Amidst a large hallway, and in front of a gigantic door which looked to be made of steel, stood twenty seven year old Mattaniah Albert.
The simple pale looking gentleman was wearing a blue shirt, black trousers, black tie and a black pair of well polished shoes. His raven black hairs was made smoothly and delicately in a way that made him appeared keen.
And while his sensitive eyes were agilely situated on the doorknob, his sturdy hands were safely clenching onto a pair of crutches which would help him in enhancing his walking rate, and which he had also been forced to carry around since the age of eleven when he had encountered a car accident along with his whole family.
Before the accident took away his parents and two younger sisters—twins, Mattaniah could've sworn that he had the most perfect life ever. Not that they were extremely wealthy, but at least they were living comfortably, and could afford what they want and most importantly they were happy. But of course, the accident just had to happen! And now his life had been occupied with nothing but agony and abundant suffering ever since.
He had been forced to live in an orphanage from that moment onward. As expected, life in the orphanage too wasn't an easy thing for him, being labelled as an outcast was one thing, and being bullied and beaten occasionally was also another. All these was what he had to face whilst growing up. And all this had made Mattaniah despise the world he was in, not like he had ever liked it anyways. From the moment his family had all died in that car accident, his happiness had also died with them.
But as always one has to learn how to put the past behind and take control of the future, which was what Mattaniah had eventually learnt to do this past years. He had grown from the pain, and instead of letting himself being weigh down by sorrows, he had instead turned it into a boost, and this was what had made him work harder, and study harder too.
And today Mattaniah had managed to become a mechanical engineer, although it took a lot of sacrifice—selling some of his deceased family properties—having to start working at a tender age. He had succeeded in his studies and now presently a professional at creating robots, engines, inventing gadgets and every other things pertaining to engineering.
However gaining degrees and masters still wasn't enough to better Mattaniah's life, besides who would want to employ a disabled person in their company? Establishing a business for himself would've been meliorate, but then it would cost him a lot of money, which of course he didn't possess.
However, heavens seemed to have remembered Mattaniah this past few days. At long last he had gotten a job invitation—after multiple failed attempts. He had already gone for the interview few days back, and after the interview they had informed him that they would get back to him through his email which he had gave them that day, and that if they didn't get back to him in three days time, then it meant they didn't find him suitable for the job.
After a lot of anticipation, the email eventually came, and today Mattaniah was here to start the job just as stated in the email he received.
Still standing in front of the door, Mattaniah was rather quite reluctant to go in, not that he was scared, but just like any random person would be nervous on their first day of work, this was also the case with Mattaniah, not to talk of the fact that he was disabled.
'You can do this!' Inwardly, Mattaniah chanted for himself. 'Besides, what's the worst that could happen? They would just stare, and then nothing else.'
He pulled a long sigh, before eventually gathering all his courage into his hand. He pulled onto the doorknob which he had been staring at for the past five minutes as soon as the security guard led him here, and the door opened, and gently, he carried himself inwards.
As he entered in, Mattaniah could feel his heartbeat accelerated. But he soon got it under control. Upon entering in, his eyes met with the back view of three people who seemed to be operating a very huge and round metal engine. Mattaniah could only suppose that these three people were his workmate.
They were two women, and a man, they were all wearing a white lab coat atop their attires. Additionally, they didn't seem to have noticed Mattaniah's presence in the laboratory yet.
Mattaniah didn't know if it was a good thing that they hadn't noticed him yet, or a bad thing. As much as Mattaniah didn't want to bother them, he still knew that they would have to introduce themselves sooner or later.
Mattaniah stood at the entrance for awhile, he quietly scanned the large laboratory with his keen eyes. Other than its largeness, and distinguished interior decor it wasn't really that different from what he was expecting of the place. It was quite scanty and rough, its floors was littered with multiple wires, metal scraps, engines and tools. And not to forget the pizza boxes and cans, which most definitely was thrown by them, as they probably found it a bit of a heavy task to go and throw it in the trashcan which was just a few feets away from them. Mattaniah wasn't surprised by this, since this was always also the case with him at his rented apartment whenever he was extremely busy working on a project.
Turning backwards, Mattaniah shut the door and upon facing forward, he could discern that all the people had already turned backwards and were all now staring at him and had all ignored their works. At that moment, Mattaniah felt as though the ground should open up and swallow him whole.
'Damnit! When did they…? Weren't they all focused on their works just now?!'
'Nevermind.'
Putting aside his unrequited thoughts, Mattaniah forced a polite smile, before eventually speaking warmly, "Good morning fellow workmate. My name is Mattaniah Albert, Matt for short. I'm the new substitute for Mr. Stanley, whom I heard passed away, my deep condolences though. It would be an honor to work with you guys." Saying this, Mattaniah stared forward at the trio. He wondered if his statement right now was well said or not. As it is, he had practiced it all night.
Getting up from his seat, the man amidst the two women, who had blond hairs and who appeared to be in his late twenties too just like Mattaniah, went forward, "Good morning to you too Mr. Albert. Nice to meet you, the Manager had already informed us about your presence today," he greeted Mattaniah casually, and upon reaching Mattaniah, the man shooked Mattaniah's hand. He continued, "Anyways, I'm Christopher Williams, but you can call me Chris for short, Mr. Albert. I'm the leader here too, therefore, if there's anything you need, come to me first, okay?"
"Okay, I'll keep that in mind," Mattaniah nodded with a slight smile, hearing Christopher speak to him so calmly and chilled made Mattaniah quite relaxed and less uncomfortable.
Speaking again, Christopher pointed towards a blond haired woman with white skin and blue eyes, which was sitted on his right earlier and was staring at them calmly, then spoke, "Over there is Andrea Williams. She's also a mechanical engineer just like you and I. Also, she's my twin sister. But of course I'm the oldest."
Andrea rolled her eyes to Christopher's words as she saw that he had a teasing smile on. From where she was sitted, Andrea spoke gently;
"Welcome, Mr. Albert. Nice to meet you."
"Thank you, Ms. Williams. Same also," Mattaniah replied shortly.
Then Christopher turned towards the black haired woman on his left who seemed to be in her mid thirties perhaps, then he spoke;
"And over there is Naomi Oxford. Unlike us, she's not a mechanical engineer, rather, she's a scientist. Also, she's the assistant leader, so if there's anything you need to know and I'm not around, then you can ask her."
Waving slightly was Naomi, "Nice to meet you Mr. Albert," she welcomed.
"Nice to meet you too, Ms. Oxford. I hope to learn a lot from you in the future," Mattaniah replied appropriately.
That being said, Naomi performed a nod of approval then looked away from them to focus back on the job at hand, and so did Andrea.
Christopher turned to meet Mattaniah, "As you know we're working on a time machine. And with Mr. Stanley gone, we've really met a major set back on the project. But with you here now, I believe everything would workout just fine. Let me show you what you're going to do today. I'm sure you're familiar with almost everything there on the time machine right?"
Stealing a curt glance at the huge machine before him, "Sure, I am," Mattaniah replied assertively.
Pulling something that seemed like a small book from his pocket, he pointed it towards Mattaniah, "Here's a manual for you. In there, you would see everything you need to know about how far we've gotten with the project. And I believe if you are able to study the manual overnight then by tomorrow you would be able to assist us in building the time machine," Christopher explained vividly, and Mattaniah nodded and took the manual.
"Thank you," Mattaniah appreciated.
"You're welcome," Christopher replied and then went away from Mattaniah to give him some space to study the manual and so as to also continue his work.
As Christopher walked away, he spoke, "Also, Mr. Albert please help yourself to one of the lab coats over there behind the stool."
"Sure," Mattaniah did just as he was told.
Wearing the lab coat, Mattaniah moved towards the nearby stool and sat down. He had thought that since the day he graduated from school, then that was the day studying a book would stop, however, seems he was wrong to assume that.
Mattaniah stared forward at the machine awkwardly. The last time he checked, such a machine had never existed, not that the people didn't want to build it, just that it was impossible to build.
He had never seen anything like it before, he knew that this type of invention could literally change the world. It would enable the present generations to witness and visit people from the past and also from the future. Mattaniah couldn't help but feel pretty excited to be part of such a huge project, not too talk of how handsomely they were willing to pay him for the job. Mattaniah continued staring at the circular, huge object with multiple wires, gadgets and engines sticking to it.
Eventually looking away from the time machine.
Mattaniah buried his eyes into the manual for about fifteen minutes before eventually hearing his name being called by one of his colleagues.
"Mr. Albert?! Can you please fetch me some coffee from the coffeemaker over there?" said Christopher as he pointed towards the coffeemaker which stood on a table at some corner of the laboratory.
Seeing no problem in that, Mattaniah replied, "Alright," besides, just sitting on that hard stool was already making him feel trivially bored, not to talk of the fact that he had to study, yuck!
Mattaniah promptly supported himself with the crutches, and went towards the coffeemaker, he gently fetched a coffee into a small plastic cup and brought it towards Christopher.
"You know you're not allowed to drink any form of liquid whenever you're beside the machine. I've told you this several times and will continue saying it again. What if you accidentally get some into its engine, uh?" Naomi spoke partly with worry and partly with anger.
"Relax, nothing of that sort would happen. You worry too much," Christopher disagreed with a haggard voice, as though he was fatigued of always hearing Naomi say such a thing almost all the time.
And as though their words was a curse instead, Mattaniah tripped on one of the cans that had been littered there on the floor, causing all the coffee inside the plastic cup to escape and spill all over the time machine engine.
Loud gasps could be seen escaping from everyone's mouth as horrors was instantaneously plastered on their face.
"I told you this might happen, didn't I?!" Naomi bellowed at Christopher.
"Shut up! Even you constantly saying that it would happen, could've been what jinxed it!"
Naomi creased her eyebrows aggravatedly, "Oh please! Like if you had listened to me then this would've happened?"
However before anyone of them could argue or react any further the time machine started to spark, as though it was about to explode. And immediately a white and blue blinding light appeared amidst the circular space of the time machine like a portal, and soon after, a force began to pull them towards the light, like a magnetic field.
"What's going on?!" Andrea asked as she immediately tried to grab onto something to avoid being pulled into the blinding light of the profound portal.
"Damnit! I think the machine must've malfunctioned! Everyone grab onto something, don't let it suck you in!" Christopher yelled, and as soon as that was said he was sucked into the portal as the force had increased and was now more powerful.
"Brother!" Andrea yelled despondently upon seeing Christopher being sucked in mercilessly.
Soon after Christopher was pulled in, Naomi was also pulled in by the force.
And then afterwards the force became stronger, blowing Mattaniah and Andrea's hairs and clothes formidably.
Before Andrea knew it, she was already hovering up in midair. She was also already about to be pulled in as she screamed loudly with her blue eyes overwhelmed with repugnance—not like anyone nearby would come to their rescue since the laboratory they were in was soundproof. But then she was pulled back by Mattaniah who was also struggling to not be sucked in as he held onto something tightly too.
Andrea whose body was already lingering forcibly upwads in the air held Mattaniah's hand tightly as though her life depended on it, which technically it did.
However unfortunately, they were both eventually pulled into the blinding light hand in hand as the force embodied more strength.