Her eyes enlarged, fingers trembling — the sight in front of her was something she had only heard about in whispers. Billionaires with hidden rooms, secret chambers where their "wildest dreams" lived… but she had never seen one.
And now? the exception she always believed her father was… shattered right in front of her.
The shelf opened with metallic gears clicking sharply, sliding backward into the wall. The dust that puffed out of the room was proof enough — nobody had been in this place for a long, long time.
Her legs shook violently. Adrenaline pumped at its all-time peak.
"What were you hiding, old man!"
Her voice cracked, eyes darting across the shifting shadows.
For the first time in years, the house felt foreign. Alien. Like she had been living beside a stranger masquerading as her father.
Frozen between curiosity and fear, weighed down by a thousand questions she should've asked years ago.
"Move, damn it. You have to finish what you started!" she hissed at herself, the same way their gym coordinator used to bark at them.
She pushed forward anyway, gambling everything on the hope that regret will never fill her on what she was about to uncover.
Thud.
Thud.
Darkness swallowing her whole. Unexplored territory, every inch of it humming with secrets.
Panicked, she unlocked her phone and switched on the flashlight. White light burst into the void, illuminating dust particles dancing in the air. Her legs continued to shake.
Thud.
Thud.
She moved deeper, every step cautious, her senses sharpened to the point where even a pin drop could send her sprinting for the exit.
"What the fuck…"
The room was galactic — a VIP-library-meets-science-sanctum. The walls were hospital white. The ground was polished wood. Everything smelled like old books mixed with sterile chemicals.
Right in front of her stretched a massive table, almost the same length as the kitchen one, but designed for someone sitting on an office chair to reach every part of it. It was buried under hundreds of books, diagrams, papers — and to the right, a huge blue globe replica stood proudly like some kind of trophy.
Beakers were scattered around, adding a strange gloomy, scientific aura to the place.
A complete package of wonder and confusion.
To the table's left stood four transparent tubes filled with different glowing chemicals, each one bubbling slowly at the bottom — bubbles rising in synchronized squads.
One question crawled up her spine — the same one you're probably thinking.
"Was Dad an evil scientist?"
Movies taught her one thing: rich people are messed up. Each in their own embarrassing way.
But her father?
He never acted strange. Okay, he had some weird quirks, but nothing unusual enough to push him into the "mad genius" category.
She shook the thought off and tried focusing on the room again, but her eyes dragged her right back to those tubes — to the liquids inside. Their glowing colors mesmerized her.
"I've seen those before…"
She dug deep into her memories, but everything came blurry, fragmented, refusing to connect. Still… something about them screamed Ross.
After minutes of trying to piece it together, she gave up.The pressure in the room was clouding her mind.
But a realization slipped into her head: it didn't matter what the liquids were. What mattered was why their dad wanted them to find this place. Why he never told their mother. Why he kept this entire section of his life hidden behind gears and dust.
A cloud of questions hovered everywhere — questions only a dead man could answer.
"Oh — a light switch!"
Click.
Light flooded the room from every direction. The secret door shut instantly behind her, exactly how its designer intended. No one is more careful than a husband with a secret.
She strutted to the table, sliding her phone back into her jacket.
Then she froze.
Right on the table lay an open book — elegant like the diary he once gave her.
Beside it were half-folded papers. At first glance, they looked like meaningless doodles — but the precision, the details, the intense planning behind every line… this was important. Very important.
Then she saw the writing.
PROJECT S.T.T.D
Below it:
Design
(A miniature circular device shaped like a ring — parts of it matching what she saw on the folded papers.)
NUMBER OF TESTS: 1.2 thousand
ERROR LOG:
A perfect energy source to sustain the jumps
Her heart pounded as she flipped the page.
Only one sentence marked the back:
GOAL: To create a device that time-jumps easily without using a large power surge.
Her forehead tightened, flooded with questions.
All along… her dad was building a time machine.
...…
Genki Zones
"I've been walking for more than ten minutes now — how am I supposed to train!?"
Ross complained loudly.
He trudged through an endless wasteland of sand, Sahara-style. His feet felt like they weighed a ton, his back drooped under invisible pressure, sweat pouring down his face like a broken tap.
At first, he didn't understand. But after several minutes, he felt it — this place was pushing him down. Like gravity here had an attitude problem. Every step? A battle. Every breath? A war.
If he weren't used to carrying heavy loads back home, he'd already be flat on the ground.
But even with all that, this realm was brutal.
Every second felt like he was being crushed under a mountain.
[You will know when we arrive]
"You've been saying that for a while now — but I still don't see anything! Why didn't you just drop me straight into the action!?"
[I know what am doing, just keep on moving]
Guuuu!!
The ground trembled violently, shaking up and down like a possessed earthquake. Sand piled on the sides, dust shot into the air.
A quake like nothing Ross had experienced before — except now he was the victim, not the witness.
"Wha… ts… cau… sing… this?"
His voice staggered as his whole body shook like he was strapped to a massage chair.
[Your training]
Medusaa answered plainly.
Something beneath the sand slithered quietly, sending Ross's nerves into overdrive. Luckily, the shifting sand revealed its path — the predator could no longer surprise him.
BOOOOM!!
A gigantic creature burst from the ground, launching itself toward him with a massive shadow swallowing him whole.
A spider.
But not the kind you squash.
This one was monstrous — huge metal-like legs covered in thick hair, a venomous tip dripping with toxin so fast-acting a single cut meant instant death. Its mouth was wide enough to swallow an adult dog whole.
Ross stared at the towering nightmare, his own tiredness evaporating instantly.
His senses exploded to maximum alertness.
"Oh… my… fuck."