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The Story:
The stairs to the university’s stadium were enormous. Rows of steps stretched around the front of it, capable of supporting hundreds of fans at once. Light from the lampposts held the darkness of night at a safe distance.
He walked along the front of the stairs until he found their exact center. Then, he climbed them until he reached their vertical center and sat down in the middle of the entire structure. He opened his laptop, and a face stared back at him on the screen.
“Are you ready?”
“Yeah… I think so,” he said.
“What’s wrong, Ryan? We’ve been waiting for this for years.”
He gazed out at the other lampposts scattered throughout the university’s many pathways. Memories of being a student here, mostly of running to his classes, flooded his mind. They had hailed him as a child prodigy, a genius who chose their school above all the others, making him attend and speak at event after event. He was nothing more than a puppet to them, an advertising icon. They stole the joys of childhood from him, and he hated them for it.
“Ryan? Ryan!”
“Huh? Oh, yes, let’s go.”
“Okay, find me when you get there.”
Ryan took a deep breath and pressed a button on his laptop. The world around him began to change, growing a little younger. It stopped during the daytime with the sun beating down on a warm summer day.
He closed his laptop and stood up just in time to intercept a boy who was obviously younger than the other students walking around.
“You’re back!”
“Yes,” Ryan said to his 12 year old self.
“Did you bring it?”
He pulled a device from his pocket and handed it to himself.
“Use the algorithms in this to time hop anywhere you want. Just make sure you go somewhere you can be a kid, okay? I have to find someone, so I’ll see you…”
“Go? I’m not going. Do you realize the awards this would bring? I’d be the most important child prodigy ever!”
“What? You’re supposed to go be a kid! Here, let me…”
He reached for the device, but his younger self backed away. He stepped forward, and the young Ryan fled. Now, he understood why his lost mother had to be found for this plan to work.
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