SparkleBreaker
♥ Pineapple Queen ♥
The attic was off limits. Always had been, always will, but that didn’t keep Nat out. Visiting the forbidden part of her grandmother’s old house had forever been on her to do list. Now, with sweet G-ma downstairs fast asleep, was her opportunity to see what was up there.
The white cord dangled from the trap door in alluring way. Natalie took a firm hold on it and slowly started to pull it down. The hinges cried out in a horrible squeak as they had not been used in years, causing her to freeze in place. The TV below was blaring and had covered the noise. The rumble of the elder woman’s snoring gave her reassurance she was in the clear. The cord was pulled once more and the trap door opened to reveal stairs that folded up.
Natalie checked over her shoulders quickly to see if she was still getting away with going in the attic. Indeed she was and she little out a little squeal and waved her hands in the air before pulling the stairs down and climbing them.
The room was quite large, but not exactly what she expected. While she figured that her Mother’s childhood would be stored up here in boxes that was not the case. A work shop table was there, various tools, some she recognized other she didn’t, littered the room. Diagrams and charts were pinned to the wall, along with drawings of a machine, each modified slightly different than the other. The machine happened to be out in the open on the table below.
It was a sore spot in the family and off limits to discuss, her grandfather and his plan to make a time machine. Way back, before she could remember and she was a baby, her grandad claimed that he had successful made a hole in time and could travel. Went public about it and got locked up in a psychiatric ward until he died. Natalie thought all of his research had been swept up under the rug along with the whole scandal, but her grandmother had kept all of it. By the inch thick layer of dust, she knew her grandmother hadn’t touched it since his departure.
“Woah.” Natalie took the machine in her hands. It was a helmet with a large looking scope on the forehead and buttons on the side near where the ear would lie underneath. The helmet fit snug on her head, like it was meant just for her to wear. Not expecting anything to happen, she started pushing the buttons on the side until she heard a little ding and the helmet come to life. A white beam came out of the scope above her face.
Mind reeling she beamed at her discovery, thinking to herself that it could take her anywhere: The future, the 1950s, the renaissances era or maybe even back as far as the Victorian times. The light had created a whole in the air that was dark and Natalie’s adventurous side took over. Perhaps, if she poked her head through she could see where in the past it would take her. The hole started sucking her in as she got closer though and before she could stop it she was falling through time. The landing was hard and she crashed into wood flooring. The helmet did a hell of a job protecting her head, but she could hear one of the pieces bust inside and start shaking around. A groan escaped from her lips as she rolled on her back and rubbed the arm she had landed on.