Story 2: The Seven Buildings (Part 1)

Tyler looked at the news on his phone. On a normal day, he wouldn’t have. (He didn’t like reading the news and he was a kid so his parents could tell him if there was anything important on the news.) Today he read the headline for the article.

Another building destroyed

Tyler turned off his phone. About a month ago, a museum was destroyed. The police had no idea who had destroyed it and how they destroyed it. They assumed someone from inside the building, bombed it. A few days after that, another building was destroyed. This continued twice more. The building that was destroyed in the headline was the fifth building destroyed in the last month.

Tyler thought it was odd that the police hadn’t caught the culprit of the crime. He assumed that the same person (or group of people) destroyed the buildings. Another thing that was weird about all of the attacks was that someone pulled the fire alarm before the attacks happened. This meant that everybody was outside before the building was destroyed. No one was killed or badly injured in all of the attacks. It seemed like the person/people who destroyed the buildings didn’t want to hurt anybody, or somebody else pulled the fire alarm because they knew the building was going to be destroyed.

That raised even more questions on why the person hadn’t warned the police that the building was going to be destroyed if they knew it was going to happen.

Tyler’s sister, Alice, walked into the room. She noticed that Tyler was staring at the phone and sat down next to him.

“Was another building destroyed?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Tyler said. “In the same way as the other ones.”

Alice stayed quiet for a moment. “Let’s go eat breakfast. We still have to go to school today.”

Tyler nodded quietly and grabbed some cereal to eat. Some students’ parents had removed them from the school because of the attacks. They thought that someone might attack the school. Tyler and Alice’s parents thought that if someone was going to attack the school they would do it in the same way as they attacked the rest of the buildings and Tyler and Alice would be able to escape the school before the attack happened. Tyler agreed with them but he also thought that no one in his school would try to destroy it. They might hate going to school but they definitely would not destroy it.

Tyler completed his cereal and grabbed his backpack. After the first two attacks, his parents had decided to drop him and Alice off at, school themselves instead of using a bus. Tyler was just fine with this because he went to a small private school where the bus size was smaller than usual, so a lot of the students were dropped off by their parents.

He got into the car and his parents drove him and Alice to their school. Once he got out of the car he met his best friend James. James had a similar view to the building attacks as him.

“I’m sure you read this in the news already, but there was another attack,” James said.

“Yeah I read that in the news,” Tyler said. “It’s really weird. Why would a terrorist destroy a building, but care enough to get everybody outside the building before it gets destroyed?”

“Somebody else could have pulled the alarm,” James said.

“But how would somebody know which buildings are going to get attacked? And if they did know, wouldn't they tell the police?”

James shrugged. “What if they don’t know what building is going to be attacked but they know that the person who is destroying the buildings is trying to attack the building with them in it?”

“Why wouldn’t the person who is attacking the buildings attack their home?” Tyler asked as they walked into the classroom.

Their conversation was cut off by the teacher talking. Tyler found it kind of hard to focus on what the teacher was saying. Fortunately for him, the teacher understood why he wasn’t paying attention.

The rest of the school day went normally until someone set off the fire alarm.

Tyler first thought that it was a fire drill. Until he remembered all of the building attacks. He was fairly sure that the school wouldn’t do a fire drill because the students might think there was an attack on the school. So either there was actually a fire or there was an attack on the school. Either way, he would have to get out of the building. Or at least he should get out of the building. He would have probably done that if he hadn’t seen someone he didn’t know run into one of the classrooms. That might have been completely normal if he hadn’t known basically everybody in the school because it was a small private school and that the person was an adult. He looked around and noticed that James and Alice hadn’t moved either. They had all seen the man.

All three of them ran into the classroom with the man.

“Get out of here right now. The building is going to explode in one minute,” the man yelled.

Tyler glanced at James and Alice before grabbing the man and pulling him out of the room. The man was so surprised by the action that he didn’t stop Tyler until he was outside. The school exploded.

Now that Tyler was outside he realized the man was younger than he thought he was. The man looked like he was in his twenties. He had short black hair and looked pale.

“Who are you?” Alice asked.

The man looked around at all the students gathered outside. “Can we talk somewhere private?”

Alice thought about it for a moment. “No. As far as I know, you are the one who destroyed all of the buildings. You are lucky we are even talking to you and haven’t handed you to the authorities. If we talk somewhere private, you will probably escape and maybe even hold us captive.”

The man ran a hand through his hair. “I did destroy all of those buildings but I made sure nobody got hurt.”

“You think that is going to convince us to let you talk to us in private?” James said incredulously. “How about we just hand him to the authorities?”

“Don’t do that,” the man said.

“Why shouldn’t we?” James asked.

“If you give me to the authorities, I’ll just escape,” the man said. “If you don’t, I might explain why I am doing this.”

“Why should we trust you?” Tyler asked.

The man stared at him for a moment before grabbing his hand. The scene around Tyler changed. He was in a large room with one window. A few moments later, Alice, James, and the man reappeared in the room with him.

“What did you do?” James asked the man angrily.

“I teleported you to somewhere else,” the man said.

Tyler stared at him. Maybe he had heard the man wrong or he was hallucinating or dreaming. He could be dreaming. Maybe his school getting destroyed was a dream too. He might have accidentally stated that out loud because the man said, “no you are not dreaming or hallucinating.”

“Are you going to tell us what’s going on?” Alice said impatiently.

“You probably won’t believe me if I tell you. Maybe I can show you.”

“First tell us your name,” Tyler said.

“Sam,” the man said. “What are your names?”

All of them introduced themselves.

“Now what do you want to show us?” Tyler asked.

Instead of answering, the man pulled out a device from his pocket. The scene around Tyler changed again. He was now in front of his school, but it looked different. On the top of it, there was a neon green device. The area surrounding it was also green. He then looked around and noticed that everybody’s eyes were also green.

“What?” Tyler asked.

“This is the future,” Sam said from beside him. “Or more accurately was the future.”

“Why are everybody’s eyes green?” Alice asked.

“They are under the control of the mind control device on top of the building,” Sam explained.

“And you are trying to destroy the buildings, so everybody won’t get mind-controlled in the future,” James said.

“Well, not everybody. There is an organization that created the devices. They are not under the devices' control.”

“And that organization controls the devices,” Tyler said.

Sam nodded.

“Even if you destroy the buildings, the people could still make the mind control devices on other buildings,” Tyler said.

“They can’t,” Sam replied. “There is something special about the buildings that allow the mind control devices to be built on them. Why else would they make mind control devices on only a few of the buildings, instead of all of them?”


“How are you not affected by the devices?” James asked.

“I created a time machine and tested it out the day they tried to take control of everybody. You have to be there in the start to be taken control of,” Sam said.

“Weren’t other people time traveling?” Alice asked.

Sam shook his head. “You don’t get it. I created the first time machine that day. Nobody knew how to time travel before then.”

There was an awkward silence for a moment.

“But now you have destroyed the buildings, so shouldn’t no one be under the organization’s control?” Alice asked.

“I still have to destroy one more building,” Sam said. “But even if I destroyed that building it wouldn’t change the future because I created a time barrier. It prevents paradoxes from happening.”

“Because if you went to the past and changed it so that the buildings are destroyed, then in the future you wouldn’t have gone back to the past to change that so then the buildings would exist. But if the buildings existed then you would have gone into the past. ” Tyler said thoughtfully.

Sam nodded. “Exactly. I’m planning to change the time barrier so that the future is fixed without a paradox. Any questions?”

Tyler shook his head, even though he didn't exactly understand what a time barrier was. Sam pulled out the device again and they appeared at their destroyed school again. Tyler looked around and noticed Sam wasn’t there.

“That was weird,” Alice said.

James nodded. “For some reason I trust him.”

“Guys, you have to look sad that our school is destroyed, not happy,” Tyler said.

Belatedly Alice and James put on fake sad expressions. Alice hugged Tyler and fake cried.

Tyler groaned. “That doesn’t look like you are sad.”

James barely managed to stop himself from laughing and hugged Tyler too.

“Both of you stop,” Tyler said.

“Why?” James asked.

“It doesn’t look like either of you are sad.”

“Fine,” Alice said and stopped hugging Tyler and instead pretended to stare at what was left of their school.

A few hours later, Tyler and Alice were at home with their parents and were watching a movie. James and his parents were also with them. When Tyler and Alice had gotten home, their parents hadn’t stopped hugging them for fifteen minutes. After some time, they got a call from James’s parents asking whether they could come over to Tyler and Alice’s house. Tyler and Alice’s parents had let them come over.

Once the movie ended they decided to watch the news. It turned out that after their school another building had been destroyed. Tyler, Alice, and James asked whether they could go to their room. With a little bit of convincing their parents allowed them to.

“The last building was destroyed,” James said.

“Sam did it,” Alice said.

“I wonder if he is going to visit us again,” James said.

“He might but then he will probably go back to the future,” Tyler replied.

“That’s what I am planning to do,” an amused voice said.

“Sam!” they said simultaneously.

“You fixed the time barrier thing?” Tyler said.

“Yeah,” Sam said.

“Where are you?” Tyler asked, looking around the room.

“The closet,” Sam said.

James ran over to the closet and opened it.

“I mean I am the closet.”

“What?” all three of them said.

“Future technology,” Sam said. “Allows you to transform into random objects.”

“My closet was there before,” Tyler said confused.

“I joined with the closet, so it looks like a closet but it thinks like me.”

“That’s, weird,” Tyler said.

Sam stepped out from the closet. “Yeah, it is.”

“So, why are you here?” Alice asked.

“I was going to tell you that I completed destroying all of the buildings and fixed the time barrier, but you already know that.”

“So now you can go to the future,” Tyler said.

“I could always go to the future,” Sam said. “I didn’t have to tell you guys before I went.”

James rolled his eyes. “Yes, you didn’t have to come. Are you gonna go to the future now?”

“Yeah, I am,” Sam said. “I think your parents are coming to your room now, so bye.”

Sam disappeared.




The person was inside the building. He heard the fire alarms go off. He then saw a man run out of a room. That would have seemed normal. After all, everybody was running because they either thought there was a fire or thought the building would be destroyed. The only way the man was different from everybody else was that he was leaving a room that nobody was supposed to enter. The person followed the man. The person watched the man look around to make sure no one was watching and then disappear...