A Shining Light

As I was rushing around the house, trying to figure out what to do, I decided to take a walk.  As soon as I walked out the door, I had this feeling that something bad was going to come upon me.  I felt this feeling, I had shivers go throughout my body. The feeling went away and I had didn’t think about it for the rest of the time.  As I was walking down the sidewalk, I was looking around at the houses. One house stood out to me the most. The roof of the house was peeling away like a rotten banana peel.  The paint was vanishing away. The foundation of the house was starting to sink into the ground. As far as I could remember, someone used to live in that abandoned house.

I walked down the street getting closer to the house.  There was a strange object shining in the upstairs of the house.  I started to walk faster towards the house. There I was, standing in the front yard of the abandoned house.  All of a sudden, I felt the same feeling I had earlier. This time the feeling was worse than before. I fell to the ground.  It felt like something had pushed me to the ground like the wind had hands. I looked around and no one else was on the street.  The light in the upstairs began to shine again, so I approached the door. The light just drew me into the house and couldn’t help it.  I opened the screeching door and the sound echoed throughout the house. I was finally standing in the house. I looked around to examine it.  The walls were peeling away just like the roof was from the outside. The wood looked like it was about to snap. The furniture had holes and stains.  Pictures had fallen off the walls, the windows were shattered and the stairs were collapsing on itself. Suddenly, the door had slammed behind me. I quickly examined the area around me, yet no one was in sight.  I looked out the window to see if someone had closed the door from the outside and nobody was there. I started to sweat and my hands started to shake. I yelled hello to see if anybody was there and there was no sound except for the leaking faucet in the kitchen and that’s all I could hear.  I slowly approached the stairs to go to the upstairs. As I stepped on the first step, it made a loud screeching noise that echoed throughout the house. I went for the second step and closed my eyes as I stepped on it waiting for it to screech also. I was relieved that it didn’t. I was approaching the upstairs and as I did, I looked left and right to see if anybody was standing at each end of the hallway.  Nobody was there. One of the doors was closed and I saw the glowing light peeking under the door out into the hallway. As I was standing at the door, I flung it open. The glowing light was some sort of device. I moved it around to see what was on it. As I was moving it, I accidentally hit something and it was activated. It started to shake and the house also started to shake. I backed away from it and the device hit me with a light.  I started floating and the next thing I know is that……

I woke up and my head hurt.  Everything was blurry and it was hard to see.  Next thing I know, someone was grabbing me to help me up.  I told him thanks as he was walking off speaking either Italian or Spanish.  I knew I was in another country; somewhere in Europe. It looked a lot like Italy.  I looked around at the people and they were wearing some old clothes. Their sleeves were long, the women were in long dresses and the men were wearing weird pants with complex pattern shirts.  The people were giving me weird looks. Probably because I was wearing Nike shoes with shorts and a t-shirt. They were all curious about what I was wearing. I remembered what zapped me back into this time of era.  It was some sort of time machine. I looked around for it and found it lying in a crowd of people. I ran over to it and picked it up. It had been damaged. Pieces were missing off of it. I looked around the area to see if I could find any of them, but I couldn’t.  I started to worry about being stuck in this era forever and it worried me a lot. People started moving out of the way and I was wondering why. This big guy was walking through and he had a bunch of battle scars.

I asked the guy next to me, “who is this guy?”

He said, “He calls himself The Impaler.  He’s the ruler of our city. He doesn’t like newcomers that disturb the city and who knows what happens to them after that.

I asked, “What’s your name by the way?”

“Antonio.  How about you,” the guy answered back.

I said, “My name is Ryder.”

After hearing from Antonio, my worrying increased, given I had just arrived in a time machine, with a crowd of people glaring at me with confusion. I knew I had a real problem.  I looked down at the time machine and started pushing buttons to start it up so I could get out of the situation I was in. It wasn’t working and needed to fix it.

I asked Antonio, “Does your city have a metal shop?”

He answered back, “Yeah.  You just go down the street, take your second right and then the first left, and it will be the first building on the left.  Why do you ask?”

“This time machine has a few pieces missing and I have to fix before I leave,” I said.

Antonio answered, “I’ll meet you down at the shop in 15 minutes to help you out.”

“That would be great.  See you soon,” I responded.

I ran as fast as I could to get there.  As I was running, I ran into something and fell straight to the ground.  It felt like a brick wall had appeared from the ground. I looked up and I’m pretty sure it was one of The Impaler’s guards.  He grabbed me by the arm, pulled me up and told me to start walking. I looked back and another guard picked up the time machine.  After 20 minutes of walking, we arrived at this big building; we entered and the guards took me down a side hallway. They stuck me in a little jail cell.  I was so exhausted from walking, I took a nap which was nice. When I woke up, the guards came back and unlocked my cell. They grabbed me by the arm. We entered a room and the guards tossed me on the ground.  I looked up; The Impaler was standing right in front of me. I was scared out of my mind.

“No newcomers shall ever disturb the city.  Where are you from,” The Impaler asked.

I said nervously, “I’m from the United States, sir.”

“I’ve never heard of such a country before,” he said with a deep tremble in his voice.

“Well I’m from the 21st-century sir,” I said.

He said with anger in his voice, “This is the 15th century and I don’t know where you’re getting this knowledge from, so you better tell me the truth right now!”

I glanced over his shoulder and saw Antonio outside.  How did he know I was here and how did he manage to sneak past all the guards?  He was holding a thumbs up and I had no idea what was about to happen. A few seconds later the wall blew up.  All of us fell to the ground. Someone picked me up to get out of here. It was Antonio and he told me to follow him.  The crowded streets were hard to run through.

“How did you find me, Antonio,” I yelled.

Antonio yelled back, “A group a people were saying how a young man got taken away for a time machine and I knew that was you.”

“Wait! Where’s the time machine?  I think it’s still back at The Impaler’s lair.  We have to go back,” I said with a panicked voice.

“Follow me, I know a shortcut to get there,” Antonio insisted.

As we entered his lair, I saw a flicker of light shine across the wall.  I knew the time machine was that way. The time machine was sitting on a cylinder platform.  It had all the pieces on it, so they must have fixed it up. I tried pushing buttons on it to try and activate it, but it couldn’t.  We grabbed it and ran outside. I told Antonio that we had to go to the town square of where I landed when I first got here. That was the only place where it would work.  We arrived at the town square. I set the time machine on the ground.

“Ryder, I think The Impaler is coming towards us very soon,” Antonio observed.

I answered, “What makes you say that?”

Antonio stated, “Well, a big crowd got out of the way and a really big guy is headed towards us with four guards with him and I’m pretty sure that’s The Impaler.”

I had to hurry and figure out which one was the start button.  I started pushing all the buttons and then, the time machine started shaking and making noises.  I yelled at Antonio to get out the way. I waved goodbye at him and before I knew it, I was gone.

I woke up in the same house I found the time machine.  This time, the house was rebuilt with furniture, pictures on the walls, and the entire house just looked so nice.  A man walked into the living room of where I was standing.

The man asked, “You look really familiar.  Do I know you from somewhere.”

“I don’t believe we have met before,” I said.

“Well then.  My name is Antonio and my family and I moved here from Arizona,” he said.

I answered back, “Well it’s nice to meet you.  I’ll see you around then. Bye.”

As I was walking home, I was thinking about the guy I just met.  He looked a lot like Antonio back in Italy. This was very strange to me.  I looked at the house again; the same light was shining through the top window.  I stood there looking at it with amazement. I knew one day I would return back to it.