Time Shell

The year was 2011. Cold was the night and loud was the crackling of thunder by the storm. Helen Shamford, upon returning home from Japan for work, lied down on her bed unable to sleep. Thinking about what to do next in her life, she had a few thoughts. The next morning, she went out to look for a job. First she went to a Pete's Pizza Cheese restaurant, as cheesy as the name was, there was no job hiring. Next she went to a coffee shop, they were also not looking for a new employee. Finally, after a few more tries in a few places, she went home to call it a day.

It was 8:00pm when she lied down to sleep to try again tomorrow, but she could not, for another thought had crossed her mind. She thought that maybe she could use the internet to make money, so she got up to turn on her computer to find an online job. She saw that there were people making money on a website called YouTube, so she thought to try that out and get popular, but she had no camera to begin with and not enough money to buy one. Helen, due to her anxiety, stayed up past midnight when she heard footsteps downstairs. She grabbed her umbrella and went down. She thought that it could be a robber. Slow and steady she went down, hoping to sneak up and smack whoever or whatever was causing the noises. She followed the sound to the kitchen and to her surprise, it was something she certainly had never seen before- an Octopus the size of an adult, grabbing and eating the meat from her refrigerator.

"Who are you?" asked Helen "I have an umbrella and i'm not afraid to use it. Who's beneath that costume?"

it slowly turned to look at her, with its oblong-shaped eyes and rectangular pupils. Moving all eight of its tentacles aggressively.

"How are you doing that? is this some kind of joke?"

She backed away as the octopus-figure slid closer. More waves of fear washed over her when it made an unfamiliar noise, and not one that an octopus or any regular animal makes. It sounded like a laughing banshee with the alarms of a siren, and then it wrapped one of its tentacles on Helen, slowly dragging her to its mouth. It was not a beak, like a regular octopus would have, it was circular and filled with grinding rotating teeth.

"Put me down!" she cried. As she was pulled to her end, an axe swung by to chop off its tentacle. She ran back and away from it to see a man wearing Victorian london clothes. The octopus-like creature screeched in pain and continued to get brutally chopped down by the man until it fell silent.

"Moron" he said to the creature, pulling out his stopwatch to point it at the creature, blasting off a wave of particles and disintegrating it.

"Who are you?" asked Helen.

"A man you will forget you ever met" he responded.

"You saved me, thank you"

"Please, forget me, forget what you saw" the man waved his hand infront of Helen as if to hypnotize her. She blacked out.

Helen woke up thinking and relieved it was just a nightmare and yet her ribs felt a little sour from the creature's death grip. She ignored it and continued her plans for the day. Once again, she could not find a job and went straight home. On her way, she picked up her phone upon hearing its notification sound to see the message she had just received.

"Duck"

She ignored it and slid her phone back in to her pocket when another message was received. She pulled it back up to check.

"NOW!" it said, written in CAPITALS. This time, she did not ignore it and figured out that it was not the animal the message was talking about. She moved her body down quickly just in time to avoid a brick that had been

thrown at her. Looking back, nobody was there, not a single adult walking by, and not a single child playing except, she saw thought she saw a leg pull away behind a wall, she noticed her shoes matched the shoes that were on the leg. She received another message.

"Stay where you are"

Freaked out by what was happening around her, she decided to do what the message said for it saved her a few seconds ago, but she never let her guard down. She shrieked and turned around upon feeling a tap on her shoulder. It was, once again, the strange man but this time he was wearing a black shirt underneath a red hoody, dark blue jeans, and sneakers.

"You?" asked Helen

"Me" replied the man

"Am I having another nightmare?"

"No! Follow me" he walked away

"What?" she asked, the man continued to walk. Helen decided to follow.

"What's going on?" asked Helen "What was that thing last night?"

The man said nothing.

"Where are you taking me?"

"You don't have to call the cops" he pointed out "I know you have your fingers ready to pull out your phone. I'm not gonna rape you, I don't bite unless I considered you an enemy"

"Will you explain something?"

"You couldn't believe your eyes last night, and if your eyes don't believe what's in sight, what about my words? Here!"

they stopped in an alleyway.

"Oh how lovely" Implied Helen "You say you're not going to bite me and yet you take me here"

The man said nothing and snapped his fingers causing a pocket watch to jumped on his outstretched hand. He grabbed it just as it had touched his palm.

"And now you show me a magic trick?"

The man continued to stay quiet and tapped to open his pocket watch, activating a red holographic calendar, on top of it was a digital clock, and below it was the word "Present" inside a dark box. He swiped down on the digital clock to go back a few minutes ago. Upon winking twice, their environment lit up, and soon, certain dusts and small stones appeared, and the sun circled to its position before. A brick appeared on the floor with the other objects. Helen looked confused.

"Hide!" the man whispered, grabbing her hand and pulling her behind a dumpster.

"I'm not a damsel in distress!" Helen whispered

"Hush!" he covered her mouth.

they watched as another octopus-looking creature beamed to appear, grabbing the brick from the floor. The strange man gestured Helen to follow and so they did. They followed the creature behind, keeping distance, until, to Helen's astonishment, another Helen was in the same place she was when she avoided the brick. The creature threw the brick before beaming away, and the other Helen ducked to avoid.

"What?" whispered Helen. The man pulled Helen behind a wall just as the other Helen looked behind to see who it was. The man, once again, tapped to open his pocket watch, and swiped right on the now-lit up box containing the word "Present". Their environment once again lit up, and the sun circled back to its place.

"What the hell was that?" panicked Helen "Who are you?"

"What you saw was what happened a few minutes ago"

"What?"

"We time travelled"

"Huh?"

"Take your time to process the impossible. Even the word itself says 'I'm possible' "

"Who are you?" asked Helen

"I do not know" he responded

"That doesn't make any sense"

"I'm telling the truth, I do not know and I do not remember. So, I always refer to myself as an Enygma"

"Okay, i'll call you Enygma, then. Now what's going on?"

"I'll explain in detail when you finish processing all of this. Take the time you need, I have all the time in the world"