Believe In Magic

*When Debbie and Scott first meet — reblog?*

There was another loud knocking at the door, this time accompanied with a rather frustrated female voice. “Scott, are you in there? Oh please say I have the right room.” There was a brief pause before she knocked again and shouted louder, “Scott!”

He rushed over and opened the door, keeping his half naked body hidden from her behind the door.

“Hello?” He asked cautiously as his eyes fell on a pale blonde girl dressed in black jeans and a purple hooded jacket. “Can I help you?”

She rounded on him, staring at him with her icy blue eyes. “Were you planning on getting up today?”

“I’m sorry?” Scott was incredibly confused, his mind still reeling from the dream he had just had.

“I’ve been knocking for ten minutes trying to get you up and…” She looked at how he was standing. “Are you naked?”

“No!” Scott protested, “I was asleep, that’s why you couldn’t wake me up.”

“Well can you hurry it up please?” She half asked half commanded, “We have to be at breakfast in twenty minutes.”

“Twenty minutes?” Scott repeated, “Why didn’t you come here earlier?”

“You’re not the only one who’s running late this morning, now move it.” She said pulling the door away from him and shutting it.

Scott had already decided that he didn’t really like her, whoever she was. They say that first impressions mean a lot and that was one of the worst first impressions he had ever experienced in his life. She hadn’t even told him what her name was!

After quickly showering and pulling on his clothes from the day before, Scott hurried out from his bedroom halfway through pulling on his jumper, his hair still soaking wet. The woman was still standing there, waiting at the window.

“Good morning, my names Debbie James,” She reached out a hand to shake his own, Scott half thought that she was going to his him. “How are you this morning?”

“I’m fine,” Scott said cautiously, completely thrown off by the sudden niceness that Debbie was showing. “Are you okay?”

“I’ve been better.” She replied, “Shall we go down to breakfast?”

“Sure.” Scott said, still watching her, wondering if she was going to explode again. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Well,” She said as they turned the corner to head toward the lift. “If I’m completely honest, I’m not really good at all. I am part-way through my second cycle here and everyone knows that the second cycle is harder than the first. I mean, the first cycle is tough, but the second is when you learn to fly and stuff so…” She stopped walking and looked at Scott. “I’m sorry about earlier this morning.” She said, “I’ve never been asked to help out a recruit before and I really wanted to get it right. I guess it just made me a little bit crazy coz I’m so nervous.” She chuckled, Scott did a little as well, not wanted to laugh too much, just in case she got angry again.

“It’s alright.” Scott said, as they started to walk again. “I’m nervous too, I feel like I’ve been dropped in at the deep end here, you know?”

“When did the scout come and get you?”

“Scout?” There hadn’t been a scout mentioned to Scott at all. “Do you mean Krancho?”

Debbie stopped in her tracks staring at Scott with a blank expression on her face. “Are you trying to tell me that Alexander Krancho brought you here?” The tone of disbelief in her voice was almost insulting.

“Yes.” Scott said, “He came and got me from the year 3448 yesterday and then took me to the Time Agency. We saw Nicholas in the Chronos region registration point.” Scott impressed himself a little bit by remembering what everything was called.

“You went to see Nicholas Osborne of the Chronos registration point?” Her voice was getting steadily louder; apparently this was against some sort of regulation. “How is that possible? Everyone in my cycle was taken to see Doctor Matthews in the Chronos Facility for Registration and Injury. We had physical examinations then held the weird silver ball…”

“Oh, I did that.” Scott interrupted, remembering what Nicholas had given him at the registration point. “Then he took it off me and said that he was going to get the paperwork to Krancho by this morning.”

“You’re actually being completely serious.” She said, “Wow.” She breathed.

“What?”

“There must be something special about you for Krancho to go to all that trouble to get you here so quickly.” Scott didn’t understand and apparently his face was showing it. “Don’t you get it? He has rushed you through a process that should take about a week just so that you can start your classes now. It doesn’t happen very often Scott; you should be a little bit pleased with yourself.”

As the elevator arrived at the end of the hallway, it was already quite full of people, each of them wearing similar clothes to Debbie, but the jumper being a different colour. There were a couple of people who wore a white shirt holding the T.T.K. emblem and accents of their given colour or a black travelling cloak like Krancho’s, but most wore the hooded tops.

They stepped inside, Debbie nodding good morning to a couple of them and Scott noticed someone else standing nearer the back. He was tall with dark brown hair that was trimmed quite short on his head. The front of his hair was combed over into a sort of quaff with so much hair product, that the scent filled the whole lift. He was wearing a skin tight sky blue top and trousers with a black leather belt and black leather boots. As he scratched his face with the black leather gloves, he looked at Scott almost immediately looking away and facing forward once more. He brushed the chrome T.T.K. emblem on his chest with a sort of arrogant pride that made Scott feel a bit sick.

“Are you ready then, hot shot?” Debbie asked with a hint of joviality in her voice.

“But I don’t even know anything.” The lift gave a jolt as it started to go downwards. “He says that I have high Ki, and I don’t even know what it is! I am screwed.”

“You are not screwed.” Debbie laughed, “You’re going to be fine. Everyone here is in the same boat as you; you all start out equal anyway. It doesn’t even matter who’s good and who’s not yet, you’ll pick it up pretty quick.”

There was a high pitched beeping noise coming from behind them. Almost everyone in the lift turn around to see the boy with the comb over checking the blue Time Key on his wrist, a grin on his tanned face.

“What’s happened?” Debbie asked somewhat frantically. “Do you have a lead?”

He looked up to Debbie, a child-like joy on his face. “Zach has a lead; he’s just sent me through the co-ordinates so I can meet him there. I think we have him this time, Debs, I really do.” He pressed the green screen on his Time Key and he vanished in a flash of white light.

“Good luck, Mike.” Debbie muttered, thinking that Scott couldn’t hear her. She seemed sad for some reason. Scott noticed it more as he saw her eyes almost filling with tears. It was strange; she had been laughing mere seconds ago.

Scott had only just noticed that the disembodied woman’s voice had abruptly stopped talking. There was no noise outside the carriage, in fact, there was no noise inside the carriage. Scott looked over to the tinted windows that ran along the side of the train. People stood frozen on the platform, their eyes not moving, the step they were about to take remaining unfulfilled.

“What have you done?” Scott asked, almost angry at Krancho. “What’s happened to all of these people, are they okay?”

“They are fine, Scott, I have set up a Time Lock around the area.” He began, slowly and calmly, as if Scott hadn’t just raised his voice. “It meant that those who were looking for you would be halted just a little bit longer. I could only give us three minutes because otherwise there would be a rather prominent Time Shift considering the Lock only exists around the New London Bullet Station.”

“Then how do we get out?” Scott said, his eyes fixed on the orange entity that was strapped to Krancho’s wrist. He was sure he knew the answer, but he wanted to hear it from Krancho himself, just to make sure.

Krancho now acknowledged the oversized wristwatch, putting his arm down on the table giving Scott a better view, a chance for him to truly take in the beauty of it.

“This is a Time Key.” The Chief began, gesturing toward object casually. “It is named so because it unlocks doors through Time depending on the given co-ordinates. It also has direct communication with the Time Travel Keepers base and the head offices at the Time Agency. Various pieces of complex machinery from beyond even your Time Period have been placed into this so that in every Time, the Time Travel Keeper is left unrecognisable. Our outfits, though different to some, will blend in with civilians who don’t know that we’re there.”

Scott watched as the yellow numbers continued to tick down on the green screen, now noticing that the grey ring around the outside had small grooves cut into it at equal intervals.

“The co-ordinates are sent through to you from your head office at the T.T.K,” Krancho continued, “But they can be entered manually. Then you click the green scree and you’re away.”

The numbers on the screen reached zero and the noises around them picked up once more. Scott looked outside as the people began to move again, the disembodied woman’s voice began to sound over the speaker system once more and, the sound of chattering business men and women began to fill the train.

“So this can take us anywhere?” Scott hardly realised that he was whispering, the sheer power that was held within that tiny object gave him a sense of respect for the people who created it. Even in his advanced technological age, they still hadn’t even tried to touch on Time Travel, at least not in this capacity. The first Time Machines were huge in comparison to this object, barely bigger than a wristwatch.

“Absolutely anywhere.” Krancho replied with a smile. “There are rules that govern Time Travel but they…”

Krancho broke off. A scream rang through the train and toward them. Scott jerked upward, turning around to see people in the carriage trying to move out of the way as several burly business men and women began to charge through at full speed.

Scott looked at Krancho for some sort of explanation, but even he seemed to be frozen in fear at what was happening right before their eyes.

“Mr Turner it has to be now or we won’t have a chance to escape.” Krancho said flatly, getting to his feet to join Scott as he looked down the aisle. They were getting closer. Now all the stood between the men and them was several rows of seats and a set of glass doors. “Mr Turner you need to make your decision now!” Krancho shouted over the noise of screaming civilians.

The business men seemed to catch sight of Scott and picked up speed, dashing down the aisle. As they ran at full pelt they knocked people out of the way, chairs flying through the windows of the train, people and all.

“Mr Turner!” Krancho yelled at the top of his lungs as the business men came close.

Scott heard Krancho sigh heavily as he pushed Scott out of the way and raised his left hand toward the business men, an ominous orange glow beginning to form around it. In seconds, Krancho’s hand was glowing brighter than the lights in their carriage, bathing everything around them in orange light.

Before Scott had a chance to react, Krancho had pulled his arm back, the glow even stronger than before, and whipped his arm in the direction of the oncoming stampede. Scott stood up as quick as he could, watching as what appeared to be a bright orange bubble soared towards the charging business men at breakneck speed. Without slowing even a little it broke through the glass doors and clattered into the men, sending them flying back where they came down the train.

Scott’s eyes became wide and smile spread across his face.

“How did you…what did you…?” He couldn’t find the words. “What was that?”

“That is something that I really didn’t want to do.” He seemed to be annoyed, but Scott saw a smile appear on the Chief’s face as he turned to him. “It was a lot of fun though.”

Book One in the Time Travel Keepers book series. Let me know what you think!

I am meant to be writing for National Novel Writing Month but I wanted to give it a try and make sure that I can still write. It makes sense to me! :)

This is a rewrite of the Chapter One that I had on here ages ago.

Chapter One

As the sound of heavy footsteps broke through the still darkness, Scott was flooded by the feeling that he was no longer alone. He felt trapped; he had no way of escaping that he could think of. What was this place? It wasn’t somewhere he recognized, it all seemed so surreal.

A sheet of glossy black lay beneath his feet that rippled as he took a step forward. The horizon too held nothing but black a tiny light far off to the left sent a small amount of dim grey light around the area, but it hardly lit anything. Everything was completely dark, like someone had just turned off the light and the footsteps grew louder.

A silent flash of blue lightning cracked above him, for a brief second, he was sure that he could see grey clouds hovering overhead. He looked around frantically, trying to see something else, something that would tell him where he was. The grey light was completely useless, until another flash of blue cracked in the sky, he wouldn’t be able to see a thing.

Still the footsteps grew louder; they were coming closer coupled with a spine chilling drumbeat that echoed in his chest. The ear splitting sound of metal against metal as each step was taken; it rang in Scott’s ears, drowning out the sound of thoughts of escape. It polluted his mind, he screwed his eyes up desperate to block it out.

His chest began to feel tight, like a snake was coiling around his lungs and squeezing them tight. He coughed, desperate to catch his breath. He opened his mouth to cry out, but no sound appeared.

Scott’s piercing green eyes screamed open as a sharply drew his breath, the dense air filling his lungs like they never had before. It always seemed to end like that.