dimensions will always exist.

A plethora of universes, however identical to ours or not, will always be out there.

I knew that in the years to come.