Time Traveller
You thump in the date of 2200 - a reasonable number, you reflect. Not too far in the future but not so close as to be uninteresting. Everything seems to be working ordinarily. Or as ordinarily for a time machine.
As soon as you fire the machine up, though, you realise something is wrong. It is shaking and rumbling like it never has before, throwing you back and forth in your harness. Then there is that sudden lurch and the sensation of travelling at breakneck speeds. Your body is rammed into your seat, your face distorted by the sheer force. In front of you, the year counter is increasing with a blur.
2015. 2050. 2100. 2200. 2600. 3000. 5000. And still climbing.
Your eyes are watering, your whole body aching. Your arms are pinned by your sides.
With a body-shaking thump, the machine suddenly comes to a halt. Panicking, you read the year counter.
It is the year 100 000.
Heart hammering in your throat, you carefully pull on the exit. Immediately, there is the rushing hiss of air pouring out into a vaccuum and you clutch at your throat, unable to breathe and now, unable to shut the door.
But beyond it, you can see a sight that no human being has ever before seen or ever will see - a massive, swirling field of asteroids, right where planet Earth should be. There are millions, no, billions of asteroids floating here; the remains of your own planet, destroyed by who knows what. Dust drifts in the black void like the rings of saturn and far away gleams the brightness of the sun. The machine itself is on the bare, brown expanse of one of the asteroids. Earth is gone.
But this is no time for gawping; you are suffocating! With supreme effort, you force the door closed and punch the keys as your vision begins to darken on the edges. The blackness swirls in and you drop, just as you fire the machine up for home.
As soon as you fire the machine up, though, you realise something is wrong. It is shaking and rumbling like it never has before, throwing you back and forth in your harness. Then there is that sudden lurch and the sensation of travelling at breakneck speeds. Your body is rammed into your seat, your face distorted by the sheer force. In front of you, the year counter is increasing with a blur.
2015. 2050. 2100. 2200. 2600. 3000. 5000. And still climbing.
Your eyes are watering, your whole body aching. Your arms are pinned by your sides.
With a body-shaking thump, the machine suddenly comes to a halt. Panicking, you read the year counter.
It is the year 100 000.
Heart hammering in your throat, you carefully pull on the exit. Immediately, there is the rushing hiss of air pouring out into a vaccuum and you clutch at your throat, unable to breathe and now, unable to shut the door.
But beyond it, you can see a sight that no human being has ever before seen or ever will see - a massive, swirling field of asteroids, right where planet Earth should be. There are millions, no, billions of asteroids floating here; the remains of your own planet, destroyed by who knows what. Dust drifts in the black void like the rings of saturn and far away gleams the brightness of the sun. The machine itself is on the bare, brown expanse of one of the asteroids. Earth is gone.
But this is no time for gawping; you are suffocating! With supreme effort, you force the door closed and punch the keys as your vision begins to darken on the edges. The blackness swirls in and you drop, just as you fire the machine up for home.