SCRATCHED

Chapter 9

2025, The Basement, Solshore.

Kara felt like taking a risk.

Not the type that would land her on a hospital bed with thirteen broken bones, but the type that could possibly take away the bored soul that was wandering in her tired body.

One of the knots in her head must've untied, but she was fed up with being trapped in that basement. She was sick of being scared. After weighing the two situations, staying in the basement and getting out, she realized they had the same results. While the latter would kill her fast, the former was doing so slowly. And a fast death was always preferred.

Freddie was asleep and snoring, otherwise he would've showered her with holy water and tied her to a chair for the rest of her natural life. She could see his ruffled hair, and the rhythmic way his chest heaved.

She tiptoed up the basement stairs, wishing they had at least considered changing the wooden flights when they were busy building high-tech solar panels and ST devices. They made low creaks. Fortunately Freddie had always been a heavy sleeper.

Kara didn't know what she was doing, or even why she was doing it. All she knew was that she had to breathe a different air from the one in the basement if she wanted to live. She was hoping to find something in the old house, like a board game, or even better, a textbook of any field under science. Physics would be highly preferred.

Stepping into the daylight she had not seen in months, she squinted, remembering she had left her laser gun in the basement. There was no need for it. No fear Kara, remember? She slowly closed back the metallic door. She had installed the sound-trappers on them before Henric and Freddie had proceeded with the building and hammering.

She was walking on dust, the particles clinging onto the soles of her snickers. The quietude was different from the one lingering in the basement. The one surrounding her as she invaded sleeping cobwebs was deadly, unbreakable.

The drawers were empty, and so were the dusty shelves. The kitchen cupboards were not, since she found a dead cockroach and an empty can of beans that looked three hundred years old.

She sighed, sinking into the sofa that appeared less dustier than the rest. One thing came to her mind - tachyons. The scientific impossibility. Today she had woken up thinking not about their nature, but about their consequences.

She and Henric had both decided to ignore it, bury it deep in their stomachs. But Freddie hadn't looked the same since he walked through that portal. Time travel had a price. And as she envisioned the slow formation of wrinkles on his face, she had a bad feeling her brother was paying for it.

Tachyons were not just outrageously fast, but dangerously powerful. And Freddie had walked into more energy than any of them could fathom. It was amazing how he walked out of the portal in one piece after the tachyons and dinosaurs, but she was afraid it wasn't the end of his nightmares.

Traveling through time was a nightmare of its own. It was something she liked to describe as a 'scientific sin'. And sins like that always attracted punishments, dark and cruel ones. Being the mastermind behind all of this, it left her wondering what was going to be her punishment. I'll accept it, just let my brothers live.

The vision was blurry because of the window, but down the lane she saw a small house facing the lake. She had once noticed the lake when they had climbed up the roof to install the solar panels, but not the house, as it was hidden by watchful trees.

The lake, making beautiful ripples under the morning sun, called her. Kara admitted to herself that she was not a normal person. There was nothing normal about spending more time at the library than at her own home. But she loved nature. It was also a science, wasn't it?