Blinx: Before the Time Sweeper

Chapter 4: SIMULATION, STIMULATION

Time-Factory - Gymnasium.

March 15th, XXXX

13:05 pm (TF Timezone) - The Past

It took a long while for my eyes to adjust to the adjacent colour spectrum's all around me of the teleporting gate variety, and even longer for my mind to take a cue from trusty, musty Mommy Computy herself (stop calling her that!? It's weirder than even you usually come up with...), and process just why I had thrown out all reason for like the 5th time today.

The collage of rainbows and colliding nerves did very little to help with my current condition of wanting to get as far away as possible from the very place I was hurdling towards; the wavering lines of whatever Mach Speed (Isn't that how that hedgehog usually went at? Great mode of transportation, and method of calculation alike, Blinx!) I was being hauled at, folding in on themselves, and wrapping me in a cocoon that would make any mutant spider scoff at, and neither was I nearly enough ready to escape from, nor survive for that matter.

For a moment I swear the faces of everybody that either egged me, or legit egged me at the football game we were at for hogging the ball all game, started sagging at the rigid pressure holding me into place around me, and they all started merging into one terrifying figure that resembled both a frantically ticking clock hand, and the horns of what was looking to be the ugliest time-monster I ever laid my freakishly large, plasma eyes as the kid I was babysitting (I think it was... Pelon?) put it. Every memory I could ever muster out of that just confused state of terror and equally daunting state of comfort just presented itself before me like a collage of photos at those weird booths they forked you into using, and it wasn't even any better than the camera you had on your Sweeper catalogue back home (at least Catherine would pop up sometimes on that, but she popped up at the photo booths too: what am I even talking about!?) and just then did I realize that I really should've just taken everybody's advice, and just slept the day away, or better yet attended that exam.

Anything was better than putting the entire universe at risk for a girl that probably wouldn't even look in my direction even if I did succeed: maybe those Octoballoons are feeling lonely? They have a  chequered past, but I'm all about saving the future! It's always nice to joke before your eventual demise, and speaking of such it just took me this long to realize that the stinking bell would probably give me away the moment I landed, or it give the monsters headaches, if they even had a brain to ache in the first place. They couldn't come up with a method of tracking that was as quiet as they spent building it, and it was sonar anyway!? It tracks your movements through the vibrations of your uniform, and the rippling of everybody around you: why did it need to jingle!?

And wow - am I ever the dunce for not even bringing along any time-controls, and a Sweeper that could only lug around 5 objects at a time, and I wasn't even bulky enough to grab more than 1 anyway... this is going to be a disaster before it even started.

Soon enough, the adrenaline and kaleidoscope of regrets and amusement around me would overcome me completely, and I'd wake up in remote place where everything was hankering for a piece of the Blinx pie, and I couldn't blame them: I looked delicious for what it was worth! Thankfully everything did eventually go dark, and for a couple moments I could think, and maybe sleep back some of my strength, but in the recesses of my mind: that familiar voice echoed.

"Blinx!"

It's really nice to hear you again, maybe for the last time...

"BLINX!?"

"Huh, what?"

"Your essay?"

It take a whole lot of time, and a lot more tugging on my shoulder to get me to even vaguely recognize the gym around me, complete empty of any life that used to be there, and that suited me just fine... hey! My doormat is still there as well! Why do I still feel so sleepy? I just woke up, didn't I? And it's been what? Like 30, 40 min - 4 hours? That clock has to be lying, or broken, or broken lying or something! I was only out for an hour at most: I couldn't have! I couldn't have slept through the entire...