Lost in time

Prologue

The temperatures keep rising, and the droughts are getting worse every year. He watches the news reports constantly, then goes to tinker in his garage once his wife and children are asleep. There has to be a way to fix all this. He has done the calculations and built the machine over the past fifteen years. Now, if he can just find the power source strong enough to run it, he should be able to... Dammit! Another fuse blows in the main power box.

Reports are getting worse by the day, and most of the neighborhood has already started making preparations to move. All inlanders, as they are being called, are fighting to find places to live near the coastal areas. They say it will be another six months, and everything he is looking at will be desert. It’s the year 2121, and the ice caps have all melted. The map of the earth is no longer the same as the one he found in the historical archives from 2020, just a mere 100 years ago.

He can’t imagine his entire life caught under the desert sand. He can’t imagine his wife and four daughters having to live lives without water and going hungry. He has to find a way to go back in time and tell people what kind of damage their industrial revolution caused and what is going to happen if they don’t stop it.

This purple tube is his last hope for a power source. If this doesn’t work, they will have to move, and he doesn’t know what will happen to them.

He connects the power source to his machine and closes his eyes tightly, holding his finger above the green button, he takes a deep breath and presses the button. The wheel at the back starts spinning and lightning cracks through the room, making even the hair on his arms stand up. He looks at the circle in front of him with wide eyes…

“I did it!! I did it…” He sits in his chair in awe for a moment, then realizes he doesn’t know how long the connection might hold.

“Damn! What was that date?!” He has been working on getting the machine running for so long, he couldn’t remember the year he had to go to and type in the date 19 July 1890, hoping his guess isn’t too far off before leaving a note for his wife.

“I had to go back and fix things. I love you.”

Jumping through the open portal, it closes behind him. The force of the wind blows the note from his desk, making it land in a box underneath his desk.