The boy

You see the way she was looking at me?" "Shut the fuck up bro, she was obviously looking at me." I'd tell you more of what they said, but it was pretty much the same conversation the whole time. The two boys were behind me as they made me walk to the gym myself, I guess they didn't feel like carrying me anymore. As they walked me through the hallways of the school, I thought a lot about Sara. I ran through a lot of mixed emotions. First, I thought about how much I hated Sara, how much of a bitch she was for what she did to me. I opened up to her about things I hadn't opened up to anyone about, like my mom or that stupid fucking eye, and now because of her, I didn't even have it anymore. Those two dickheads behind me took it right off my pocket, and I couldn't do anything about it. I felt that anger I felt in the cave once again. I thought about how much I wanted to beat the shit out of these guys behind me and go back and murder Sara the same or even worse than I did the man in the cave.

The feeling made me so mad I stopped walking and balled up my fists, ready to turn around and face the men. "What the fuck are you stopping for?" One of the men behind me said. I exhaled and unclenched my fists, realizing this was a battle I simply couldn't win. But I made sure to take note of each and every one of my surroundings for when I escaped that gym. I paid attention to exits, to which hallways went where. I decided that once I escaped, I was gonna get my necklace back and kill that bitch for what she did to me.

As we got closer to the gym, I thought more about Sara. Was she truly the terrible person I believed she was? I pondered over this as I walked through the courtyard, passing the dorms on our way down the hill where a building read "Alexander Roth Gymnasium." I thought about how she pretended she wasn't scared when she was or how much she wished I had a regular Time Machine. Maybe she just believed she was doing what was best for the people she was protecting. After all, she did mention someone else that also had an eye necklace. Maybe this other person they were holding was truly evil, and she had a good reason for being alarmed about the necklace.

Any questions I had would shortly be answered as I was finally entering the gymnasium. Upon entrance, I was met with the grim visual of the inside of the gym. The entire gym was dark, the only light coming from the windows on the sides at the top of the building. Walking around the gym were other dickheads wearing football uniforms toting guns. On the gym floor were give or take 15 other prisoners. I saw about 3 cops playing some card game in a circle. I saw homeless people lying on the ground, seemingly motionless, they appeared to be asleep. I saw a young boy sitting in the corner of the gym; he didn't look any older than maybe 12 years old. He was sitting up while hugging his knees, he seemed to be pondering deeply about something that was bothering him.

My time gazing at the surroundings of the gym would soon be interrupted by the loud sound of a gun behind me. BAM, it was one of the twins who had brought me here. "Everybody back to the wall, recess is over!!" The prisoners in the gym groaned. "I better not hear any fucking complaining, you all got an extra 2 minutes!!"

The people got up from the gym floor slowly but surely. They each picked up a white piece of rope off the ground, tied one side on their wrist, and the other to different things along the walls. I saw some tie their other side to the ends of the basketball hoop, most tied it to hooks placed on the walls. Once it was tied to wherever it belonged, the prisoners stood or sat in their respective places.

One of the twins handed me a piece of rope similar to that of the other prisoners. "Since you're the new girl, you can pick any spot on the wall you'd like," the twin laughed behind me. It angered me, but I knew I couldn't do anything about it, especially here. For every prisoner, there had to have been at least 3 douchebags in a football uniform, each holding a gun.

I started looking for a spot on the wall. I wanted a spot where the basketball hoops were since it'd be easier to sit, but they were all taken up. So I looked to the wall and started looking for hooks. Most were filled, all but one next to the same boy I had noticed earlier. I walked over to the hook and began to tie myself up. The boy next to me was doing the same.

I got a closer look at the boy. He had one of those sporty fits you always see younger kids wearing, a green shirt with black shorts with a green stripe matching the shirt, and on his feet, he wore black Nike sneakers. His face was that of any other young boy except for his black eye that immediately caught my attention.

I always did better talking to kids who were younger than me. Something about them felt less intimidating than someone my age or older. Once I tied myself up and the boy did the same, I made an attempt to make some conversation. "So, what's your name?" The boy didn't even look my way; he stayed quiet and looked down at the floor; it looked as if any kind of spirit he had had been stripped away. I took that as a sign to stop talking entirely. I know how it feels not to want to talk to anyone about anything, so I figured I'd back off. I sat down against the wall as comfortably as I could with my wrist attached to the hook, mirroring the boy who did the same.

As I sat, my mind ran through a lot of things. What was Sara's plan to stop this Kreel guy? I mean, how could she possibly manage to defeat a world-spanning empire? Then it hit me, back before we entered the dining hall, she said she had recently found a couple of secret weapons. She must have been referring to me and whoever else she had trapped here who at one point possessed an eye. I thought to myself that she must be planning on going back in time and stopping New Boston from ever existing. This didn't make sense on a number of levels. For one, how would she even know what the eye is? For two, how did she plan on learning how to use that thing in the next few hours?

My thoughts were interrupted by one of the twins laughing and taunting us. "What's the matter, time travelers? Aren't you gonna summon George Washington here to kill us all? Or travel back home? AHAHAHA! Or pull a dinosaur out of your ass and attack us all? AHHAAHAAH!" With that, the twin walked away.

As he did, the boy began to talk. "3..2..1" Just as the boy said this, the twin slipped on some water on the gym floor. "AGH DAMMIT!!" With the seriousness of the situation being broken for a split second, I let out an uncontrollable burst of laughter. The boy showed a smile, contrasting his rather serious expression from earlier.

I looked over at the boy. "Wha- how did you know he was gonna do that?" The boy responded for the first time, "Happens every day. He comes over here, makes shitty time travel jokes, and walks away. You see that little hole in the wall?" I looked up to where the boy was signaling and saw a tiny hole in the wall dripping water. "That dumbass has slipped on the water right underneath that hole every single day since I've been here."

I wasn't sure if I should take him pulling his guard down as an invitation to talk more, so I simply said, "Hm." The boy continued to talk, "Sorry for seeming kinda cold earlier, I guess it's just been a rough few days." I looked at the boy, "No problem. I mean, I can't imagine anyone stuck here would be in much of a talking mood."

The boy looked over at me, "You'd imagine right. Nobody here is really in an 'anything' mood. All of them are just waiting to die. It's not like there's anything else you can do around here." I looked down at the ground, putting myself in the shoes of the people here, finally feeling the gravity of my situation. I felt hopeless and realized there was a chance I may never be back home.

The boy continued, "From what I know about this place, a few of these guys are getting what they deserve, the cops anyway. A lot of them invaded this place not too long back, killed a significant amount. Some of them were found in the wrong place at the wrong time and were brought to suffer here. The homeless people, I'm not so sure about. I've talked to some of them a few times, you know, during recess, if you can even call it that. Most of them snuck into the school trying to steal supplies. I guess when the New Bostonians took over, times got tough.

Most didn't survive, The ones who did, well, they had to do what they had to do to support the ones they loved. I guess if I want to feel bad for them, I in a sense I'd have to feel for those cops, they're just doing their job, you know? Sure, it affects these people terribly, but they're only doing what they gotta do."

I looked over to the boy, "What about you? Do you think you deserve to be here?" The boy was quiet for a moment, then answered, "Yeah, yeah, I do. I-I should've never taken my dad's necklace." It was at this moment I realized the person Sara was talking about was this boy. It still didn't make any sense how a boy so young could be so dangerous.

I once again turned to the boy, "By any chance, did that necklace happen to have a blinking eyeball on it?" The boy's face immediately changed to one with a smile. "You too?"

I smiled at the boy, "Yeah, me too." The boy continued, "I just wish I would've known how much these people hated members of the Eye before I was stupid enough to walk around with my necklace on." I gave the boy a puzzled look, "The Eye?"

The boy responded, "The Eye is an organization of Time Travelers. They're really good with the necklace. Where I come from back in 2024, they're good people, people like you who it called to work together to master it and serve the duties of the Eye. For the most part, their purpose is to stop world-ending events from happening. They work efficiently, so they've found and stopped most that happen in our timeline. At this point, they've worked themselves up to 2348. My dad was supposed to be the one to come here, figure out who started it, kill them a bit earlier in time, and be back home by dinner. I had always wanted to be like him, so I, well, kinda stole the necklace. I figured if I could do the mission, then he'd let me join the Eye even if it hadn't called me yet. It wasn't a crazy idea. I mean, I had learned everything there is to know about the Eye, mostly from the book but a bit from my dad and the other Eye members."

I stopped the boy, "Wait, wait, you mean to tell me there's a book on that necklace and people out there who could teach me how to use it? Man, would that have been useful a few hours ago!"

The boy continued, "I got off to a good start, learned the area quick, and decided on killing Kreel when he was a child about 60 years ago. I guess someone on the street saw me with the necklace on, and the next thing I know, I was attacked and ended up here. They took my eye, and for the last few days, they've been torturing me, trying to get me to tell them how to use it. And I don't know about you, but I'm not telling these people anything."

I asked the boy a question that had been circling my mind, "How do these people even know about the Eye?"

The boy turned to me, "This guy Kreel that theyre trying to stop is a future member of the Eye, whether it calls him or he learns it later on, I don't know, but they say it's what helped him take over the world. He has higher-ups who also have an eye. How they have its beyond me, but in short, basically anyone here with an eye is associated immediately with Kreel and his people."

Now it all made sense. I smiled to myself as I had come to the realization that Sara wasn't a terrible person; she was just taking precaution. I couldn't say that if I was in her shoes, I wouldn't have been doing the same.

The boy asked me what I was smiling about. I responded, "Nothing, just a thought."

We sat there for a while longer until the twins came back to where we were. Both of them, this time, they spoke in unison, "Sara wants you two in her office immediately. You are to do anything she says, or you will be punished." We both untied our ropes and followed the men to Sara's office. I could tell the boy was scared. I could also tell exactly why we were going; she was planning on figuring out how to use the eye from us one way or another.