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I walked with my brother, Hyunjin, to Parramatta Park to attend the science fair he entered. He invented a time-travel locket that doesn’t actually work since time-travel doesn’t exist, but his idea was accepted. His presentation would be him talking about how he believes it would work. I got into the science fair for free since my brother was entering the contest.
“Are you nervous?” I asked Hyunjin, who was fidgeting with the silver chain bracelet on his wrist.
“A little, yeah,” Hyunjin mumbled, still fidgeting with the bracelet.
“Don’t be nervous, I’m sure you’ll do great! Your inventions are always so awesome!” I reassured him. “We still have quite a while since we got here early, so let’s go get something to drink to calm down your nerves.” Hyunjin agreed, and we both got boba tea. When we were done with them, we headed back to Hyunjin’s booth.
When we got there, a man was standing there. He approached my brother with a handshake and introduced himself. “Hello sir, you must be Hwang Hyunjin! It’s such a pleasure to meet you, I have heard all about your wonderful inventions! My name is Thomas Jefferson, and I’m in charge of this science fair being held today,” Thomas said. Hyunjin awkwardly shook his hand back and said, “It’s nice to meet you as well.”
“So what’s your name? You must be his sister, you two look very alike,” Thomas asked, turning his attention to me. “Chaeyoung,” I replied.
“I’m sure I don’t need to ask this question but I need to be sure; that time-travel locket of yours doesn’t actually work, does it? Because if so, that would be extremely dangerous and I would advise you not to fully activate it when demonstrating how it works,” Thomas warned, turning serious.
“No, it does not,” Hyunjin confirmed, slightly uneasy under Thomas’ intense stare.
“Good, although I would still advise to not actually press that final button that would actually do the time traveling, just in case,” Thomas said, and with that he walked away to inspect another person’s booth.
“Is it just me or did he seem kind of...off?” I said, looking in the direction he walked off in. “It was weird how he emphasized dangerous like that..”
“Yeah, his name sounds strangely familiar but I’ve never seen him before,” Hyunjin agreed. The science fair was just about to start, so I had to go walk around for a while until it was over.
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The science fair was close to being over, so I wandered back to Hyunjin’s booth to see if he was done yet. When I got there, no one else was there so I assumed he was finished.
“So how did it go?” I asked, sitting in the chair next to him.
Hyunjin broke out in a huge smile and said, “It went amazing; everyone loved my invention and they were all really interested to learn about how it works!”
“That’s amazing! See, it wasn’t so bad was it?” I said. “Can I see the locket?”
Hyunjin nodded, and handed the locket over to me. I looked at the locket in my hand and noticed that the time dials on it were set to a time in the Medieval times. Without thinking, I pressed the button in the center because I was curious as to what it would feel like to press it.
I heard someone yell, “Don’t press that button!” right before I got shocked by the locket, making me drop the locket. I reached down to pick it back up and was only able to poke it with my finger before Hyunjin slapped my hand away. “Are you crazy?! Don’t pick it back up! Let it cool off-”
Bloop!
I saw an intense blue light before my eyes as I felt the cells in my body painfully being torn apart. Frightened that I would just fade away into the void, I focused on keeping my cells together, like in the book series ‘Keeper of the Lost Cities.’ I suddenly started to fall, so I squeezed my eyes shut. When I opened them again, I saw a forest of not-so-soft trees below me so I curled up in a ball because that is definitely what you’re supposed to do.
I hit the ground, which surprisingly did not hurt at all. When I stood up to brush myself off, I noticed that my clothing had drastically changed. I was wearing clothing from what looked like the medieval era. I was wearing a royal blue ankle length gown with a cream chemise underneath it, along with a tight corset and many other layers. I lifted the hem of the gown to look at what my shoes looked like and they looked almost normal. I noticed the golden locket laying on the ground, so I quickly picked it up so no one from this time could potentially find it.
“Chaeyoung!!!” I heard Hyunjin scream loudly. I turned my head towards the sound of his voice and saw Hyunjin running towards me and Thomas Jefferson..? I started to run towards them as well but had to stop due to this highly annoying dress.
“I told you not to touch that button!” Thomas boomed, making me flinch. When they reached where I was, I could see that Hyunjin was wearing clothing from the medieval era as well. He was wearing a knee-length costume with a white french chainse underneath it along with black chausses. Thomas was wearing a black trench coat that looks like it’s from the 1700s or 1800s. When he got closer I said, “You look extremely familiar, but I can’t tell from what..”
“I’m that science fair host you and Hyunjin met, if that’s what you’re talking about,” Thomas said. “If not that, I was America’s 3rd president.”
My eyes widened in realization. “Now I know who you are! But, shouldn’t you be...dead?”
“Technically, yes, but I’m still alive at 276 years old. It’s kind of difficult to explain,” Thomas replied.
“How did you know that the time-travel locket actually worked?” I asked, holding the locket up.
“I could sense the time energy from it the moment you two stepped into the building with it.”
“Time energy?”
“Time energy. It’s a type of energy that is released when someone time travels, or from any type of time-travel device. Humans usually can’t sense it, but I swallowed this miniscule time chip my friend made because time travel is dangerous and I wanted to dispose of it completely. So now I’m immortal and sense time energy,” Thomas explained.
“I’m confused, how was Hyunjin actually able to create time travel? He’s only 17 years old,” I asked.
“I am not sure, to be honest. But he is very talented and intelligent, so it isn’t exactly a surprise,” Thomas said. “Okay, so now let’s get back to your time zone. We must make sure we are all connected in some way so we all travel at once and our cells don’t get torn apart. Chaeyoung was barely touching the locket when she time traveled so I am going to assume it was painful.”