Sparks were flying—Ideas blazed like wildfire, and so did the welding laser..
Nuts and bolts laying around with wires of myriad colors. red, green, blues and yellow. Looking like someone was just done defusing a bomb.
In the middle of this disaster zone, a hunched figure gripped a red marker between his teeth while feverishly adjusting parts of his machine.
The lab was a war zone of tangled wires, unsteady towers of notes, and an offensively large number of empty coffee cups. The air reeked of burnt circuits, a stench that screamed: something's about to go wrong.
His fingers were stained with ink, grease, and probably some unidentifiable goo from test #138. His mind? A storm of what-ifs, theories, as well as outright insanities.
The whiteboard looked like the work of a failed painter—scribbles of equations, half-baked theories, and the kind of sketches most physicists would call nonsense and a conspiracy theorist might call "visionary."
They all came together to form something that could only resemble a toddler's childish doodles. Though it didn't matter whether anyone else could decode them or not. So long as he could read it, that was all that mattered.
"Alright, focus, focus…" he muttered, adjusting a capacitor while muttering to himself, maddened from the lack of social interraction to human that aren't his wife, he resorted to talking with an unmoving steel.
«Okay... how should i make the stabilizer?»
Pausing for a bit.
"Should I add a conductor here and… there?"
A longer pause.
His eyebrows furrowed.
"Wait. No, No. that would kill me."
He walked up to the already messy whiteboard and scribbled furiously on the board, gritting his teeth, hair sticking out in a way that screamed either genius or madness. Perhaps both?
Deep bags hung under his eyes made it clear that he had faced multiple sleepless night like a new parent. And this machine he's making, is his beloved baby.
The man had clearly not slept in days. No—weeks. Maybe longer. Time had truly became irrelevant to him. Literally. Because he, is making a time machine. Whatever, that which was lost now could always be regained later. And when he's done? it's gonna be so worth it. Past regret, time wasted and science discovered....
His lunch consisted of half eaten protein bar, granola and a little bit of cocaine. Hygiene? never heard of that guy.
None of it mattered to him. Because he's getting close. Way too close.
Dropping to his knees, he clasped his hands like a man about to pray—except he's an atheist and pleading to a junk heap of steel and wires. "Please. Work with me," he whispered, hoping that the machine would feel flattered and behaved accordingly.
"Here goes…" he said with a gulp, flipping a switch.
A small spark. The low hum of a capacitor charging. Something shifted.
Blue light began to ooze out of the machine like plasma. Then came the sound—an ungodly sound, like someone had stuffed a brick in a washing machine.
His eyes widened. Panicking "oh no, no, no—where's the wrench—WHERE'S THE WREENCH!"
He scrambled frantically, digging through the chaos. Tossing items he didn't need, artwork of bad designs, paperful gibberish and random part.
Steam hissed, the machine kept wheezing like a dragon with asthma. Gas leaked with each of it's threatening cough.
«wait wait wait wait waiiit—»
He kept rummaging throu the piles.
He spotted a toolbox and searched through it's content. Finding his wrench buried by hammers of varying sizes. He pulled it out like it was mandrake plant.
Almost immediately, he dashed to the machine, circled it like a shark, searching for the unstable component and yanked it's bolt out with a satisfying CLANK.
But that wasn't enough, the component still has more. He hurriedly pulled them.
The machine hissed one last time and fell silent.
Sweat dripping down his forehead, he exhaled as he wiped it clean. Pulled out a notebook from his robe. Writing. "Failure #277. Noted."
He immediately went to action. "if something goes wrong again, i need to be able to find stuff much quicker. so i should probably fix this whole entire mess."
Alr, back to work we go
He crouched to sort out his mess when he inhaled some of the smoke and coughed. "AGH"
He grabbed a small electric fan with his left hand to push the hazard away.
Covering his face with the right arm, he complained. "Another day, another failure. This is getting old already."
He clicked his tongue.
«Welp.. good things are hard to obtain. Just like my Leah.» he motivated himself.
He looked back up at the whiteboard.
Theory 1, Jump into blackhole and hope it reaches to the 4th Dimension. Clearly scrapped. With red lines crossed on the concept art.
His eyes darted to the one on the left.
Theory 2, Reach the speed of light throu some unique energy. Also dismissed, but with blue ink this time.
Lastly, his eyes landed on theory 3. Making wormhole that reaches straight to a different point in 4D space.
"The 4D space matters alot because it is supported by block universe theory and theory of relativity. I don't know any other way to reach it aside from using wormhole." He exhaled in frustration.
Just as he started grabbing the things laying around and began reorganizing the stuff.
The door creaked open.
Light spilled in, casting long shadows across the floor. The man didn't flinch.
"I really need to sleep right now." voice floated down. "Could you get us some groceries?"
Her tone softened—just a little. "The curry's halfway done, but we ran out of ingredients."
"Also, you haven't stepped outside in like… I dunno. Epochs?"
She tapped on the wall. Waiting. Expecting a reply.
Still getting no response, she sighed. "What are you even doing down here?"
Getting irritated, she called his name out-loud. "KEEERL?"
«Oh boy... he's definitely getting too into it.»
Curious, she walked down the stairs of basement.
Carefully. In an attempt to avoid stepping on any exposed wiring and inventions that looked like they could be pretty important or get some nobel prize.
He cleared a spot next to him for her. Sweeping some pile with his left hand. "Be my guest. You can watch."
She stepped lightly, eyeing the chaos. "Another one of your brilliant invention phases?"
"You're in for a treat," he said, grinning.
He patted the large iron hunk resembling a mutant galloon with every side covered in different machinery. "This thing... is a miracle of scientific advancement."
He grabbed a few pages of data from the mess. "Wanna read the specs?"
"Pass," she replied instantly. "Maybe later."
He shrugged and flung the paper behind him like a rejected first draft.
She glanced over his desk and slid the grocery list into the important files. «He always checked this pile of paper.»
«He'll find it if i put it here.» she thought as she turned around to check what he was working on.
She turned around.
"I don't really get how this is worth all your free time," she mused.
"Oh, it's gonna be incredible when it works." he responded.
She chuckled. "Mhm~ Just don't forget the groceries okay?"
And as she walked away, her voice echoed from the stairs: "You might need to touch some grass."
She paused. Still on the stairways. then added, "Also, I don't think of spending your time on a machine just because it sounded 'possible' as a good idea."
He kept working.
Seeing Kerl ignoring her advice, Leahcalled again, knocking the wall. "I mean... heeyy~ humans need breaks to be productive, yanno?"
"Unless you've already evolved past one." She chuckled.
He finally responded. "I heard you. Just gimme a sec."
Leah sighed. "You know.. you could be spending more time on event like in highschool." Leaning to the wall.
The sound of his tinkering, reverbing across the room.
𝙘𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙠
𝙘𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙠
"like what?" Kerl asked between work.
Leah could only laugh in responce. "You hadn't talked to our friends in like months. Do i even need to tell?"
He stopped in his track, considering the proposition before going. "Nah. I'll do it later."
𝙘𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙠
𝙘𝙡𝙖𝙣𝙠
"I can't convince you to quit this, can I?" she asked.
Kerl grinned. "Not when I've steeled my will."
Leah gave up with a laugh and went upstairs.
Midways in his work, the man thought about what she said.
A few moments passed. Then he blinked.
"…hmm, she's right."
The work was getting close to finishing, but that could very well be a 𝘮𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘩 type of close instead of an 𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘳 close.
He might as well just touch some grass and buy some grocery along the way. Plus, he can't expect her to drive while sleepy. That'll be dangerous. He would love to continue making the machine but he hasn't been doing too well lately.
He dropped whatever he was doing and turned towards the desk to find the list of grocery she had slid into his important files.
Kerl knew where Leah would put things.
Spot he liked to check.
«Alr, i should get her these. Can't be eatin half a curry.»
A new mission was added to his to-do list: 1. Touch grass. 2. Buy groceries.
It was when Kerl stretched his arm that he foul odor unleashed from the crack of his armpit. "Okay... that... is like Surströmming."
Kerl immediately changed direction and made way to the bathroom instead, snatching a rubber duck along the way like a man regaining his humanity.
Water hissed into the tub. He stepped in.
It turned brown.
His face contorted. "How long has it been?!"
«It turned brown on contact!»
A quiet thought intruded: I heard Jesus could turn water into wine… "I've turned it into filth."
He sighed, then laughed.
"Only Leah tolerates this dirt. If anyone else saw me, they'd call nearby zoo for a wild animal."
After cleaning himself, he opened the closet. «I can't be wearing science outfit in public.» the man is a scholar, not a cosplayer.
Moving on to the closet; what he found was rather disappointing. His clothes consisted of the same ol' T-shirt just in different colours. Whereas Leah, his wife. Have a very ecletic collections.
Kerl looked towards the middle of the closet, their wedding dress and stuff he used to wore back when he was younger. Some science outfit with the tag 'Kerl Erde' and her own suit with the tag 'Leah Erde'
«I should really up my drip»
He grabbed the better ones among his clothes and walked to his garage.
Down the hall, the house played him his banger playlist as he walked into the garage. Automatic doors opened. Sunlight spilled in. He vibed to the music.
He got into his car, humming. "Inventions are great," he thought. "Leah's wrong. All inventions are good intentions."
Kerl pulled his car out of the driveway, the Michigan countryside unfolding before him.
He drove, humming, soaking in the crisp air. Their house sat on the edge of quiet farmland, far from the city buzz. Fields of golden wheat shimmered under the sun, swaying like waves.
"Okay… okay, maybe going outside isn't awful."
The drive to the city was scenic but long.
He looked at the trees around and thought "Crazy how living creatures are essentially just chemical reactions."
He saw a leaves fall and smiled. "gravity amirite?"
Suddenly facepalm. Leah told me to lake a breather, i can't be thinking about science while going outside too.
He parked, went through the aisles, reading everything Leah listed with the determination of a man on a mission. "I gotta buy things in bulk. A ride throu the beautiful scenery is nice but going back and forth so much would be tiring."
He had to take things into account. The ride could only be as enjoyable for so much.
«If i recall, we ran out of eggs too...»
He made sure to buy them all.
Then—shopping bags in hand—he began doomscrolling.
Ah yes, the modern ritual of mind decay.... brainrot
Skibiditoilet.
cringeposting.
"Meh" uninterested, he kept scrolling.
Clip from his favorite tv series, Liar's Throne
"Oh, season 2 is already around? i didn't notice."
Scrolled down.
A meme about a particular date.
Scrolled again.
Some jokes about watermelons and the likes.
-
-
-
-
And after wasting some time, he found a gymrat's post. About some dudes trying to lift a ridiculously heavy barbell.
Kerl observed their epic fail with mild interest.
"They wanna try lifting that after just a year of training? unless they're using a really efficient training, their growth won't be enough."
Their strength fail to make the weight budge. The gymrat kept motivating the second one to try lift it but it only moved a little.
"That's naive, power of friendship or hope doesn't works on hard truth. Some stuff are just harder to influence." Kerl rolled his eyes.
"If word was enough, war would have disappeared."
He turned off his phone mid-scroll.
Resuming his walk to home.
«Ya can't brute force the world. Information does changes but A won't turn B if i smash them»
«If life was that easy, i would've finished the time machine in first try»
He had a feeling that he's close to some conclusion but he couldn't quite grasp it.
Carrying the grocery, continuing his walk
His eyes widened.
Click.
Something in his brain fired.
"Something hard to move or affect..."
"Information… yes. Information can't be destroyed. Even black holes can't because they radiate Hawking radiation—which by itself carries information…"
His mouth curled into a grin. "Which means... I can use the more chaotic equation by relying on it's resilience. And if i can remake things throu the use of atomic information…"
A moment he can only describe as eureka—ideas so brilliant, if this was a cartoon, a lightbulb would've hovered above his head.
Kerl made haste, bolted to his car. Tires squealed. Racing home.
This was it. The missing piece. The thing that made all the failures worth it.
He got home in record time. The smart house opened everything for him like an obedient butler. He dumped the groceries on the counter, dashed to the basement, and started ripping apart the machine.
Parts flew. Wires yanked. Replacements slapped in.
"Make the thing go beyond time and space via chaos. Then the information will overwrite it that 'I' exist then and there."
His heart was pumping with excitement.
Kerl discarded the previous method of using wormhole across 4d space.
Lifting an eraser, he wiped his whiteboard clean and write down other stuff.
A minute passed in africa...
He finished cooking up his theory and dubbed it 'theory 4'
Kerl wandered back and forth to keep his mind active. "The time machine is unstable but if information can persist in blackhole, then it certainly can persist in another extreme. Through that, i will work my way to send my consciousness to a body that existed in other time, allowing me to influence historical decision or even my past self."
«That could work!»
He instantly turned to his machine to test some equations. The thing started loading, his finger moving nimbly as he clicked each button. "AHAHAHAHA!" The thrill of getting near success went to his head. He pressed the enter button.
"Feel the power of a man who touched some grass!"
The computer tested this brand new equation he came up.
Readings aligned. The monitor blinked to life. The numbers made sense.
He stared. Then shouted, "OOOHH YEEEAHHH!"
"This could work!"
He was getting loud but Leah's room is on the upper floor, she wouldn't have heard any of this.
Hyped, he immediately worked on the new concept.
He run up to his 3D printer and designed something to add onto the time machine. Waited for it to be done, tapping his table impatiently.
Once it was done, he grabbed it and some other component and went to revamp the machine brick by brick.
Kerl grabbed a component that looked like a black stick and put it away. "Meh, i don't need it for now. I'm not gonna ride the thing, it's just gonna bring my consciousness."
Then resumed his work with the machine's new component.
Dismantling the old component that were planned for other method.
Pieces came together, some fell apart.
Some were too fragile and broke midways, he bit a nail as his hands were full.
Running around working like in a sweatshop, but there's only one man working here as opposed to a hundred underpaid kids. His labour very well paid, by his effort.
The result were disastrous but they were coming together.
After an hour... He had done it.
He succeeded in making the time machine.
Fist pumps. Chest-thumping. A full mad scientist victory dance. Harlem shake.
He had cracked it.
Sort of.
The theory worked. The machine was ready—ready enough. It might not be perfectly safe. But theoretically? It worked.
And with that came the creeping thought.
This was power. Incredible power.
«The only time traveler… would be me.»
The Nobel? Small potatoes. He could rewrite history. Rule the future. Control fate itself.
His smile widened.
Maybe he shouldn't share this invention at all. Leah is debatable. He loves her and is willing to share if it's with her. But humanity, anyone else is a no go.
He could become a legend. The Illuminati would envy the amount of power he wields.
He thought about the flaws of this method and wrote them down on some paper.
Less stable than the other idea but is immediately applicable.
He grinned.
He danced his way upstairs, fantasizing about all the benefit that is to come. He couldn't wait to show Leah around timespace.
"Automatic sound system, play my fav music in every room in the house except leah's room. also, make it the nightcore version so it's more intense." He requested. Immediately the automatic mechanic turned up the requested song.
The song was lit, making him vibes even harder.
Then, in his victory dancing—
He knocked over the simmering pot of curry.
"Ah, no—" he reacted but it was too slow.
The clatter echoed. Spices filled the air. Time slowed. The curry pooled on the floor, steaming like his impending doom.
"Of course i had to mess up right after victory." he sighed self-depreciatingly.
Leah is not going to be pleased.
He looked at the stairs.
Down to his basement.
Then back at the spilled curry.
«I suppose now is the best time to test the machine...»
He dashed back down, making his way throu the mess in his basement. Careful not to step a thing.
Facing the machine, he fidgeted his fingers, clearly nervous.
And booted the machine. Quickly, he shouted a command.
"Go back and control the me from 10 minutes ago."
The machine shrieked to life.
He rested his hands on the console. "It'll work, right? It'll be fine. Right?"
A crack of electricity. The whine of the impossible.
Just as he readied himself, The room turned dark and he felt his body turning smaller as if the room collapsed within itself.
Reality folded inward.
Then—
Gone.
He floated.
Or fell.
Or both.
Time was no longer a river but an abstract suggestion. Colors melted. Shapes refused to be named.
He felt everything. And nothing.
The machine sank through the timestream—too deep, too fast. He reached out, but had no hands.
He was data.
His conscious drifted through the stream.
«it's ethereal....»
He waited.. and waited...
record scratch.
«Hold up... shouldn't i have landed already if it's 10 minutes?»
Panic set in.
The machine was on autopilot. He'd made it that way. To be convenient.
A mistake.
"STOP!" he screamed into the void.
Nothing heard him.
The machine kept going.
The world lurched.
And then—
He landed.
Violently.
Staggering. Consciousness slammed into a new vessel. Kerl felt heavy. Alien.
He tried to speak.
"GHE-KRHH-KWAK?"
"..."
«Wait. What?»
"KHWE KWHURK?"
No. No, no.
«The machine was supposed to give control body of past entity that i chose. I was supposed to be in my past self's body.»
Kerl lifted a clawed limb.
«What the hell is going on?»
Feathers.
Claws.
He turned around.
A tail twitched behind him.
«I don't recall a human ever having this.»
His body did not look nor felt human at all. Did the machine mistook him for a bird? And therefore put him into the body of one? surely, that can't be right...
He waited, blinked multiple time. Still not right.
«Oh no.»
Heartbeat fastened.
«....Did i just get isekai'd as a bird by that shitty TIME MACHINE!?»
A familiar sound of washing machine could be heard from above. He looked up—and saw it.
His machine. His one-of-a-kind miracle maker...
Spinning, sparking, falling like a dying star. then vanishing over distant mountains.
He stared at the horizon.
«I'm cooked....»