Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 3 2018 | Page 173

The Key to 2024
Island School, Majumder, Aarshi - 13
C
hills rippled down my spine. Stuffed and anxious from the mechanical chains wiring my body, my
heart throbbed. I nudged the cycad trees, tearing off pieces of the leaf. Dashing past the ticklish
leaves of the Wollemi pine trees, Ginkgo and Dawn redwoods, my face looked and felt like a
wounded apple that had been perched on by a maggot fly. The smoldering sun kindled my skin drinking my
every last drop of energy. Where was the key to the time machine? My head flinched. I turned. A
monstrous creature with big powerful wings yanked me up into the crystal clear sky. Wind splashed against
my face and dried my worries away. It felt like I pushed my body against cloud nine. Why did it feel lusty?
Why was I completely free of any fear? How was it possible for me to glaze through the sky captured by a
Pterodactyl gripping its thorny claws and gnawing its serrated teeth, whisking its amber wings to capsize
moments in the past?
Few miles away, I came to notice a mountain. A very certain hill with powers drastic enough to
destroy the multiverse. Inside this mountain was a magnetar. A magnetar strong enough to send out pulsars
to the entire humanistic dimension and create a shockwave if there was a fast enough electromagnetic field
rotating the hill. This would result in the destruction of every planet. Through a gruesome canal, I could see
visions of the future yet I was in the past. I could see the future from where I travelled back in time from.
2024.
In my time, I was the first physicist to contrive a final formula to time-travelling. I broke the
speed of light barrier and all the mathematical laws of the universe. I was worth so much. I was paid billions
and billions yet one thing just couldn’t put my mind to rest. I couldn’t stop contemplating the remains of
the world’s greatest unsolvable mystery. How did the dinosaurs succumb to their extinction? The more
ponderings I conquered because of the wraiths of my brain the more I tried a thousand times to wish to
disappear. In such manner, I time travelled to the past but you know when you fight against the universe’s
rules, you don’t necessarily win, you never win. The wind sang me a sorrowful song. But time did beckon
to me, and in a day it would most cunningly steal me away. I was trapped at the time of the dinosaurs and
the only way for me to even barely make it back to my home alive would be to find the key that I had lost
when my time machine had stumbled and disassembled itself. Using my manual papers I tried to crossover
all the necessary items and did put it together again though I was only missing my one key. A golden one of
a kind key. It was purloined by the vicious jaws of a Quetzalcoatlus. Metal was an attraction of this creature.
The breeze murmured through the branches. I was tucked away at a corner of a cavernous hole.
The mud smothered the area. Rain was splintering the jungle. I heard a mourn. An ever most quiet mourn.
Sounding like a soft cry of the wind. Vanquishing every stale and tired bone in my trembling body, flicking
away cockroaches, I picked myself up to stand. Stood there. Looked in inside the other corner of this
sickening cave. I found imprisoned, an Echidnas. Its thorns were so jagged and barbed. I felt so distant but so
close. I needed help. For days, malnourished, exhausted and guzzled up all the energy from. Me and that
spikey animal sat there waiting for a call, maybe even a squeak, rattled upon our boredom, I move up on
and near the animal. Its appearance was just so magnificent. Next to me, I held upon a twig for that animal
to fetch. Wanted to see if he knew and could do any good. Forthcoming, I never expected what I had just
about experienced. This creature was wondrous; it could be researched for its skills could be weaponries. As
I threw the twig, aiming it as a bull’s eye, the Echidnas triggered its spikes and darted two thorns straight at
the twig. It was as if it had practiced this specific stunt for ages. Marvelous! Exceptionally marvelous!
We played around with its spikes enabling one trick after the other. The sun was chuckling loudly
leaving us roasting each day and the moon smiled giving us a tint of hope each night. The escape route-
how would we find out? How would I get back home? The key! The key! The top of the whole creaked.
Shining a spectrum of luminous and radiant light hit our eyes with the biggest jolt of energy. Sparring to
open my eyes, I carried the small animal by hand and watched the dinosaur wail. He wailed, at the top of his
lungs. He wailed, ordaining all the other dinosaurs in his team to probably chomp on us. But I wasn’t going
to let that happen. Not anymore. Remarkably so, one of the five dinosaurs that the Pterodactyl had