The Time Portal
This time they asked Sam to watch the new pet bird named Leo while they were on vacation.
On the way to 32 Bow St. in Salem, Massachusetts, something felt wrong. Sam could not think of what it was. Did he forget the keys? Was he late? He drove a little faster, then realized he was almost going 90 miles per hour and decided to slow down.
When he finally arrived, the house looked familiar but different. The car was wrong. The fence was new. The house looked bigger. Sam checked his phone and froze. It was not 2011 anymore. It was 2021.
The Big Problem
Sam rang the doorbell. Someone answered, but it was not his parents. It was a man named Dwayne, and he definitely thought Sam was at the wrong house.
Two girls came down the stairs. “Who is this person? Is this your friend?” they asked. Sam was confused, and then even more confused when everyone started talking about masks, coronavirus, and a dog barking somewhere inside.
“Leo?” Sam thought. Leo was supposed to be a bird.
The Talk
Sam came inside and tried to explain that he knew the house, but the room was different, the family was different, and his clock was ten years fast. The girls brought him to the playroom, which made everything even stranger.
The house had flooded years ago. The people who lived there before had left their bird inside, and their son never showed up to watch it. The bird survived, but the son disappeared.
Sam felt awful. He was the son. He had been on his way. Somehow, he had ended up in the future instead.
The Answer
The girls had a theory. If Sam had slipped into the future through a strange moment in time, maybe he could go back the same way. He had to remember exactly what happened on the drive and find the moment where everything changed.
It sounded impossible, but Sam was already standing in a year that should not exist for him. Impossible was kind of the whole situation.
Home at Last
Sam thanked the girls, took one last look at the future house, and tried to find his way back. Leo, the dog version, tried to eat something while everyone yelled his name, because apparently some things never change.
Sam drove away with his heart racing, hoping the road would bring him home before the old Leo, the bird version, caused a flood.