The machine rattled faster and faster.
KRRR… DING! DING!
The light flickered wildly.
And suddenly…
…everything changed.
The walls disappeared.
The engine room dissolved.
The children were no longer in the basement.
But on the schoolyard.
“What just happened?!”, shouted Leo.
“Time jump,” said Emil.
The schoolyard was full of children.
They played. Laughed. Ran around.
“This is a break,” said Mila.
“But an old one,” added Bruno.
The colors looked paler. The clothes more old-fashioned.
The little bell floated before them again.
Very calmly.
Ding…
“It’s showing us something,” said Emil.
The bell moved slowly across the yard.
The children followed it.
Then it stopped.
Next to a bench.
There sat a boy.
All alone.
He held something in his hand.
A small, round metal piece.
“Is that… a part of the bell?”, whispered Mila.
The boy looked sad.
“I just wanted a longer break,” he murmured.
“What did he say?”, asked Leo.
“He wanted to extend the break,” said Emil.
The boy looked around.
Then he hid the small piece in his pocket.
The bell made a soft sound.
Ding…
Sad.
“That’s the memory!”, said Mila suddenly.
“He took a part of the bell away!”
“And that’s why everything got messed up,” added Emil.
Leo pointed at the boy.
“We have to stop him!”
“But that’s the past!”, said Bruno.
“If we intervene, we change everything!”
The machine started to roar again.
KRRR… DING!
The schoolyard flickered.
The boy stood up and ran off.
With the metal piece.
With the memory.
The bell floated after them.
Ding!
And on the ground appeared a new sentence:
STOP HIM.