November 15th, 2036. In a lab within the 16th district of Blue City.
"Are you sure this will work, Snow?. We've been working on this together for over ten years now and nothing seems to be changing about the prototype, still showing the same effects as it has for the last ten years." A voice spoke behind a glass-covered frame.
"I personally think we should drop this and just give up, it's practically impossible. Do you know how impossible it is to achieve this?! Engineers, scientists, if they haven't had any breakthrough, what makes you think we'll be any different?!."
A figure turned to the owner of the voice speaking behind the glass-covered frame with a smirk on its face.
"It's simple, we have something they don't. An energy source powerful enough to create dark particles, so the hydrogen particles can collide with it and distort space and time, thereby creating a doorway through space, think Joe, think!" Snow gestured with his fingers while holding a particular accelerator.
"You can't be so sure that would actually create a doorway in space and time Snow, we've already blown up so many labs because of this already, we quit our jobs and we've lost almost everything we had just to make this dream come through but was it worth it Snow?" Joe, the man with the voice behind the glass-covered frame finally stepped into the light.
"It's all about patience Joe, nothing more, nothing less. We've lost almost everything but not this energy source which is the key to this scientific breakthrough, don't give up after we've come this far now." Snow pleaded, turning to Joe who wore a sour expression on his face.
"I applied for a job, Snow. I can't keep doing this with you, I know I promised to see this through to the end but, it's been ten years and there has been no progress and there probably won't be any." Joe spoke while choosing his words carefully to avoid an argument.
"I think you should give it up as well, just for our friendship's sake. As your friend, I applied for you as well, we can both have our old jobs back and become who we were meant to be, not some scientists that are wasting their potential on something that won't work!."
"We've been in the shadows long enough, Snow. I think it's high time we step into the light and embrace the reality set before us. Someone in the future will definitely succeed in creating a time machine but maybe it wasn't meant to be us, Snow." Joe continued, trying to talk Snow into accepting his perspective.
Snow on the other hand continues the creation of the machine while listening to Joe, signifying that he might not take Joe's words as seriously as Joe takes them.
"Let me tell you one thing Joe, there are two things in life. It's either you give up and live a regular life like the rest of the world, or you choose a different path and be ready to never give up."
"I mean commitment, discipline and strong will and I never follow the crowd, maybe you do but I don't." Snow finally spoke, still concentrating on whatever he was doing.
"Hand me the golden visor over there" he stretched out his hand to Joe who stood close to the tool desk.
Joe reached and grabbed the golden visor and handed it over to Snow.
"I understand what you mean, Snow. But let's be realistic, I haven't seen anything bad come out from following the crowd. I mean, the freaking path has already been created, it's left for you to walk on it." Joe continued.
Snow shook his head, wiping his hand clean with the rag set on the table beside him, then turned over to Joe who had already packed his items to leave the B.U.R.J. lab.
"I understand your point of view, Joe. But I have no intention of changing my mind, not now, not ever. I do wish you a happy life out there, for me? I'll continue what I've started until I either complete it or I die trying."
Joe stared at Snow's expression as he spoke, and it didn't show any other expression than that of a determined individual.
Though it hurt Joe to leave his friend to accomplish this impossible task alone, there was nothing he could do, or he felt he had done his best and couldn't continue anymore.
"I see you're not ready to change your mind, and there's no way I'm changing mine either." Joe started.
"Please don't, go live and enjoy your life, my friend. You deserve the best, you've already done your best and gone past your limit, so yes I understand if you say you want to leave." Snow interrupted, extending his hand for a clean handshake.
Joe stared at Snow for a long while before extending his hand as well. They stood there shaking hands for a while before Joe said his last words.
"I wish you the best bro, I hope you accomplish your dreams soon enough. I believe in you, because you always go past your limit whenever you want to achieve something."
With two fingers, Joe saluted Snow before picking up his luggage and rolling it out of the lab.
Snow stood with his dirty lab coat on, his right hand on the tool desk as he watched his childhood friend leave his life and their dream for a better life.
*sigh*
He heaved heavily, turning back just as the door slid shut.
'It was expected, not everyone can see the dream. After all, only one person sees it and the other supports or completes the dream.'
– –
Nightfall came and Snow lay quietly in his cabin ruminating on his thoughts and the day's events.
"Today, I lost my childhood friend. I don't know what else might be able to make me happy. A friendship of nearly twenty-five years." He murmured to himself, staring at the cabin's ceiling.
He felt so negative, he could feel the negative energy around him. Usually, his friend was the positive battery in his life after he lost his family and friends to complete this project.
'Negative!' An idea struck him at that very moment.
He got down from his bunk bed and rushed to the lab facility where the time travel prototype was.
'What if I remove all positive ions during the collision, it might just become negative enough to create a wormhole!' He jittered, grabbing the particle accelerator from the tool desk.
He turned on the machine and watched as the hydrogen particle rotated at one point, while the other point released black energy balls, rotating around each other.
Then he placed the particle accelerator in the middle bulb, before releasing both particles into the tube.
He took his glasses and comms from the tool desk and stepped back, watching as both energies leaked into the tube.
They rotated around each other for some seconds before finally colliding with the particle accelerator which enhanced their energy output.
Just at that moment, Snow pulled the lever and released the hydrogen particles back into their bulbs, leaving the negative energy and the particle accelerator in the tube.
'There, now it should work!' He turned on his comms, placing them close to his lips.
The negative energy started expanding slowly, forming a small pathway within the tube, and then it slowly expanded past the tube.
Inside the tube, was a wormhole. Exactly Snow's dream, sitting inside a tube.
He stepped closer, opening the tube to view the wormhole properly as it expanded.
"I can't believe it actually worked!" He screamed at the top of his voice.
Just as he started celebrating, the systems overloaded. The energy was too negative for the bulbs to handle and they started fluctuating.
"No, no, no!. This isn't supposed to be happening, I planned this properly!" His eyebrows folded into a frown.
He sprinted to the systems and started trying to reduce the amount of dispersing negative energy but as expected, it was way too much for the system to handle.
"This doesn't make any sense, this size of a black hole shouldn't be able to cause this amount of damage to the systems!!"
He tried the emergency switch that was his last resort if something like this ever happened.
A large hydrogen particle flew right past the negative wormhole and it disappeared.
'Phew!! It worked.' He fell to the ground.
Then a larger wormhole formed on the spot, with the positive energy of the hydrogen particle, it expanded way past what Snow anticipated.
Slowly, everything within the facility started getting pulled in, but unlike the smaller wormhole that pulled little things, this one pulled much larger things.
Each was just as big as Snow, which meant now he was no longer safe from its pull.
He tried to start running but the pull got stronger and his leg force wasn't strong enough to overpower it.
'This is what I get for skipping leg day!'
Little by little he got closer to the wormhole, and his life began flashing before his eyes.
"This is not how I intended to go, not now, and definitely not this way!" He screamed, holding onto the tool desk tightly.
Seconds later, everything in the lab was vacuumed into the wormhole, including Snow.