Ring! Ring! Ring! Rodney weakly slings his hand at his alarm clock. The date is December 31, 2011. He walks downstairs and ate his regular breakfast: Lucky Charms ™ and fresh orange juice. Rodney is nervous, since tomorrow he is moving off to college. He is an outcast because he doesn’t know anybody that he’s going to school with the next day. He didn’t even have any siblings. His parents were sad that he would soon leave, but were also excited about his new opportunities with a college education. Rodney spent the day packing his belongings and preparing himself for the big day. By night time, he was exhausted.

“Good luck tomorrow, Sweetie!” whispered his mother.

“I’ll do my best.” Rodney said back, and he turned off his lamp and slowly drifted into a deep sleep.

He woke up, startled, as if something had just scurried across the other side of his room. He slowly looked around the room, frightened. His clock was the only light and it read 11:55 P.M. Rodney noticed a crumpled up piece of paper right next to the clock. The light shined on it brightly, as if it was there for an important reason and somebody wanted him to find it. He just stared at it for a minute, wondering how it got there and what it held. He slowly reached for the note, the darkness of the room pressuring him to make a move. Rodney unfolded the note and read it carefully:

Rodney, there isn’t much time. You must hurry and get to your basement. There you will find the potion. Just pour it on the basement doorknob and you will be completely safe. I’m sorry that I can’t explain right now, but you must act quickly or you, too, will be killed. – Eleven

Rodney didn’t understand, but knew he had to get to his basement, and fast! He sprinted down the stairs, out the door, into the basement, and caught his breath. Rodney saw a blue liquid in a beaker and another note. He knew he didn’t have time to read it, so he poured the liquid on the doorknob. Rodney emptied the small beaker, put it in his backpack, and grabbed the note. It read:

Hello Rodney. I hope you have already used the potion. In a few seconds something terrible will happen. The sun will explode. You will be the only one left, but there is hope. All you need to know is-

Rodney stopped there. He felt the ground shaking. Cans of paint and tools fell of the shelf. Then it happened. All he could do was gaze into the fiery explosion for a fraction of a second, and it all went blank.

Rodney finally woke up.

“Wh- Where am I?” he asked himself, still not fully conscience.

A few minutes later, he returned to his normal self. Everything was gone; it was just a wasteland of dirt and extremely strong winds. No life had survived, yet somehow, everything he was touching was fine. His clothes, backpack, and even the note he hadn’t finished reading. He couldn’t read it because of the extreme winds, so he searched for shelter.

He finally found a cave of dust and scrap metal, and lays down on his back. Rodney immediately screams with pain. He didn’t notice before, but his back and left arm are bleeding profusely. The winds howled and he heard a strange barking sound deep within the pitch black cave. There was no where to hide, so Rodney limped out into the unforgiving winds as fast as he could. The barking got louder, louder, and so loud that it was right behind. Rodney screamed in terror as the large animal pounced on him from behind. He was sure it was over, but he noticed that the strange creature wasn’t attacking him, but it just stopped, staring into his eyes. Rodney noticed that the “animal” was actually a robot. It looked much like a large dog with three great horns on the top of its triangular head. Rodney reached for it, and the robot was gone in the blink of an eye. He struggled to get back to the cave, exhausted and frightened. The boy noticed a strange symbol on the wall of the cave. The symbol looks very familiar, glowing with a green light shining on a stalagmite. The stalagmite was slowly dripping with water. He drank water until he didn’t have enough energy left to swallow. He heard rustling in the distance, but could barely keep his eyes open. He fell asleep, and started having unusual dreams. He saw his alarm clock. 11:55. The number kept repeating inside his head. He saw his mother fading away.

“Mother!” he yelled. He tried to run, but he couldn’t move.

“Good luck tomorrow, Sweetie!” she whispered repeatedly. “Good luck tomorrow, Sweetie! “Good luck tomorr-“and she was to far away to be heard.

He thought about college and the notes and the robot and everything that had happened so far.

He woke up, well rested and saw nothing except the empty walls of his cave of dust. He read his note:

YOU MUST FIND IT!!! THE TIME MACHINE!!!!!! WALK AS FAR AS YOU CAN INTO THE WIND!!!!!!!! HUR
And the rest was ripped off. He knew what he had to do now, but he was unable to move quickly due to his injuries. He found an old strip of metal to use as a cane to lean on, and emerged from the safety of the cave. The winds were screeching with extreme speeds, and Rodney knew he had a long journey ahead of him.

He had been walking for hours, without any signs of life. All of sudden, he saw an object far out in the distance run behind a rock. The creature stayed behind the large stone, so Rodney slowly approached it out of curiosity.

Rodney limped towards the rock. “Hello?” he asked.

Nothing.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt y-“The creature quickly leapt from the rock, rage filling its dark blue eyes.

It was the same creature that Rodney had encountered earlier. The robot noticed Rodney, and let go of its anger, as if it recognized it.
“Hey it’s you again.” Rodney said with relief. “If were going to be seeing each other so often, I should at least give you a name. How about Fleiss-Tron?”

The robot stared at him blankly.

“Fleiss-Tron it is!” Rodney said enthusiastically.

Fleiss-Tron started running into the wind, and stopped after a few meters. It stared at Rodney, waiting eagerly for him to do something.

“It must want me to follow It.” thought Rodney, “I wonder if it knows about the time-machine.”

Leaning on the tattered strip of metal, Rodney started to walk after Fleiss-Tron with many questions swimming through his head. The robot seemed to never tire, since it effortlessly trotted through the gale. After several hours of trudging through the intense winds, a bright red light appeared on the top of Fleiss-Tron’s head. The robot stopped, frozen as a block of ice.

“Are you okay?” Rodney nervously asked.

What he didn’t know was that the light was a warning signal. Something was approaching them. Fleiss-Tron had encountered them before. They were called Kokros, small, innocent looking creatures, but they certainly weren’t. To Rodney they appeared as foxes without tails, so he didn’t sense danger. But Fleiss-Tron knew what they were capable of. They were always hungry, and would eat almost everything they could get their hands on. Normally, they would have their tails curled up into their warm fur, but when they smell food, they release them. Their tails are covered with small, sharp spikes leading up to a huge sphere of razor-sharp blades, so they can defend themselves for predators or fight of anything that gets in their way. Fleiss-Tron sprinted behind a large piece of metal. It stared at Rodney anxiously, hoping the Kokros hadn’t spotted them. Rodney limped behind the piece of metal next to Fleiss-Tron, but was already too late. The Kokros picked up the smell of blood. They were slowly walking towards them, hungry for meat. Fleiss-Tron opened up one of his mechanical horns and took out a piece of meat, and handed it to Rodney. He saw the Kokros charging at him with hunger in their eyes. Rodney threw the meat as far as he could in the direction that the wind was blowing, and it was carried far into the distance. The Kokros chased after it and were out of sight in seconds.

They continued into the wind and Fleiss-Tron knew they were almost at their destination. Rodney was now worried what else could lie ahead in this destroyed world that he had once known as Earth. The gales blowing dust into his eyes, weakening his already limited vision. Fleiss-Tron stopped again.

"This can't be good." Rodney sighed, hoping they were safe from any more attacks from strange creatures.

The red light on the robot's head turned on, and Rodney realized they were in trouble. There was nowhere to hide, no point in running, so they were going to have to fight off whatever it was. They came closer and Fleiss-Tron noticed that they were Gnarbles. Gnarbles are huge creatures, twice as large as a full-grown man. They each carried a piece of sharpened metal so they could fight with them. Luckily, they weren't very smart at all. Once Rodney saw the large, ugly creatures, he was immediately frightened. Fleiss-Tron wasn't sure what to do, so he stared at Rodney nervously.

"Wh-What are those?" Rodney asked, shaking like a leaf, "How can we beat them?"

Fleiss-Tron had no idea. It just gazed at Rodney as the Gnarbles walked towards them, smirking, as they knew they had found easy prey. Rodney thought so too. But then he had an idea. He took out his backpack and grabbed the beaker from when he used the potion. He slammed it against the scrap of metal he was leaning on, and the bottom fell off, leaving only a sharp, spiky piece of glass. Rodney pointed the glass at the Gnarbles, threatening them with a weapon they had never seen before. They came to a sudden stop, frightened looks surrounding their faces. The Gnarbles mumbled strange sounds to each other and walked away. Rodney's plan was a success, and they continued on their journey.

Through the extreme winds, Rodney pictured a large figure in the distance. Fleiss-Tron jumped into the air and ran towards the object. Fleiss-Tron knew they had found the time machine. Rodney limped closer and closer, following the joyful robot up a hill of dust and scrap metal. After several minutes of intense climbing up the steep hill, he finally reached the peak. Fleiss-Tron was eagerly awaiting Rodney's arrival. All that he saw was Fleiss-Tron and the machine. Rodney happily realized that the wind had completely stopped. It was blowing in all directions from the machine.

"This must be it," said Rodney, glad that after his long and tiring adventure, he had finally arrived at his destination.

Fleiss-Tron looked at him happily, but then sad because he knew they would never see each other again. Rodney looked back at the robot, reassuring it that everything would be fine. He saw another crumpled piece of paper lying on the top of the time machine. He read it as Fleiss-Tron silently looked back at the direction that had come in and remembered everything that had happened:

Hello Rodney. You have now found the time machine. Please press the large blue button on the left-hand side of the machine. You must remember to warn everybody about what will happen. Just tell them you know Eleven. They will believe you if you tell them that. Warn them about the post-apocalyptic world. -Eleven

Rodney read the note a second time, realizing that he had a very important mission to accomplish back on Earth. He said his good-byes to Fleiss-Tron as he put his finger on the large blue button. He pressed the button and saw everything that had ever happened in just a few seconds. Then everything went blank.

Ring! Ring! Ring! Rodney weakly slings his hand at his alarm clock. The date is December 31, 2011.
THE END