Adunni's hands trembled as she flipped through the yellow pages of her fathers journal . Her heart pounded as she skimmed passed pages of sketches of symbols, complex equations, and hurried notes written in her father's handwriting.
Then she saw it.
A folded sheet of paper tucked between the pages. She carefully unfolded it, her breath catching as she read the words addressed to someone she never expected .
Mr. Olamide.
Adunni's throat tightened, her father had written this letter to Mirabel's foster father. Why.
"Dear Olamide "
I'm writing to you in haste, as I fear I'm running out of time. My research on temporal displacement has led me to a groundbreaking discovery, but I'm afraid I may have meddled with the timeline in ways I never intended.
I've been noticing strange occurrences and anomalies that suggest my actions have created a ripple effect, altering the course of events in unforeseen ways. I'm terrified that I may have put not just myself, but everyone I care about, in grave danger.
I've tried to cover my tracks, but I fear it's only a matter of time before they find me.
If anything happens to me, I implore you to check the school archives. I've hidden my research and findings in it .It's crucial that you find it and understand the implications of my work.
Please, Olamide , be careful. I'm not sure who to trust anymore.
Yours desperately,
Adebayo Balogun.
Adunni gripped the letter tightly as silent tears rolled down her cheeks.she was confused and scared . But the horn of the school bus snapped her out of her thoughts. She wiped her tears with her sleeves then boarded the bus to school.
The thoughts on her to get the laptop was on Adunni's mind throughout the ride to school .
LATER THAT DAY....
Adunni eyes locked unto Mr. Okafor , her I.C.T teacher as he walked towards the school archives . She saw her chance and quickly caught up to him .
"Sir, do you need help with all those papers?" Adunni asked trying to sound as innocent as possible.
Mr. Okafor smiled ." Yes actually. Thank you Mirabel. I hope you're doing better and your memories are slowly coming back." He said
Adunni gave a warm smile . "Thank you sir . Yes I'm doing better." She said . Even though deep down she felt bad having to pretend to be Mirabel who was probably still missing .
Mr. Okafor's voice droned as they walked down the corridor towards the school archives. Adunni barely registered what he was saying .her mind was only focused on one thing : the laptop.
"…these records go way back…" Mr . Okafor continued. "Some of them haven't been touched in years."
Adunni nodded absently , her pulse quickened as they approached the heavy wooden door of the archives.
When they stepped inside, Mr . Okafor kept talking but adunni had begun focusing. Her breath slowed, her heart beats thudding like distant drums . "This has to work " she muttered under her breath.
She shut her eyes.
A surge of cold energy rushed through her veins, and when she opened her eyes again, they gleamed of an unnatural shade of blue. A wave of shimmering azure light pulsed outward from her body, expanding through the room, the hallway, the entire school .
Everything stilled.
Mr . Okafor froze mid-sentence , his mouth open but soundless . The dust in the air hung motionless. And beyond the door, the whole school stood trapped in eerie silence.
Adunni wasted no time. She darted towards the shelve, flipping through dusty old books and shifting stacks of dusty files. Her father had said his laptop was here but were?
Minutes stretched on, her breath growing uneven.
"Come on…..where is it ?" She said. As she hurriedly searched the shelves.
Then behind a stack of crumbling textbooks, she saw it.
A battered old laptop , its casing still scratched and worn.
She grabbed it and quickly hid it her school bag, she felt the field weakening . The energy around her trembled, then reversed- collapsing in on it self like a recording tide. The blue wave shrank back , spiraling into her body , and world snapped back into motion.
Mr . Okafor continued speaking , unaware of what had happen.
LATER THAT NIGHT....
Adunni got home, heart racing with curiosity and fear. She had finally found the laptop, and she couldn't wait to dig into it.
Adunni eye glued to laptop as she watched videos of her father in the shed. He made videos talking about how during one of his research he had stumbled upon a device that had "jumper"etched on its surface.
He talked about how he tried figuring what it was and how it walked . Upon handling the device he discovered it was a device used for time traveling , and he had traveled back to 1985 .
He explained how he had meet a woman named Aisha , who worked for the bureau of time . The bureau of time was an accent organization created at the dawn of time it self, tasked with regulating time lines and preventing the alteration of any event in time.
Aisha, Adunni's father revealed was a time avatar- a being created by the bureau of time as guardians to the timeline. How ever Aisha had fallen I love with Adunni's father and they planned to run away together. The problem was Aisha was already pregnant, and the Bureau's rule forbade relationships between Time avatars and and humans.
As the video closed Adunni's father revealed he had hidden the jumper in a statue at the university of Lagos.
At the end of the video Adunni fathers words were.
"I hope you find this on time big bro Olamide ."
Adunni's eyes widened as she priced together the connection. If Mr. Olamide, Mirabels foster father was her fathers brother , that made him her uncle.