The Portal

Du Du Da Du Du Da; Sean reached over and turned off the alarm. Seven o'clock, fifty minutes until he had to leave for school. As he showered, ate breakfast, and drove to school, he never once thought about what he had planned that day. Why should he, he was just a normal boy going to school, doing homework and since it was Tuesday go to hockey practice. He had no idea that today was defiantly not going to be normal.

As he pulled in to the parking lot of his school, the Hershey school of Mennonite learning he saw his best friend mike.
" Hey Mike wait for me" Sean yelled out the window. Mike scowled at him; he knew why Sean wanted him to wait.
" Did you see the Patriots game last night? " asked Sean, as he was walking towards mike. Mike was a diehard Patriots fan and after last nights Monday Night Football loss to the Jaguars, they were 0-8. So he couldn't let his friend get away without some good-natured teasing.
" Yea I did" said Mike
" oh well, 0-8 isn't that bad" chuckled Sean.
" Ha-ha, funny" said Mike sarcastically. They both walked into their first class bible, taught by Mr. Regnurpas. After listening to him drone on and on they went to their next class, and then the next and before they knew it, it was three o'clock and school was over.

They decided to go and get a bite to eat at Sulz, the big new fast food restaurant popping up. Then they agreed to go back to Sean's house for a couple of hours before Sean had to go to hockey practice. Unlike Mike who lived in a big housing development, Sean lived in the middle of nowhere. He had two neighbors, one on each side, and that was it for miles. The neighbor on the left was a farmer, along with his wife, kids, and parents. He left people alone and minded his own business but was neighborly. The neighbor on the right however was totally different. Sean had met him once, seven years ago when he and his family first moved into their house. The man had told them two things: his name "name's Bill"; and his job " I'm n inventor". But Bill hadn’t talked to Sean's family in seven years so nobody paid much attention to him.

That’s why when Sean heard a knock on the door and it was Bill he should have known that something strange was happening.
" Hello?" said Sean in a skeptical tone


" Sean right, how are you doing, are your parents home? "
" Fine thanks, no my parents aren't home why? "
" What about you're brothers and sisters?"
" They're not here either, hey can I help you Bill?"
"Actually you can, I was wondering if you could help me with my invention"
" what is it?"
"If you help me you'll see," Sean thought in that moment that there was no way the old man had invented something dangerous and maybe he could get a cut of the profit if it was somehow successful.
"Alright I'll help, my friend mike is here can he come?"
" Of course! He will like it too"

Sean had never set foot on Bill's property and because trees enclosed his property like walls for a fortress you can't see much of anything driving by. As they walked along the smooth driveway Sean took in everything. A small cozy looking house on the left that the driveway curved into: and a large barn with rusty aluminum siding straight down off the driveway.
" Are you boys hungry?" asked Bill
"no We're good, we already ate" replied Sean
"good then we can get started right away." When they reached the barn Bill quickly opened a door that seemed to have been added to a doorway that had been cut out of the siding door. He then scurried in and flipped on the lights. "Come on in boys!" yelled Bill.

What they saw was right out of a movie, it was a modern laboratory. Spotlights hung from above and illuminated the barn; the longest side of the barn right in front of them was about 50 feet long and covered with computers. Small Macs and Dells connected to supercomputers that looked like they had just been thrown together. Half of them didn't have a cover so you could see the hundred of wires in them. On their left was a bed and three large desks in a semi circle piled high with diagrams, models and papers with numbers on them. However what was on their right was what caught their attention. Standing away from the wall with nothing near it was a tall, fire engine red, phone booth. It reminded Sean and mike of the old fashioned ones in England. There were countless wires running into it but unlike the super computers they were in a neat and orderly fashion.
"Bill this… this is amazing!" exclaimed Mike
" what are you building in here?" asked Sean.
" Well boys ever since I was a little boy I wondered if time travel was possible. Over the course of my life I have made a couple of very big mistakes that can't be fixed. So when I had enough saved, which is still in the millions by the way… don't ask" said Bill after getting surprised looks. " I decided to see if it was possible, so after years of research and experiments, if my calculations are correct, I… we will be the first time travelers in the history of mankind.

"Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa" went Sean " you told me that you wanted us to help with your experiment not participate in it."
"Yea" continued Mike "it looks like you have a serious operation going on here, if something goes wrong this place could explode."
"No boys it won't" assured Bill. "I have built to scale models that work, nothing will blow up however if you really don't want to do it I will show you what to do and then I will be the first man to travel through time.

The boys agreed to only help, so Bill showed them how to use the machine. First you had to push the big green button labeled D/T that stood for date and time. You could put in either an exact or random time and date. Second you pushed the yellow button with a stick figure on it. This one was for how many people were traveling at once. Thirdly was the blue button labeled ACTIVATE which loaded all the information and a light, directly over the button (when it came on) signaled it was ready. Finally to actually time travel you pushed the big red button labeled TT, time travel.
" Well boys do you understand how to use it?" asked Bill
"Yea it's pretty simple," replied Mike
" Good are you ready to do this?" asked Bill
" Yup let's go," said Sean
Bill went over to the panel, pushed the green button and entered the date and time. He pushed the yellow button and typed in one person (the boys made sure of that) and then proceeded to the phone booth.
" Well boys you know what to do, I need to get mentally prepared for this trip; I will give you the thumbs up when I'm ready to go"
"Wait," said Sean " how are you going to get back?"
" Oh!!! Great question" Bill then pulled out a small square black box. " This is a remote," he said as he flipped open the cover. " It pushes the big black button wirelessly however I don’t know if it will work in the future so I will call you guys from the future and tell you when to push it if the remote doesn't work… that reminds me what is your cell phone number?"
' Where and what is the black button?" asked Sean
" Oh I didn't show you it's under that cover next to the red button, it brings the person time traveling back to their proper time.
' Are you sure it will work?' asked Mike
' If my calculations are correct, yes"
" Great" said Mike sarcastically

After giving Bill their phone numbers the boys pushed the blue button. Bill walked into the phone booth and shut the door tight. This was it he thought. Ten years of research all came down to the next 15 minutes. It would be either a total success or a complete failure. Then the light came on, all systems go, Sean gave Bill the thumbs up, after a few seconds, Bill gave it back, and he was ready.
" Here let's push the button together," said Sean
" Alright, if it somehow works we can say we were both a part of it." Replied Mike
" Ready 1…2…3" they pushed the button.
For a few moments nothing happened until a faint wining noise, almost like the sound a car with a dead battery makes, grew louder and louder. It got hotter too as the computers started overheating due to the electricity it was carrying into the phone booth. Then it happened. All of the computers died until there was a deathly silence. But it lasted not even a second as then the phone booth exploded. BOOM, the boys were thrown backward so quickly they couldn't even scream. The barn was completely dark except for two damaged floodlights that survived the explosion. From the faint light they could tell that all the computers had been destroyed. Mike grabbed a flashlight off one of the desks and they shined it on the phone booth… it was gone.
" He's… he's dead," said Sean
" I knew this place would blow up," said Mike
As they approached the spot where the phone booth used to be, they notice a big blue spot.
"There's nothing left," whispered Sean as he squatted down. ' I wonder if, whoa, HELP!!!" exclaimed Sean. He had put his hand on the blue spot and his hand had gone right through and he was about to fall in. quickly mike grabbed sean and threw him back away from the hole " what… what is that" said Sean panting.
"It’s a hole replied Mike.
" Let's see how deep it is, shine the light on it." Said Sean but when Mike shone the light on the hole, they saw their reflection.
"What hole, without water, shows your reflection?" asked Mike rhetorically
" Let's find out," said Sean as he dropped a quarter into it. Just as the entire quarter passed into the hole there was a quick flash of light.
"Mike"
" Yea Sean"
" I know this sounds crazy but what I honestly think that this hole is a portal of some kind."
" A portal" said Mike
" Yea a portal, and I don't think Bill is dead, I think he fell through it."
" Should we go through it?" asked Mike
" Well if there is a portal on this side, then there must be a portal on the other side, so yea lets go"
" After you" said Mike. So Sean dove in with Mike jumping in after him. Both of them not knowing what awaited them on the other side.