I’m Ria Khan, a senior researcher at The Scientific Research Institution in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Behind the back of the government, I made a secret organization called Squad Pentagon with my peers whom I trust with my life. We made this secret and illegal organization with the same dream, hope, and ambition of power and fame. Metallic instruments, different chemicals, and acids were our only subjects of research. After 20 years of hard work, we finally prepared a time machine to go into the future. Little did we know something different was waiting for us……..

The main plan of ours was that we’ll all go together and complete our research work. Although we did many experiments with rats and monkeys, I wasn’t fully assured. Finally, I stated my proposal one day to the team. Mr. Arthur was getting on my nerves. According to him, we should either die together or succeed together. Alayne being the sweet girl she is, was on my side. But making Arthur as well as everyone agree wasn’t hard. But then, Mr. Leo Valdez said he wanted to go. Was that kid nuts? But he’s a great asset and has brains. So, he also accompanied me.

And that’s how my journey started.

I still remember how I and Leo worked and practiced day and night for our journey. We even had to learn how to not breathe for 10 minutes and how to breathe in less oxygen! ‘In the future, the amount of oxygen might be less or the air will be too toxic. The people of that time surely will have something that they’ll use to survive. You don’t have those.’ that’s what Mr. Hans, our instructor said.  Finally, we got ready after 2 months of hard work. I still remember every detail of my and Leo’s last day in 2060.

‘When I complete counting from 1 to 10, press that red button. Remember, the green button is to be pressed when returning back and the yellow button should be pressed in case of an explosion during travelling for your safety.’ ‘What about the blue button Mr. Hans?’ inquired Leo. ‘Well, that’s for communicating with us,’ replied Mr. Hans. Take these bracelets, you two. This is for communicating with us when you’re outside the time machine. Keep informing us every second of the environment there. We must place the perfect project for how the world will be in the future,’ said Alayne. ‘I have a question! What is the red button in the bracelet for?’ asked Leo. ‘It’s for making us invisible, genius,’ I said. ‘How will we get back to the time machine?’ ‘When you contact us, stay at the exact place you call us from. We’ll make it appear,’ replied Mr. Arthur with a sad smile. ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Leave it to us genius,’ said Alayne.

Okay! I’ll start counting. You guys ready?’

‘Yes!’ replied me and Leo in a union.

While Mr. Hans started counting, I looked at the people around me. Mr. Arthur, a man in his mid-fifties was wiping his eyes filled with tears. Alayne, a young woman in her thirties with charcoal black eyes and hair. Mr. Hans, an old but strongly determined man who firmly believed in me from the first. John Willam, the most loyal person of Squad Pentagon who was looking in awe at me and Leo. I finally looked at all my trusted scientist friends. Will I be able to see them again? Will I and Leo survive?

‘Ready, leader?’ asked Leo. I looked at his golden eyes so filled with excitement. ‘Yes.’

When Mr. Hans shouted one, I immediately pressed the red button.

And with a pop sound, we disappeared.

After almost 2 hours of spinning through a black surface, the time machine finally stopped.

‘We’ve arrived,’ whispered I. I sighed in relief. Then I told Leo to contact the team.

Leo tapped the green button and said, ‘Hello. Leo Valdez speaking. The time machine has stopped so I guess we’ve arrived. We’ll keep informing you guys after we take full preparation.’

‘Now, Leo, since we’ve arrived, we must make the time machine disappear. Although a non-tracking system is installed here, we never know.’ ‘Let’s take the necessary items and hop out then,’ said Leo.

After 1 hour we got out of the time machine with everything prepared and disappeared the time machine.

When we arrived, my number one work was to inform our team. But, now, my ultimate goal is to find out about the time. If I can find out about here successfully and go back, none but God will be able to stop our success.

We turned on our invisible mode and started roaming. ‘Most people are excited about the future. But, they have no idea what it’s actually like here,’ I thought sadly. Although I thought if we roam around for 3 days we’ll have an idea about the time clearly. But, we travelled from one place to another without any break, day and night, and finally understood after 9 solid months. We always kept contact with the team. I  still remember how it was. The weather was pretty hot approximately 47 degrees Celsius and trees are extremely rare. Among the buildings, most of them are 100 storied buildings. The people here always put on a cold face and mostly robots and half-humans are seen outside. From what I can see, the world is now completely dependent on artificial intelligence. People mostly travel through a weird cable car-type vehicle that basically flies. There are also taxi-like things that both floats and moves in the roads. But many would’ve thought it was the end. We returned home safely. But the thing was, when we contacted the team they told us something was wrong with the time machine and they were working on it. Nothing’s bad here, right? But, the main thing is, the world is somehow aware of our entrance.  Because of trespassing, we might be killed. But, heaven was with us. When we actually got caught by the armed forces of the place we were in, our time machine which was only visible to us, activated. But, if only we knew! Going against nature will cost you a lot. We knew a lot about our time machine but never knew that when we come back from the time we travelled, your age increased exactly the same number. And, thus, we aged 100 years more and met death as soon as we came back to our time.

Nature is indeed full of surprises.

                                                                                            The END