Angelica sat at her computer, looking over her data, biting the tips of her fingers as she normally did when she was stuck on an equation. “This just makes no sense.”

Pulling out a stick of strawberry pocky, Angelica spun herself around in her chair a few times before suddenly stopping herself and quickly eating her pocky before her fingers began to fly across the keyboard. “That’s it! This has to work! Now, to feed it into the system. If I am right, a wormhole should open, folding time and space from here to across the room!”

The two large machines, each one looking like oversized death rays from an 80s sci-fi movie, were spaced out across the basement, pointing at each other, began to spark with arcs of electricity.

These arcs of electricity began turning purple and condensing on the metal balls at the tip of the machines. As these balls of electricity got bigger and bigger, they reached their peak and, with a flash of bright light, shot out toward one another.

As the two beams of purple light collided, a gravitational wave spread out through the basement. Papers and equipment were sent flying while Angelica's eyes lit up with a kind of maniacal smile appearing on her face as she climbed up from the floor. She had also been knocked over during the burst of gravitational waves. “Work! Work! Work damn you! Hahahahaha!”

Angelica’s eyes were locked on the point of contact between the two beams of light. What she was looking for was any signs of a disturbance in the air. A kind of warp in space-time. She did have cameras set up, but she had not expected the gravitational waves to send everything flying. If this were a normal lab, these things would have been bolted down and even covered by tempered glass.

Her professors had always told her to use controlled environments, but she did not think this was needed. She felt that the environment around her could also help with her experiments. This was why she had the basement windows open with fans blowing in the air from outside and couldn't care less about protection or keeping things away from the equipment.

Right now, she should be checking her data to see if her computer was still recording, but she had no time for such things at this time. Right now, before her very eyes, a tear in space at the center of the beam had formed. It was slowly opening, creating a cracked diamond-shaped window.

“Did I accidentally tear space instead?” Angelical knew this was also a possibility but never a proven concept. That was until now, since before her, was such a thing.

Her feet carried her forward. Even though she knew it was very dangerous to even go near this tear in space. Her curiosity and obsession were pulling her forward. Moving her, one step at a time, closer and closer to the crack.

“This is…” Angelica was confused as to what she was looking at. A night sky with three moons. A forest like one you would see on Earth. A run-down village right out of medieval times. The image in the crack kept changing, but she could hear the cries from the people, the smell of smoke from the fires burning. All these things were telling her that she was not imagining any of this.

But what she found strange was the images in the crack started to focus on a blue-haired, silver-eyed girl. She was running back and forth with arrows and rocks. She was passing many other children doing the same. From what she could tell, it looked like the village was under attack by bandits or another enemy.

- - -

“More arrows! Don’t let them get close to the wall!” Orders were being yelled across the eastern side of the village. Everyone was working hard to protect the village, even Lorei and the other children.

Lorei was running back and forth with arrows and rocks, doing her best to help in any way possible. She knew what would happen if the bandits got into the village. They would kill the older men and take the women and children. The children would probably be sold off someplace, but the children… they would be sold off to the highest bidder.

Her mother had long told her about such things. But what worried her the most was not herself but her mother. Her mother was sick. As her daughter, she pretended like she knew nothing because her mother didn’t say anything, but she was clear on this fact. Her mother was sick and getting sicker by the day. This was why she brought her a basket of flowers. It would not heal her, but it would at least cheer her mother up.

“Incoming!” A man yelled out. Lorei had a bundle of arrows in her arms as just about to hand them over to her mother, who was helping pass arrows to the archers, when a rain of arrows began falling from the sky.

“Lorie!” Lorie’s mother did not even need to think as she turned and tried to cover her daughter. The arrows fell one after the other, piercing through the young woman's back.

Lorie looked up at her mother, whose eyes were wide and filled with tears. She, too, had tears in her eyes. She felt pain in her chest, but that was not the cause of her tears. It was because blood was flowing from her mother’s mouth.

- - -

“That…” Angelica looked at the little girl who now had an arrow sticking out of her chest and at the woman who had at least twenty arrows in her back blankly. She was not heartless. Angelica felt bad for the woman and girl. She knew they were both going to die.

As Angelica watched the final moments of the mother and daughter, sparks began to shoot out of both her machines. The tear in space began to destabilize. The tear began to warp, focusing only on the little girl with blue hair as she closed her eyes for the last time.

“Wait no!” Angelica finally realized what was happening. She turned and wanted to try to stabilize things, but as she swung her body around, her hand swung out and slid across the tear, across the young girl’s forehead. She felt a strong pull, not on her body, but something much deeper than that, deep inside her body, and before she could react to what was happening, everything went black.