You knew this would happen didn’t you, Voice? This isn’t funny, what am I supposed to be doing here? The voice sighed in my head.

You really have no clue, huh? Look at your teacher.

I looked at him closely and saw nothing out of the ordinary.

You must be a really unobservant person.

“Why are you here, Callum?” My teacher sighed heavily with a hint of a smirk. Weird.

“Uh, I’m here to get my stuff that I left behind,” I ended shortly. He raised an eyebrow and stroked his chin.

“Ah, right. The stuff you left behind when you left my classroom unexcused.” I fidgeted where I stood but nodded nonetheless. I headed towards my desk and removed the contents of it. I stopped unzippering my backpack that lay under my chair when the voice said something interesting.

Your teacher asked you to stay after-school for a reason, Fath.

I thought about what the voice said and chuckled to myself. I finished packing up my things, stood up, and dusted myself off. Mr. Solano is the only one who calls me by last name. Bad habit, you could say. And I might be making a huge assumption but....

“You’re the one sharing your thoughts with me aren’t you?” I speculated. I probably would have never guessed if the Voice hadn’t given me that hint. It was a pretty good trick but I’m not that dense.

“You’re very perceptive, more so than I thought,” Mr. Solano complemented. “Yes, I am, Callum. But I wanted to inform you of the current events and the progress I’ve made so far. Now, Noah already knows some of what I’m going to say but it’s easier to explain things again.” Mr. Solano seemed expectant and waited for something. At the same time, I felt a nudge on my side. I redirect my eyes to the person beside me who whispers something.

“What’s he talking about? Is he assigning a project soon and is giving us a heads-up? He said he already told you, do you know anything?” I tried to recall anything the Voice-my teacher, rather, said about projects or assignments. When I couldn’t think of anything, I shrugged.

“What I am about to say stays between us--tell anyone and it will not be good,” Mr. Solano warned. We nodded and he continued. “There has recently been a great disruption, someone has been toying with time. The balance has wavered and the days have been repeating themselves. I decided to look into it and have discovered that this is being caused by someone trying to achieve a goal. I don’t know what said goal is, but it can’t be good. Time isn’t something to be taken lightly, playing with it has major consequences.”

“But what does this have to do with us,” I protested. There must be a catch, he can’t be telling this to us for no reason.

“Always straight to the point, aren’t you? Well, what I want you to do is restore this balance. Nothing will ever be the same if this person reaches their goal, I can assure you that. To be able to manipulate time with your free will is no easy feat. One must be quite powerful to manage that. We are trapped in a dangerous game with low chance of leaving unscathed. But we can still do something about it. You must both head to the Oyx dimension. Before you ask, no it is not made up, this place is very strange. The laws of physics do not apply here. It’s similar to the Dark Dimension from Doctor Strange. You’ve seen that movie, right? Anyway, it’s difficult to explain something you’ve never experienced, but believe me when I say this, you will not like it there. Don’t be fooled by its beauty. You two are the only ones who would dare accept this task, that’s why I chose you to help.”

“Okay, so, to sum it all up, you want me-us,” I corrected myself. Then, gesturing towards Noah and I, I continued. “To find this… dimension and what…‘restore the balance of time?” Mr. Solano was processing this in his head.

“Precisely, yes.” I face-palmed and groaned loudly. His carefree attitude really drained my energy. After saying all these serious things, I’m surprised he can act so nonchalant. There some shuffling on the side of me so I curiously shifted my gaze there. It looked like Noah was thinking of saying something. He didn’t voice his thoughts and continued to listen intently.

“I guess I should give you the details so you know everything if you wanted to assist me in this process. Sit.” We did as we were told and Mr. Solano continued. “This might sound a bit far fetched but I assure you, it’s all real. Someone has been misusing their power. I don’t know who but it’s affected many people. I think it’s pretty obvious apparent why this could be dangerous. You’ve heard of the butterfly effect, right? Now, let’s suppose I were to send either of you back to the 1800s. Just being there is a problem. If you changed something or brought something there with you, a cell phone perhaps, it would be chaos. Scientists and theorists would start examining the phone and news of this discovery would spread to different countries. What do you think would happen if they recreated that cell phone and it was used in wars to come? Something unpleasant. And the future? I bet we’d be driving flying cars, living in floating houses, those kinds of things. It’s your job to restore the balance before catastrophic events take place. But, will you do it?”