It was a dangerous business indeed. Whitman knew this. He knew this well. This kind of tourism would be dangerous, but if all the protocols were followed correctly, then there shouldn’t be a problem. At least this much he could say, but when dealing with something this large scale, safety precautions had to be taken to prevent the worst case scenario. The machine built sa pamamagitan ng a worker called Sonia Rainsford, and she would be the one to test her own machine, be it to see it grow prosperous, or to see their own world wiped out.

“Ms. Rainsford,” sinabi Whitman as he stood in front of her. In Sonia’s eyes, Whitman looked old, but young in a kind of sense. His hair was grayed, and refused to bald. He bore sideburns which carried down to his chin where he had a chiseled beard. His stance was imposing, and the smile on his face didn’t help, especially considering his sadistic reputation.

“Yes, sir?” Sonia answered. Sonia had long black hair which was braided into two strands which she placed over her shoulders and wore glasses. Her eyes were brown, and had freckles on her face. She seemed much younger than Whitman. The age gap could easily be sinabi to be a generation’s width.

“Make me proud. You have done well sa pamamagitan ng creating this time machine, but we can’t exactly be sure if this machine is for the better or for the worse if we change it. Don’t let me down, Rainsford,” he advised, if not warned.

“I won’t, sir,” she promised with a bow. “I’ll make sure that the machine is useable. When do you want me to make the jump, sir?”

“Whenever you feel that you are good and ready to do so. Be mindful of how long you make me wait, though.”

“Y-yes, sir. I will begin preparations immediately,” she said. What else could she say? She was going back in time. Was it possible to cause the cursed time paradox? If the past were to be changed, then what would become of the future? Was it even possible to jump back into time? Too many variables were in this jump. Was she even willing to make the jump? Had she the heart?

“Good. I await good word of your success,” Whitman replied with a smirk, and rustled Sonia’s hair. Sonia let him rustle her hair. Once he left, she did her best to put her hair back the way it was before he tinkered with it.

She made her way to where the prototype suit was. The suit almost looked like an astronaut’s suit. This suit was equipped with en extremely clean exterior, as it was meant to be, and carried a tank of oxygen, just in case if the place where she was sent to wasn’t exactly survivable without oxygen. Te suit was insulated, and extremely tough. Almost nothing could penetrate its thick covering, but still bore plates of armor just in case, because Whitman demanded it, and because whoever created the suit had a kind of a fashion sense. After all, everything the Malumtis wore was not without armor.

As Sonia was putting on the armor, one of the major scientists who were behind the jump read to Sonia what she should do everything in her power to avoid:

“Ms. Rainsford, remember that you cannot interfere with anything of the past. The reason why is because if you do so, you will disrupt the pagkain chain, and all evolutionary changes. We can’t be sure where you are going to go back to, but what we can speculate is that if you do, the amount of change is proportional to how far back you were sent. There would be madami change if you were sent back a taon instead of an hour.

“And remember that you cannot take anything contaminant into the past, or bring anything back from the past. That will disrupt the space-time continuum, and cause the Earth to quickly relive its life until it has come to our time, but in a new future. Please, don’t do anything stupid. Dying while in the past will have the same effect. This is tricky business, so don’t screw anything up.” Soni’as had stepped inside the suit, and was beginning to zip up all its parts together.

“You’re saying it as if it’s easy to jump back in time, and not mess with anything,” Sonia scolded.

“I never sinabi it was easy. I’m simply trying to emphasize that you need to be careful,” the scientist corrected.

“I’ll look both ways before I tumawid the street,” she sinabi with a smile.

“This is no laughing matter!” snapped the scientist.

“I-I just tried to make things less tense. It seems as though everyone is telling me what to not do, but they aren’t telling me what TO do,” Sonia argued.

“Go in, and wait until we pull you out,” the scientist ordered.

“And how long will that take?”

Silence took over the conversation, which sent a chill down Sonia’s spine. She had finished zipping up her suit, and grabbed her helmet, which looked similar to a isda bowl.

“Come on, you’re killing me. You mean you don’t know?!” she demanded.

“You’re saying that as if it’s easy,” the scientist defended, shooting Sonia’s words right back at her.

Frustrated, she donned her helmet, locked it in place, and walked towards her own creation. The door opened slowly with a blaring alarm. Once the door opened completely, Sonia was cleared to enter. She almost felt as if her own creation, the time machine, was calling to her. Was she really going mad with all this stress and responsibility?

She stepped inside, and placed herself in a harness, which locked her in tight. This had to be done so that the accelerated particle hit, it hit at the right spot so that all of Sonia’s atoms came together correctly whenever the jump was made, assuming the jump would be made.

“Do me proud,” called Whitman from outside the contraption. At least that’s what she could tell he sinabi though the movement of his lips; her helmet was soundproof.

The door closed behind he, and she was alone, locked in the room of her own creation. She couldn’t be sure if this was going to work, if she would life, if she would still be herself, or anything else of the like. What would be the worst case scenario? The possibilities and probability was endless. What was the best case scenario? A quick death. Not likely.

Several pipe lines shot out a decontaminant towards Sonia. The pipe was a complete oval, and circled and spun around Sonia as to get every nook and cranny in her suit to make sure nothing was taken from the future into the past. Then, the chamber was lit with a bright light. The light wouldn’t let up. It was almost blinding, even with her eyes closed, and the psychological harm of not being able to ilipat or run away made this experience even worse. What could she do? What was happening? Was she dead? Could anybody hear her screaming through the soundproof helm?

Then came the explosion. It was painful for the briefness of a nanosecond or possibly even shorter. As she traveled through time, she was technically dead, traveling in a single file line as one long string of atoms that could have very well equaled the distance from Earth to the Sun. They all came together at one spot where she was sent. First her feet, then her legs, all the way until her whole body was slowly reconstructed. The pain was unbearable. Enlistment Qualification Examination was heaven compared to this excruciating amount of pain.

She laid there for possibly an hour, complaining to herself, though no one but herself could hear her. Then, she took in her surroundings. She still felt the pain of being atomically reconstructed, but the worst of it had already past.

Large plants, the size of Sonia herself, decorated where ever it was she was sent. The air seemed thick, disgusting, and humid. Thank God she had this kind of helmet, since she didn’t have to deal with whatever the air probably smelled like.

“Where am I?” she asked herself, and then scolded herself for thinking someone was going to answer her question.

Then, the floor gave a small shake. Sonia was startled, but didn’t think it was much. But it shook again, demanding attention. Each time the ground vibrated, it did so madami violently than the last, until she could see what it was. Inaudible to her ears, a stegosaurus, or at least that was what it looked like, was knocked onto its side, easily come upon sa pamamagitan ng a stampede of velociraptors, which swarmed the stegosaurus. When the beast came down, Sonia tried her best to get out of the way, but was to slow. As she jumped out of the way, both her legs were caught under the stegosaurus’ elongated neck. Thankfully for Sonia, her suit refused to let her legs get crushed. She was thankful for that.

The velociraptors, on the other hand, began surveying their catch for the day: the same stegosaurus which had pinned Sonia to the ground with its long neck. It was only a matter of time before she was found.

Desperately, she tried to pull her legs out from under the dinosaur which denied her movement. She tugged and pulled, but felt that the madami she tried, the harder it was to get out, considering the energy she was wasting. She still had to find a way out.

That was when a velociraptor came around the side of the neck to make sure the stegosaurus was dead. While doing this, the velociraptor saw Sonia, and called to the others in the rest of his pack. The one in front of her drew closer, and one appeared on tuktok of the neck where she was trapped. Two other came in beside the one that found her. Curious, they tried to smell her, but couldn’t identify the smell with anything.

Out of the blur, the stegosaurus gave one final burst of strength, whipping it neck around to whack away the raptors. Its neck passed over Sonia, pushing her into the ground, but allowing her to get off of the ground and away, since the neck was no longer on her. She got to her feet, but was kicked sa pamamagitan ng one of the stegosauruas’ legs as it was making a dying attempt to get away, which it had to get onto its feet in order to do.

Sonia landed, and saw a black lines appear at the peripherals of her helmet. She tried her best to get up, but it required a tremendous amount of effort. She eventually managed to get to her feet.

“What was that black stuff coming up my helmet?” she asked herself, catching her breath after pulling herself out of its grasp.

Her time to ponder was cut short sa pamamagitan ng a charging velociraptor charging straight at her. Out running it was out of the question. And what we the odds of her dodging to the side being successful? The other three were taking down the stegosaurus again, and would soon after turn their attention to her, ruling out dodging. She just had to braceherself. Her instinct, however, told her to jump to the side, and she did so.

Too late. She was rammed sa pamamagitan ng the raptor, and she was sent through the air, impacting something hard. The velociraptor seemed to not be chasing her any longer, considering she wasn’t screaming in pain, and pleading for mercy. Her head was spinning due to the impact, but when she regained her vision, she saw that what the raptor was stuck in was a tar pit. Awkwardly, Sonia noticed she was seeing this from a considerably high vantage point. She then remembered when she had to muster tremendous power to lift her head out of something that was beginning to cover her helmet. When she put two and two together, she deduced that her helmet was sinking into a tar pit. Lucky for her, she got out. Unluckily, some of the tar was still on the back of her helmet, explaining why she was so high: she was probably stuck to puno due to the tar.

She tried to cry for help, but then remembered: no sound came in, and no sound came out. She was helpless and would soon be a piñata to those raptors once they were finished with the stegosaurus. What could she do? A nineteen-year-old inventor stuck in the past about sixty-five million years ago, plastered to a puno because of tar, while she witnessed the brutalization of a stegosaurus in front of her very eyes, and the final moments of a velociraptor as it downed in a tar pit. Worst of all, she saw no way she could get out of this. If she managed a way down, there was no way to escape the raptors. If she didn’t, she would eventually starve. Either way, her imminent death was soon to alter the past, and destroy her future…