A journey to the past
CHAPTERS:
1. Virus attack
2. Meeting the gods
3. A lucky escape
4. Mummy land
5. In a war!
6. Next stop, Taj Mahal
7. Hungry and sick children
8. Home finally
Virus Attack
One day, our teacher gave us a class project. It had to do with learning about the dinosaurs. After going home, I called my friend, Yashmith, over to my house. “Let’s read a storybook.” I said. Both of us picked a story about time travel. While reading the book, Yashmith got an idea. He said, “Hey! Why don’t we rent a machine that can time travel? We can go to the dinosaur age and learn about dinosaurs.” I said, “It’s a great idea. Let’s do it.” We went to a store that sold clocks and rented a time machine.
The machine had a compartment with controls and a cabin for three people to stand or sit inside. It also had a clock that showed the time. I had my computer with me. I connected it to the controls. We came up with a code to set the eras into the machine. After we were done with the coding, my mum called us for dinner. Yashmith was excited to see pasta in the bowl, as he was very hungry. I gobbled up my food too because I was impatient to test the code. Since it was late, we decided to go to bed and run the test the next morning.
Yashmith woke me up early the next morning to run the test. While the test was running in the background, we played a computer game. But the computer had a virus that I was not aware of. The test ran smoothly and was a success; however, the virus got transferred into the time machine. I placed our bags in the cabin and called Yashmith to come inside. Once both of us were settled inside, we clicked on the key that read 'Dinosaur' and waited. The clock started to turn and at the strike of 12:00, we heard a 'DING!' and were transported to a different place.
Meeting the gods
The machine spun around while we both sat in the cabin looking at each other. “I am starting to feel uncomfortable about this whole thing and whether our machine will work well”, said Yashmith. “Come on bro, the test result was positive, so there is nothing wrong with our machine. You shouldn’t be worried about this”, I said. It took us one whole day, and we finally landed. We felt relieved to be back on the ground and ran out of the cabin to get some fresh air. There was not a single soul to be seen in the open vast land. We noticed some creatures moving at a distance. They looked like humans. Yashmith said, “This doesn’t feel right! No humans existed during the dinosaur era.”
We continued walking, and buildings started to appear on either side. They were not small buildings like what we usually see in the city. Bright colors similar to gold reflected from many of these buildings. Guards stood at the gates. It felt like we were surrounded by palaces. As we tried to enter one of the palaces, a guard shouted “You there! What are you doing here and who are you? This is a palace of Lord Brahma; it is not a place for children to loiter. Follow me I’ll take you inside.” We walked silently behind the guard who took us through a long hallway and into the courtroom. The courtroom was filled with hymns being recited by a few scholars. Brahma was working on a round blue ball that looked like the earth. He was creating human beings.
The guard introduced us to Brahma and left. Both of us bowed and told him that we were time travelers and had come to study the dinosaurs. “This is a palace and we are creating the universe. There aren’t any such things as dinosaurs here. You must be mistaken”, said Brahma. We then realized that we were not in the dinosaur era. Our machine had malfunctioned and brought us here. We asked the Gods to help us fix our time machine. It took them just a few seconds to fix it. The Gods made us promise that we returned straight home after we complete our travel to see the dinosaurs. Yashmith and I thanked the Gods and got into our time machine. We clicked on the ‘Dinosaur’ key and kept our fingers crossed.
A lucky escape
Once we stepped out of the time machine, we saw that we were in a beautiful valley surrounded by mountains. Yashmith and I were very thirsty. We tried to find a place to drink water and went into the forest. There we found a river that was full of crystal clear water. There were stones to sit on and beautiful flowers on the trees. We eagerly drank the water to our heart's content. Lying down on the stones, we played tic-tac-toe in the paper that we had brought.
After we finished playing one round of tic-tac-toe we started jumping on the stones. Then the stones started vibrating like mad which terrified us. We jumped off the stones and when we got up, we were even more terrified to see a huge mother dinosaur looking at the stones that were cracking open. They were not stones but eggs! “Oh God, these are not stones but eggs. Let’s get out of here!”, screamed Yashmith over the roar of the dinosaur. When the mother dinosaur saw us, she grabbed us with her claws and threw us into the river. She took the eggs with her and went away.
We swam to the shore and ran back into the cabin petrified. But both of us vomited all the water we had drank on the controls. Sparks flew out of the controls and we heard a crackling noise. I said, “Let’s hope the time machine works properly and takes us home.” We clicked on the key that read ‘Home’. At the stroke of 12, we heard a ‘DONG!’ The time machine started to spin and spin. Finally, it landed somewhere. “I hope we are home and not anywhere else.”, said Yashmith.
Mummy Land
We heard a loud 'THUD’, and it felt like we had landed. As I walked out of the exit door, I slipped. I heard Yashmith yelling, “Are you fine?” “Yeah, I am fine. I slipped because there is a pile of bandages underneath the machine! Come out and see for yourself.” I said. Yashmith came out, saw, and screamed, “That is not a pile of bandages but a mummy!” I said, “Let’s move the time machine somewhere else.” But when we tried to lift the time machine, we accidentally stepped on something. It was dark, and we could not see very well. Yashmith showed the torch around. It was a mummy! We were exhausted and needed some food. So I said, “Let’s go search for food. I am tired and hungry.”
It was very scary, smelly, and dark. We kept hopping across many mummies now and at the same time searching for food. We went into tunnels after tunnels but could not find any food. Finally, we realized that we were inside a pyramid! It seemed completely filled with mummies and tunnels with lots of escape routes. We tried going out the escape routes but could not because of many spider webs. “Fear fills my mind, and I wish to return to the safety of my home.” said Yashmith falling down in exhaustion.
We both started dreaming about the yummy food our mummies (not the mummies covered in bandages) would be making at home. “I like pasta.” Yashmith said, and “I like pizza.” I said. Then, we started discussing different kinds of food. We did not realize that the place we were sitting in was swarming with insects. The creepy crawlies started crawling on us and biting us! We felt helpless and walked back depressed to the time machine. I hit the key ‘Home’ and really hoped that we would go home this time.
In A War
The machine started to spin and spin. We hoped it would take us home this time. Once we landed, I was relieved to find myself in a street full of houses. It had been 10 days since we had started time traveling, and Yashmith was eager to go back to his house. Just as he stepped out, he said, “I have never seen this street before. We must have landed on an adjacent street to our homes. Let’s walk around and find our houses.” So we started walking and realized that the people looked unique and their houses looked very different. This was not where we lived. We were still very hungry, tired, and missed our families. We saw a girl looking for something in front of one of the houses. Walking up to her, Yashmith asked, “What is your name and what are you doing? Have you lost something?” The girl replied, “My name is Bobitha and I am looking for my lost toy.” All of us together searched for her toy and found it near a tree. Bobitha thanked us for helping her and invited us inside to her house.
Her parents welcomed us to their house. There were many brightly lit lanterns hanging from the roof. Bobitha sat on a swing close to us, and we started chatting. It felt like we knew each other well. Her grandmother was sitting on a bed that was made of straw and reciting something. We could not understand the language she was speaking in. It was time for dinner. Bobitha’s mother asked us to join them to eat. We gladly accepted the invitation and thought in our minds that we finally had food to eat. We ate together on the floor. Suddenly there was a gust of wind and the lanterns blew out. BOOM BOOM BOOM BANG! We heard gunshots approaching us. All of us were scared. Bobitha’s father thought we were under attack by the Spanish.
We hurried through the back door and could hear screams and cries of young children. Every street we ran to, we could hear the soldiers marching and shouting. Yashmith spotted a dry well covered by grass. It looked normal, just like the land from the top. So we jumped into the well and covered the top back with grass. Bobitha’s family and few of their neighbors along with us sat quietly inside the well. I accidentally knocked onto a stone in the wall and this led us to a secret door. Bobitha pushed the door open, and we all saw a long tunnel ahead of us. We started walking into the tunnel and were wondering where it would lead us. I was the first to find out that it ended on the outside of the whole town, far away from the soldiers. We had had enough adventures and decided to leave. Thankfully the time machine was visible from the tunnel. We thanked them and left.
Next stop Taj Mahal
I was still dreaming about the gunshots, walking through the tunnel when the machine stopped. There was a lot of banging and hitting noise coming from outside. We stepped out, and it seemed like we had landed in a construction zone. A huge white mosque-like structure was visible in front of us. A loud trumpeting sound echoed in our ear. There was something behind us. Yashmith and I were startled and were pushed out of the way. An elephant was standing right behind us, and a boy named Ali had pushed us to safety. Apparently, elephants were being used to carry materials for construction. Ali told us that we should not stand here for too long, as it obstructed the elephants from moving around.
Ali was going to meet his friends near the river and asked us if we wanted to join him. We followed him to the river and saw many types of different birds, flowers, and gardens on our way. It was very beautiful and peaceful near the river, unlike the construction site. His friends were waiting on the riverbank near a boat. It was a long beautiful boat with two huge sails, and it belonged to Ali. The boat was named ‘The Milestone’. The letters were made of gold, and they were shining. All of us got on the boat and started to sail in the river. Ali’s friend told us that the river’s name was Yamuna. One of the boys was feeling the water with his hands when something hard and rough touched him.
“Crocodile!”, yelled Yashmith. There were many of them and were circling below our boat. Another boat was coming behind us. We shouted loudly and warned them of coming near the crocodiles. Ali turned the sails in the direction of the wind so that the boat could pick up speed. We started moving fast and the crocodiles could not catch up with our speed. We were finally away from the crocodile zone. It was dark by the time we parked and got out of the boat. Ali asked us to sleep at his house that night. The next morning, we bid goodbye and walked back to our time machine. The elephants were still around, and we carefully got into the machine without obstructing any of the elephants this time.
Hungry and sick children
Soon we fell asleep. I was dreaming about the crocodiles and the boat when I heard Yashmith laughing. I woke up and realized that he was also sleeping. I shook him and asked, “Why are you laughing? You gave me a shock.” Yashmith said, “Something was tickling my leg, and I could not stop laughing.” We looked around but did not find anything. The machine had stopped, and we heard bullets hitting it. We stayed inside until the sound reduced. There were a lot of dead bodies and blood around us. A small boy was crying loudly next to the time machine. I asked him, “What is happening here? Why are you crying?” He said, “I lost my parents in the fight yesterday, and I have nowhere to go.”
A grenade blasted in the distance, and there was a lot of smoke. We started to cough. A soldier came towards us and warned us not to stand here. He pointed to a refugee camp close by and asked us to take shelter there. Walking around, we saw a lot of broken glasses, damaged buildings, and injured people. The boy spotted a gate and ran towards it. We followed him thinking that this should be the campsite. It was night, and the place was dimly lit. We could not see very clearly. People were sleeping in tents. A man saw us and enquired why we were there. The boy said he had lost his home and family. He had no place to go. The man asked the boy to drink some water and showed him to a cot where he could rest for the night.
We were happy the boy was able to find a place to sleep. Seeing all this did not make us feel good. We wanted to get back inside the time machine as fast as we could. Yashmith and I started running. We had forgotten where the machine had landed. We spotted a broken building with its roof still intact. A light was flickering inside the building. Yashmith and I slept inside the broken building that night. Once the sun was up the next morning, we started to search for the time machine. There was a homing beacon inside the machine. The watch that I was wearing started to glow which meant that the machine was somewhere close by. I turned around and spotted the machine behind me. We ran and got into the machine and left. “May we go home.” prayed Yashmith silently.
Home finally
The machine landed on the roof of a building. The colors around us seemed familiar. We had to use a ladder to come out of the machine. Somebody had tied a clothesline on the roof, and there were some dresses hanging from it. I recognized my favorite red shirt and was now certain that we had landed on the roof of my house. “Home sweet home!”, I cried. We were so relieved and excited to be back. I ran down the stairs and went into my room. Yashmith went back to his house. That night, we slept very well. The next morning Yashmith came back to my house and reminded me of the school project that we had completely forgotten about.
While working on the project, we chatted about all the places we had gone to. I told my mother about how we ran into mummies and about my friend Bobitha. Hearing the name Bobitha she said, “This name sounds familiar. Your great-grandaunt from centuries ago, during the Spanish invasion, also had the same name.” Yashmith thought maybe it was the same person that we met. The next day at school, we told all our friends about the time travel and how the machine had gotten this weird virus, which made us go places. My other friend Vedith said, “Why don’t you fix the virus in the machine? Maybe we could all time-travel again once it is working properly.”
That evening Yashmith came back to my house, and we started to figure out how to get the virus out of this machine. We tried the anti-virus program, but it did not work. Suddenly, I remembered a computer scientist who had taught me some programming in a class. Yashmith got really excited and said, “Let’s go to her house now. We will ask her to help us fix the machine!” But that is a story for another time!
Written by:
Bhargav Srikanth
Edited by:
Aanchal Agrawal
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