Upon arrival
19 Jul 2017 | MauriceThe time machine was a masterpiece of curved tubes, pistons, and gauges. Every piece was necessary and beautiful. Dr. Moreau did not slack in his responsibilities to science. The room was covered in diagrams, calculations, estimations, and several scale models of the time machine.
He checked the gauges and grinned. His machine had drained power from the city for the last two weeks while he finished preparations, and now they read full. It was time.
He climbed into the machine and pulled out his reference checklist. He didn’t need it, but it never hurt to be prepared. Which is why he had a toolchest attached to the underside of his chair.
The machine started to hum as he ran diagnostics and steam hissed through the room. He pulled out his pocket watch and set the return time dials on the machine to one hour in the future: 1910 July 5th 6:45pm. It wouldn’t do to arrive before departure, that’s how careless time travelers of the future would die. He chuckled to himself, most scientists wouldn’t even consider such things.
He took in his little apartment once more, and with the wind of the spinning hoops around him, he pulled the engagement lever.
The king and queen often rode through the countryside together. A particularly favorite path wound through the East wood and along the riverside. The embankment to the frothy river on one side and the rolling valley on the other offered them the perfect venue for discussing the fine line they walked between chaos and order.
It was a small and insignificant kingdom, and they knew it. Their ambitions were not great, but they were noble. They both wanted to grow to more than the single village and outlying territories, but only insomuch as they wanted their son to grow up to be a responsible and even keeled man–which they struggled with greatly.
Their village was peaceful and quiet, yet growing slowly and vibrant with life. It was self sufficient, and sometimes months would go by without any interaction with the small castle in the woods. They didn’t intend to neglect the village, but their son Adam was more than strong willed, and it took most of their energies to try and teach and discipline him.
That day was not unlike any other day, until the most unusual event occurred.
Lightning struck from a clear sky.
Lights flashed around Dr. Moreau like sparklers, then a booming sound that compressed his chest. For a moment he was falling, and for those brief seconds, he cursed himself. After all those calculations and preparations, he had not taken into account the height of his apartment over the previous landscape.
Before he hit the ground, he saw two horses with wild eyes leaping backwards off an embankment. Their riders shared the look of horror in their steed’s eyes. What an odd sight.
Something sharp made contact with his head when the time machine did hit the ground, and Dr. Maurice Moreau’s trip to the 1700s began with unconsciousness.