RPG: The Time-Turner [Suspended]

[Phoenix in the Ashes]

"I can't go home," said John. "Not like this. My dad will be so angry."

"You'll have to sometime," said Sarah.

"I know. Here, give me that," John pointed to the mysterious object. "I'll look after it." Linda reluctantly handed it to him. "I suppose we'd better go then," he resigned. He frowned at the tangled wreckage of his bike, and sighed. Why had he been so stupid?

He put the long golden chain of the object around his neck, and felt the hourglass lightly swing against his chest. For some reason he felt that that was how it was supposed to be worn.

For a few minutes, the four teenagers tried to identify the easiest possible way of delivering John safely to Sarah's house. When they eventually formed their plan of action, it was less than perfect but would have to do.

Except that it wouldn't, in fact, ever be done. Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, their strategy would never be tested. For at the time of Linda, Tancred and Sarah's furious discussion, John was fingering the small golden hourglass and the end of the beautiful chain of light, flipping it over in his hands to see if it was just as stunning from below as above.

Indeed it was. But then the world turned upside down. Sort of. It seemed as though birds in the sky were moving quicker than usual, even backward. It was as though he had just pressed the rewind button on the remote control, but it wasn't just the television being affected. His friends were around him still, but they were moving away from him and into positions that felt familiar, as though he had seen them there before.

And then his world stopped spinning, and he noticed Linda and Tancred a short distance away. Sarah was nowhere to be seen.

Tancred Myck appeared running around the corner and vaulted over the low fence. He didn't hold much store in things such as walls. He found that they just go in his way. He landed with a crunch on a pile of old twigs and leaves still left over from last fall. Tancred continued to run towards the tree where he tried to meet with his friends each day. He was almost there when he tripped over one of his own overly-large, feet. His back-pack went flying off of his shoulders and flew thruogh the air. It opened and sent a shower of green apples, pens, some books, a pair of cleats, uniform, and grass covered football over the ground until it landed on the ground with a thud. Next to the old, gnarlged, oak.

John stood next to it, but feeling slightly insecure, hid behind a large swooping branch.

Linda barely contained her laughter as her friend Tancred tripped and fell over. She knew she had to wait for the perfect moment before pulling the practical joke. And was is it. Tancred was crouching down to wash the dirt off his hands in a nearby pond. Linda stealthily made her way to a branch hanging right over Trancred, and.... WHAM! Jumped ontop of him, sending him crashing into the water, with her just grabbing a nearby weeping willow's branch and swinging back onto the grass.

This was crazy, John thought. What was happening to him? He looked down at the small golden object leaning against his chest. It resembles an hourglass, he thought. Hourglasses represent time, obviously.

The apparent facts were too many to deny. He had gone back in time.

[FawkesthePhoenix]

Linda gasped as John disappeared. What the heck was happening?

[DucksRMagical]

Sarah screamed the moment John disappeared. She stood there, unable to believe her eyes. After a few seconds, she regained her composure a bit and turned to Linda. "What happened? Where did he go? He was holding that thing that your mother used to have! What did it do?!" Her voice was becoming higher by the minute. Her heart beat fast. What had happened to John?

[Phoenix in the Ashes]

He waited and watched behind the tree as all the events of the previous thirty minutes literally caught up to him. He saw himself join the group, and snatc hthe letter off Tancred. He watched the race and desperately wanted to stop himself from hurtling into the tree, but he was no fool. He knew that if he interfered with himself finding the necklace, it could wreck the fabric of time.

He was silent behind the tree, and got a very weird feeling watching himself fall unconscious. He saw Sarah's head on his chest, and saw it being flung off when he had awakened. Finally, he saw the four friends devising a plan to get him to Sarah's house, and he saw himself disappear into thin air.

He sat down in front of the old oak tree.

"Hi," he waved at them.

[GodrictheGriffon]

"Ahhh!" Tanc let out a scream that had the ducks flying off teh pond a few hundred meters away. He slapped himself across the face to make sure that he wasn't dreaming. Then he did the same to John's to make sure that he wasn't a hologram. He wasn't. Red's hand connected with solid matter.
"Where'd you go and how did you get back?!"

[DucksRMagical]

Sarah's heart skipped a beat as John appeared again. "Wha-what happened? You were there, and now you're there. You disappeared, but now you're back. And that necklace, what did it do? Are you okay?" she stammered.

[FawkesthePhoenix]

"I-- I think I know. Well, sort of. I once saw my mum twirl that thing and disappear. I thought it had been a dream." Linda said slowly. "But I guess it wasn't. Where did you go?"

[Phoenix in the Ashes]

"Ow!" he exclaimed as Tancred's hand connected with his face.

"I don't think you'll believe this," he told them. "It's not so much a where, Linda, as a when. The when being thirty minutes ago."

They just stared at him.

[GodrictheGriffon]

Tancred was the first to speak. "You idiot John! You weren't wearing a helmet, were you? You must have hit you're head. We need to get you to a hospital or something."
The truth was was that Tanc really blmed himself. If he had just put the note in his pocket instead of his bag it never would have flown out of his bag, and they wouldn't have fought, and....

[FawkesthePhoenix]

"When....." Linda murmured softly. She looked up at the clouds. Her imagination started crafting images again. Or maybe, it wasn't her imagination. Maybe others could she what she made. What if....

[DucksRMagical]

"What?!" Sarah shouted in disbelief when John told them he'd gone back in time. "But that's impossible! I think..." Sarah suddenly wasn't so sure it was impossible to go back in time. John hitting his head would explain why he thought he did, but how would it explain his disappearance? They had all seen him disappear and reappear. "Linda, you've got to tell us all you know about that thing."

[Phoenix in the Ashes]

"You've seen the thing before? What do you know about it?" John was finding Linda infuriating, why wouldn't she just answer?

John held the small, fragile-looking object in his hands. He was scared to hold it too tightly. He was also starting to wonder if it had all been a hallucination.

[GodrictheGriffon]

"You guys are all nuts. It must have been a trick of the light or a flaw in the string-particle theory or something. Or maybe it was something in the air that's causing us to hallucinate. They're was a gas leak at the convenience store down the road. That could have caused it. Or a plant somewhere. But John could not have disappeared just like that!" Tancred snapped his fingers for emphasis. He had put up with a lot of strangnesshanging out with this crowd, but this was just to much. He was putting his foot down.

[Phoenix in the Ashes]

John had to know. Without thinking, he twirled the hourglass-shaped pendant in a full rotation. Once again, he felt the strange sensation of the world going backwards, before the swirling stopped and all was normal. Supposedly.

As had happened before, he was standing in the same place as he had been when he had twirled the hourglass. That seemed to be how the thing worked.

With shock, though, he realised that he was standing in the open, very exposed - all of his friends were relatively close to him - and once again he felt the strange sensation of seeing himself. He scurried behind the tree again, knowing that he shouldn't be seen. He watched himself. His leg was already broken, and yes - the group was preparing to disembark to Sarah's house. John watched himself struggle. Did he really look like that? He looked away for a moment as a strange-looking cloud in the sky caught his eye. When he looked back, John jumped, and he heard a scream. The other John had disappeared. Of course, he thought.

"What happened? Where did he go? He was holding that thing that your mother used to have! What did it do?!" reacted Sarah. John examined the scene closely, it was very strange being able to watch the events unfold around him, especially as he had seen these ones befo - hang on, where was...?

"Hi," he heard a strangely familiar voice very near to him.

"Ahhh!" Tanc let out a scream that had the ducks flying off the pond a few hundred metres away. He slapped himself across the face, and then he did the same to John's. He was real. Red's hand connected with solid matter.
"Where'd you go and how did you get back?!"

"Wha-what happened? You were there, and now you're there. You disappeared, but now you're back. And that necklace, what did it do? Are you okay?" Sarah stammered.

"I-- I think I know. Well, sort of. I once saw my mum twirl that thing and disappear. I thought it had been a dream." Linda said slowly. "But I guess it wasn't. Where did you go?"

"Ow!" he heard himself exclaimed as Tancred's hand connected with his other self's face. John almost felt the tingling himself.
"I don't think you'll believe this," First-Traveller John told them. "It's not so much a where, Linda, as a when. The when being thirty minutes ago."

They all just stared at him, and so did he.

He waited for the moment that he could reappear; when Second-Traveller John embarked on the journey that he was just concluding. Soon after, it came.

Hearing them all scream again at a second disappearance, he walked around the tree and into view of the group.

He bowed. "It's no hallucination."

[DucksRMagical]

Sarah let out another scream as John disappeared and reappeared again. She turned to Tanc, "See! No hallucination! You can't have missed it that time. Every time he turns that thing, he disappears and then reappears. Must be strange. I'm assuming you see yourself when you go back in time? That's got to be the craziest thing ever. Can I try it? Hmm, I wonder if we could all go back in time at once..." Sarah said with a mischievous grin.