Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction Group 3 - 2017 | Page 406

A Second Chance
St Paul's Co-educational College, Lam , Justin - 13
I
had just set out from the research centre at the military base when I felt it. There was a certain wrongness in the
atmosphere, as if reality itself had been flipped inside out. Before I could react, the prototype time machine’s
instruments went berserk, sending the machine spiralling towards some unknown destination. Then, as I drew near,
I glimpsed the problem. It was like someone had sliced a hole through the very fabric of reality, leaving a gaping hole. There was
a violent shuddering as I was pulled in and catapulted into another existence.
I materialized in an unknown river. I hacked myself free with my pocketknife, but I was weighed down by my time
travel suit. Gradually, my consciousness faded as I struggled to breathe, and the world went black.
Slowly, my eyes opened. I was in a small boat.
“Where am I?” I asked, my voice hoarse.
“I’m Li, a fisherman. I found you floating in the Huangpu River,” he said. “We’re nearing the Old City of Shanghai.”
“What dynasty is this?” I asked, hoping to get more information.
Li gave me an odd look. “It’s the Republic of China. The dynasties were abolished. Didn’t you know that?”
“Did you see my...er...boat?” I asked, changing the subject swiftly.
He shook his head. “It probably sank to the bottom of the river. “
How am I going to get back to my own time? I thought, a mounting sense of despair growing inside me. As I was
mulling over my situation, going over the tools I still had with me, another question occurred to me: what had smashed a hole in
space-time? It couldn’t just have been a time machine. It had to be something far more cataclysmic , I thought. When I was
considering the implications of a hole in reality, a far more immediate problem happened.
“There’s a gang fight on the wharf!” Li yelled, his voice urgent. “We can’t go near yet.”
Directly in front of us, gangsters were tussling with the local police, gaining ground as the policemen fell one by one.
When I looked closer, I realized that the gangsters’ weapons were laser blasters. Why do they have lasers? I wondered, a sense of
foreboding dawning upon me. Before I could say anything, a giant orb-like ship appeared from thin air, its cloaking mechanism
deactivated. Next to me, Li’s mouth was agape in horror and shock. Carefully, I took a palm-sized locator from my pocket and
inputted its coordinates, throwing it in the direction of the ship, where I knew it would find its way to the bottom and adhere
there.
As I watched, the gangsters streamed back inside. A turret on the ship swiveled and hummed. My mouth was already
open in a warning that was drowned out by the roar as a beam obliterated half the dock. I took a step back in shock, staring at