Escape from the Fourth Dimension

“Escape from the Fourth Dimension” is one of the outstanding stories of the first biannual International Short Story Contest 2018 written by Iniyan C.K, Queenmira Internationl School, Madurai, India.

Escape from the Fourth Dimension

It was a dark night and Fred walked into a dark cave. A monster glared out at him. It crept out and bit his hand off. Fred ran. He ran and ran and...Cliff! He fell over the edge and splattered his face. His eyes and ears popped out in the air and saw the monster yelling something at him. He heard someone calling his name. “Fred! Fred!”

Fred woke up and saw his teacher standing over him. “Detention for you young man,” he said.

Now you know what kind of trouble-making kid Fred is. Let me introduce myself to you. My name is _______________ and I am ______ years old. I live in ___________________ and I’m happy to meet you. Ha! gotcha! I’m not supposed to tell you my name until… well, I don’t know. OK. Now back to our story. Fred was on his way to detention when he bumped into someone. “Outta the way, four eyes,” he said. Then, suddenly something sharp stung his back. ”OOWWW!”

He turned around. Everything was normal. He started walking when he bumped into someone-- again. “Whoops!” said the kid.

“I dropped my glasses.”

“Hey!” shouted Fred. “You threw something at me!”

“Wait a minute! Are those my glasses stuck to the back of your shirt?”

“And my name is Iniyan, not four eyes.”

Fred glared. And suddenly he remembered something. How could he pass by me twice?”

So that’s Iniyan. A mysterious person smart enough to prank Fred himself. Wait… oops! Sorry. I rewinded one year back by accident. Okay. Fast forward one year.

It was a sunny day and Fred was playing some video games with Iniyan. Sorry, if I told you how they made friends, you wouldn’t have time to read the story.

After Iniyan went home. Fred was bored. He took a walk. While he was walking, he saw something. “What the...”

It was a giant crater. “Wait till I show Iniyan! And I've always wanted to feel an asteroid, too.” So Fred started digging through the crater. Crunch!Crunch!Crunch!Crunch!

* * *

Iniyan was on his computer, he loved science. All he came up with was one article about someone finding a large crater. He had dug underneath it and found technology. But no one listened to him. Iniyan read it again and thought “You’re digging the wrong hole, Fred.”

* * *

Fred finally hit something. He dug around it. Unfortunately, it wasn’t an asteroid. Instead, it was a ten-foot fall into a high tech base. “Whoa! This place is weird.”

Fred didn’t know that it was an entrance to something larger than a room. When he entered, he heard voices. Fred hid and peered out. He saw men and women dressed in giant, white, outfits. It took Fred a long while to identify them. Astronauts! Fred tried to get out, he heard a thundering

Boom!

Fred was scared. He didn’t know where they were going or when they would return to Earth.

But just before he could do anything, the door started to close. Fred called for help, but no one heard him. Tears came to his eyes.

Two days passed. How did he survive? He was in the extra Food and supply storage. Fred had a bad feeling about the astronauts not coming in there for a long while.

* * *

Time moved slowly. Whirling twister cloud clusters shot here and there and finally swirled into one centre point. Inside, was the most dangerous vortex in the whole galaxy, The black hole.

* * *

Fred heard something. He put his head to the locked door. He heard them say “WHAT?”

“Yes,” said another voice. “We never trained for this, said the third one. “We can handle it,” said the fourth. They were arguing over something, but Fred couldn’t tell what. Then finally he heard. A black hole. Fred was horrified. He called out for help. Still, no one heard him. Then, he heard someone say “Let’s leave the extra food storage here and shoot an escape pod with the main food storage in it!”

Brilliant!” said another astronaut.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”screamed Fred.

Suddenly, he felt like being on a roller coaster. He quickly grabbed a spacesuit from the supply section. Then he felt a painful feeling, a powerful surge of power go through his body. The power whirled around him. He felt like a fluid. He flew down into a house. “I’m back on Earth!”When he was about to leave, he remembered his scream “AAAAAAH!” He recalled where he was and fainted.

* * *

6. 27. 4014 was on his way home, gliding on his hover board. When he got home, he greeted his mom and dad and went straight to bed, not noticing the unconscious person lying on the floor.

* * *

Fred woke up to find himself on a very comfortable bed. 6. 27. 4014 stood over him. “Ancient clothing T-shirt?”

Fred pushed him off. So then, there was a lot of talking about how Fred got here. When he mentioned his name, 6. 27. 4014 was shocked. “You mean superhuman Fred who had the power to control time when he goes into a black hole?”

“Exactly!” said Fred. Less than a week, Fred was ready to be launched into a black hole again. He said bye to 6. 27. 4014 and his parents. Then, in a split second, he took off. When he entered the black hole, he felt the same pain he felt before- 2000 years. Before he could even think a command to time, a hand gripped his shoulder. Fred spun around, a little too fast, knocking the glasses off a kid. “Iniyan?” Fred gasped.

Iniyan picked his glasses up in a flash and poked Fred. In a few seconds, they both were on a sidewalk near Fred’s house. “How did you do that?” asked Fred.

“Long story,” said Iniyan. “Well, I’ll go study science.”

“You know what?” said Fred. “I’m coming with you.”