Serena looked at the clock ticking on the wall. She watched as the little red dial clicked second by second and she waited impatiently. Finally, there was a final click and then the loud ring from the bell. She stood up quickly trying to gather all her belongings. Now, they were all headed to the Evans’ house for a meeting. Just like the old days. Seemed she never escape from the alien madness, not even in this world.
She reached the parking lot and looked around when she caught Maria and Alex gathered near the red Jetta. She sped up a bit, hoping to reach them quickly, the security of a group becoming something she craved.
“Ready?”
“Yup.”
“Ok hop in.” They all jumped in and began to ride off, headed toward the direction of the house.
“This is so crazy.”
“Maria are you still freaking out about the whole… Czechoslovakian thing?” Alex looked to the back seat and laughed.
“The what?”
“Czechoslovakian. It was the code name for you them.”
“Interesting code name.”
“Well, whatever you call them, doesn’t it bother you that they really did crash land here in the forties? I mean, am I the only one that seems to notice that these kids are really like in their 80s?”
“No… that’s not how it worked. From what I remember, they were in these pods where they gestated and when they… hatched, I guess you could say, they looked like 6 year old kids.”
“Euww… pods? They hatched?! Oh God, this just gets weirder and weirder.”
“Well you know Maria, it wasn’t exactly attractive the way you were born. Last I checked you came out full of yucky guck screaming and crying after having pushed your way out of your mother’s vagi…” Alex stated as a matter of factly.
“HEY HEY HEY! I’m not the only one who came out like that ok? They on the other hand came out of pod thingies.”
“Ok guys. We’re here. Oh and Maria… please just try to be nice. After all, these people are trying to save my life. Besides, you can’t deny the fact that you think Michael is hot.”
“What?! Michael?! I never… you never… oh shut up.” They laughed and reached the door, the Jeep already parked in the driveway.
Serena walked up to the door and knocked and it swung open to reveal Max Evans with a smile on his face and a twinkle of laughter in his eyes.
“Hey.” She asked, curiously.
“Hey guys. Glad you could make it. Mom just finished our appetizers so if any of you are hungry, there are chips and dip and mini quiche thingies.” He rolled his eyes and she laughed. His mom was obviously a little over the top. Then again, it just showed how much she loved them.
They all walked in and saw Isabel, Tess and Michael sitting in the dining room, snacking on the food, waiting patiently. It all seemed so normal, so pleasant. Nothing seemed to be wrong or life threatening. They’d made a career out of lying to their mother.
“Dinner is almost ready kids. When it is I’ll call you all down ok?” She watched as Mrs. Evans smiled and headed back into the kitchen, a pleasant smell of herbs and meats cooking wafting in the air. They all picked up their things and headed up the stairs behind Isabel into Max’s room. She looked around, her stomach flipping from the times she’d gone to see him. Then she watched as Isabel closed the door behind her and turned around, her smile quickly fading.
Everyone stood in stunned silence and watched her as she stood quietly, her eyes looking down at her hands.
“Ok… what’s with the brooding silence?” Maria asked nervously. She looked around as Max and Tess sat on the edge of the bed, Alex leaned up against the wall, and Michael paced around nervously. Isabel was still leaning against the door.
“I didn’t want to lead on that something was wrong. Mom gets really worked up when we seem upset.”
“What did you find out there Isabel?” Serena looked up at her suspiciously. Isabel got up from her leaning position and headed over to Max and Tess to sit in the space between them on the bed. Max reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. Everyone turned in his direction as he carefully unfolded it.
“This is a rough sketch of what we found. It was behind the pods. We have no idea what it is or what it does. But… it looks like it might be really important.” They all stared at the diagram with the large cone in the middle.
“Wow… it looks… massive.” Alex explored it by tilting his head and Serena looked at it carefully.
“Do you recognize it?” Isabel asked eagerly, obviously having thought about it quite a bit.
“No. I’ve never seen it. I guess we hadn’t found it yet in our time.”
“Well it seems to be made of crushed granite and cement and it’s thick, in the shape of a cone that dives into a natural rock. It looked like quartz but I’m not sure.”
“Granite? It’s a granolith. A carving stone made of those materials is called a granolith. But… why would it lead into a quartz?” Serena racked her brain for a possible answer. She knew there was a reason for this. After all, the people back on their planet were technologically advanced. They did manage to form perfect hybrid mixtures of human/alien DNA.
“Well, this granolith seemed to have some foreign writing carved into the bottom of it and the walls were lined with what seemed to be metal sheets. I mean, it looked like some crazy sci-fi movie room.” Isabel rubbed her hands together tightly and looked over at Tess.
“It was completely black inside which leads me to believe that it’s hollow. Not completely full of the stones it is made of.”
“It has to hold some sort of power. Why would it be hidden away if it didn’t?” Maria asked her eyes looked at them curiously.
“That’s a good point. How do we find out? Should we go and test it?” Michael headed towards the door ready to leave.
“Michael… we can’t just test it. We don’t know what it will do and if it’s something big, we might draw a lot of attention to ourselves. We have to be careful how we figure this out.” Max stood up and now began pacing as well.
“I wish there was someone who could help us understand this!” He said frustrated as he slid his hand through his hair.
“I think I know just the person.” Serena looked down at the paper and nodded. “I’ll talk to her tonight.”
They all looked up and nodded.
“KIDS! Dinner’s ready!”
***
She looked up at the large spaceship flying over the door. God, how she missed her room, her bed. She wanted so badly to go upstairs and rummage through her clothes. But she knew what would happen if she did. She looked over at her partner in crime and smiled.
“You don’t think she’ll find this suspicious?”
“Are you kidding me? She loves talking about this stuff! Come on.” They walked inside and Maria commanded her to sit at the counter on one of the stools. “I’ll be back. Don’t move.” Maria headed upstairs and she sat, taking it all in.
Every experience here seemed so odd to her. Part of her memories still haunted her and then there was the new part of her, the part that wanted to pierce her nose and go dancing that seemed to take over sometimes. The part that she remembered what she learned in Biology but couldn’t for her life understand it. The part that knew she couldn’t sing but made her want to play the drums in the band with Alex and Maria. It was like she was torn between two personalities constantly trying to take a hold of her.
She was torn from her thoughts by the sound of footsteps coming from the backdoor. She prepared for Maria but what she saw threw her completely off guard.
“Mr. Parker….”
“Oh…hello. I didn’t know Maria had brought a friend.” He tried to smile, his face looking old and beaten.
“Yes, umm… my name is Serena.”
“Hello Serena.” He began to fix things up and then he reached under the counter for a rag with which he began to wipe aimlessly.
“Mr. Parker, I am so sorry about your loss. I know things must be very difficult for you right now.” He looked up, his sad eyes looking into hers for a moment. He then looked back down and continued his wiping.
“Thank you. It hasn’t been easy.”
“I just… everyone has said that you were such a wonderful father to her. And looking at you now, I can tell that is very true.” She tried to contain her tears, the ones attacking her from every angle.
He stopped the wiping and took a deep breath.
“I just wish I could’ve told her how much I love her.” He nodded and suddenly Maria and Claudia walked in through the back doors.
“Mom.”
“Oh Jeff, you look awful honey. Why don’t you take a break from cleaning up and go take a nice hot shower? I’ll finish up down here.”
“Come on Mom, you know you shouldn’t be doing all this work.”
“Please… go shower and leave it. I’ll take care of it. Now shoot.” He smiled and excused himself as Serena tried to regain her composure. She wasn’t sure she was going to be able to do this for much longer.
“Now Serena, how are you dear? I hear you wanted to see me.”
“Oh, hello Grandma Claudia. I’m fine… umm… yea I wanted to ask you some questions. Maria told me that you’re really into science and the Earth and natural elements.”
“Well, I do extensive reading and research on those sort of things. I’m very interested in what the relationship is that we have to the Earth. After all, dust we are and to dust we do return.”
“Well, what do you make of this shape?” She handed the folded piece of paper to Grandma Claudia and held her breath, the lights above the counter casting individual light on each of them.
“Interesting.”
“What is?”
“This looks like a machine that would make time travel possible.”
“Time travel?”
“Yes. See it follows all of the concepts.” She pointed to the cone and looked up at the girls with a knowing expression. “The cone opens up top, allowing space for the big black hole which is necessary in the propelling of intense energy to boost someone from one time dimension to the next.”
Maria stared at her blankly. She had to admit, she felt the same. Was this even possible?
“Isn’t time travel a false theory? I mean, doesn’t it violate like all sorts of scientific laws?”
“Well, not necessarily. You see, to understand the concept of time travel, you have to see time for what it really is.”
“And what is it?”
“It’s not a straight line, as most people assume it is. Time exists in several different dimensions. And according to the special theory of relativity, we can jump to and from these different dimensions if we use a strong enough power source, which would be propelled by a natural atomic element, such as crystal.”
“So wait, you’re saying that we can take a few diamond rings and they can boost up enough energy to send us back to 1912?” Maria’s eyebrows went up questioningly. This obviously seemed too easy.
“No. You see, there’s more to it than that. A person would need a large amount of energy to start the changing of the atomic structure which would then send a person to and fro in time. The only problem is, we as humans are not quite advanced enough to have found such an energy source.”
“And what about time paradox?” Serena asked, suddenly piecing everything together.
“As for that theory, we’d have to assume that each time dimension is like an alternate universe, where the actions in this world do not affect the ones in the other. Otherwise, if a mistake was made during your travels and say you killed your grandmother… well that would mean you were never born and then could never travel. Does that make sense?”
“Yea… actually in a really weird way it does.”
“So therefore, there are several dimensions all with their own realities and they are all affected differently. There is no telling how one affects the other, since there has never been anyone to successfully try it.”
The girls looked at each other and smiled.
“Thank you so much Grandma Claudia.” They both got up and hugged her, one on each side and then they all began laughing.
“What is this all about anyway?”
“I told Serena that you’re a genius and that you know everything so she should ask you for her science project.”
“Well… if you’re planning on traveling back in time… be careful. You don’t know what you may encounter when you get there.”
“Yea… I’ll keep that in mind.” She smiled and waved goodbye to Grandma Claudia. They headed out the door and into the Jetta where Alex sat waiting.
“So?”
“I think we have a plan.”
PS> I'm taking a break. From now til Monday I will not be posting. I'm pretty sick and I need rest and I also have tons of things to catch up with, Real life doesn't stop for anyone I suppose. But, I will be back with chpt 11 on Monday morning.
Thanks for reading everyone! I really hope you are all enjoying this so far. 
Now, back to this little world I've created. You all seem to have concerns about certain things... well let me give you a few answers. Just keep in mind... this new world we're living in is full of new possibilites. No one is confined to their old lives and what makes it so special is that many events that made people who they were have never happened... so how do we react to new events to new circumstances? 