Time and Time Again

Over and Over Again

The house was dark, no sounds to be heard or movements to be seen. The girl slept soundly upstairs, dreaming of the next day and how glorious it would be. The mother and father were in their room, sleeping side by side. The three people didn't know this would be the last time their house was dark, quiet, and totally invisible to the outside and inside world. In a split second, so fast that no one could have stopped it, a bright light flashed in the kitchen and a man in all black appeared out of what seemed like thin air. The man had a grin etched upon his face, his eyes sunken so deep you would think he were dead if you had were given the chance to see only his eyes. He lifted his head up and seemed to smell and taste the air and snapped his head back down so fast no one would have been able to see it occur. He moved with ghostly movements, silent and quick, all the way to the parents room. He was unaware of the girl in her room, waking up due to the uncomfortable feeling inside of her.  He walked into their room, his mind filled with thoughts of blood pouring out of the woman's chest. He creeped up to her side of the bed and drew a long knife unknown to this world, and plunged it into the woman, and before she had time to scream, she was dead. Her husband beside her was awoken by the sharp movements of the bed and yelled for his beloved wife before his head was cut clean off. The man licked their blood off his knife and disappeared  the same way he arrived just before little Maria entered her dead parent's room, just before little Maria's entire world was ripped out of her little hands.

The dream ended same as it always did, with a bright light just beyond her parent's bed and Maria awaking with screams escaping her lips. Her daily panic attacks were getting old, same with the dream. Of course, having them for over ten years would make it seem less terrifying, yet the feeling still surrounded her entire being. She got out of her bed and went to her bathroom, knowing a shower would calm her down. The cool water drowning out her fear and anxiety and taking it down the drain was something she always looked forward to. It was far too early (four in the morning to be exact) to do anything, so Maria crawled back into her bed and wrote in her notebook.

"I cannot figure out what the light is. I don't know if it is just the dream ending or something that actually happened that night. I was too young to know, but I need to know absolutely everything that happened if I am to find whoever did it. I will find out who did it. I will flip my life upside down and inside out if I must. It's all that matters."

An hour later, Maria got out of bed so she could get ready for school. She has physics today and they are starting a new project. Her professor told her what it was, each student had to invent something within a month and bring it in for the class. She was excited, she had already chosen what she was to invent. She was going to create a time machine so she could go back in time and save her parents. She knew that there wasn't a very high chance for it to work, she didn't even know where to begin, but she was going to try.

"Alright class! As you all know, you're starting your projects today. You will be inventing something, whether it be totally original or a better version of an already established invention, and they will be due a month from tomorrow. Today, I just want you all to brainstorm ideas and research if you have time. You are allowed to research ideas if you would like, but by the end of class tomorrow I need to know what you all will be trying to invent. Hopefully, there will be no duplicates, but please think of at least two different inventions just in case. Is everyone okay with that? Yes? Okay, get to it!" Professor Vincent said. The rest of the class all started to get their computers out to start some research, but Maria got out her notebook. She had begun planning already.

A Time Machine hasn't been built before. Maria knew that. She was going to try, and if all else failed, she could whip together an infinite energy maker. She would plan both of them and try on the machine first, and if she had extra time, she would make the infinite energy in case time travel didn't work out. Obviously, nothing lasts forever, so "infinite energy machine" is not an accurate name. Maria didn't give a damn, though. She didn't really care all that much about names. She cared more about finding her parent's killer.

"Maria, are you planning already?" Marco Saunders asked. Marco had a bit of a crush on Maria and often tried to get Maria to at least friend him. He was pretty attractive, so Maria didn't mind the extra attention, but he was also not her type at all.

"Yeah, the professor told me about the project yesterday when I stayed back to ask him about the test we had the other day," Maria said. It was a basic enough answer to hopefully steer him away from the topic of the project. She wanted to keep it secret.

"What d'you think you're gonna make? I want to make a thunderstorm maker. You know Harry Potter right? There's a bird in the series called a Thunderbird and I wanted to kind of 'create' the bird, but as a machine. Isn't that cool?"

"Yeah, it's pretty cool," Maria said, just avoiding his question. Thank god he didn't ask the question alone.

"Not sure how I'm going to do it though. I think if I use certain electrical charges, I could make the lightening, but the thunder part of it will be hard to do, seeing as I can't just make clouds," Marco laughed.

"That'll be easy," Maria said, finally looking up at him. "If you just keep the inside of the machine wet, make shit clouds will form eventually. Put the electrical charges in it or around the edges, lightning will form and cut the clouds apart and thunder will eventually happen. Just research how lightning and thunder works and work with what you can."

"That's true, but I'm not sure how I'd do it," He paused. "Anyways, what are you going to do?"

Damn it. "I'm thinking about making it a surprise, actually," I said nonchalantly. He frowned and looked like he was about to say something, but I really did not want to talk to him. "I'm gonna go to the library, there is a book there I need to look at. See you later, Marco."

"Bye, Maria," he sighed. I don't know why he was sighing. I knew he liked me, but really?

I went to the library not knowing what I was looking for. I searched around in the science section but seeing as time machines weren't actually invented before, there was nothing there. I got a physics book about travelling through space; maybe it could help. The difficult thing is figuring out how to make a time machine within a month when it has never been done before. I don't know what to do at all, but I want it to be small and portable. I'm probably going to design it like a stopwatch, or even a pocket watch. Whatever I am doing, it has to work.

Later that night, I was reading the book and it helped a little. It was describing time like a fabric- easy to see and feel, but if ripped it will never be the same. It mentioned something about parallel universes, but that is a load of shit so I didn't pay much attention to that. How could parallel universes even exist anyways? It doesn't make sense at all.

I didn't realize how tired I was until I felt myself slipping into sleep, the book sliding off my lap. I fell asleep and drifted off into a dream. 

"Who's there?"  A woman said, she sounded relatively young, probably fresh out of university. "Maria, darling, is that you?" Maria? Is she talking about me?

"Stephanie, dear, come back to bed. It isn't anyone but the dog," a man's voice grumbled. He sounded like he had just woken up.

"No, I don't think so. It sounds like someone is in Maria's room. I'm going to check on her."

The man grumbled and turned over in the bed. The woman, already out of bed and halfway towards the door, continued on her way. It was dark and there was no lights anywhere. None that I could see, anyways. The woman opened the door to another bedroom, smaller than her own. In the middle of the room stood a dark figure holding a small bundle.

"Michael! They have Maria!" The woman screamed and she rushed towards the person in her daughters room. The baby woke at this and began to cry, but before the mother of the baby could get to her, a bright white light emitted from the person holding the baby and when the light went away, they were gone. All that remainded was a broken pocket watch. The woman fell to her knees and screamed as her husband ran into the room and fell next to her, tears escaping his eyes.

A universe away from where the dream took place, Maria woke up in her bed in a cold sweat.