Vinnie's curiosity had been peaked, extremely. She was trying to get to sleep, while ignoring her mild insomnia, when a flash of light sparked her curiosity. This was extraordinary, because Vinnie had not heard of any meteoroid showers from any source she could get to, or any other thing that would involve flashes of light. The Husky Vinnie and her dad owned, Socks-who'd been named for his white marks on his legs that looked like socks, hence the name- had noticed the light as well. Socks lifted his head off the living room rug, his pointy ears turning. He turned his head and cocked it at Vinnie. "I'm guessing you saw that too, Socks boy." Vinnie said, getting up off of the couch (She had been sleeping there due to her father renovating and repainting her room upstairs). Socks got up on his snowy white legs and shook himself. He knew Vinnie too well to know that Vinnie was going to see whatever landed in the forest, even if it was a deadly man-eating species of alien or something of that nature. Vinnie found it convenient that she was still wearing her green camo-pattern jeans and her black fitted T-Shirt that had a graffiti "Brave" on the front. She slipped on her black converses, grabbed her thin white hoodie and opened the back door. She walked into the forest with little hesitation, since she'd been there many times and had a tree house further in, even though she knew from previous experiences that there were bears and wolves back there. 'But I'm brave,' Vinnie thought as she ventured into the forest. 'I'm not scared of any bears, or wolves.' Vinnie sprinted across dead leaves, eager to see what had landed in the forest. She hopped over a few logs and skipped off the rocks that jutted out of the stream. All went well until Vinnie came across a strange smell: Smoke. "But where's the fire?" Vinnie asked herself, cocking her head in both curiosity and confusion. She took cautious steps towards the source until she had reached the clearing in the middle of the forest. She followed the smell until she found it was getting stronger and that she could see a thin wisp of smoke rising from something mechanical. When Vinnie finally found the source, she stopped dead in her tracks. The machine the smoke was coming from looked very strange, like an alien spaceship or something the Jetsons used to ride around in. "What...is that?" Vinnie asked herself once more (Vinnie had a frequent habit of talking to herself, which was one of the many reasons why she had a very small friend circle). She slowly progressed to the strange machine, being once again cautious in case this actually was an alien ship or something like that. It was medium sized and red, and looked broken, but not too badly damaged, like whoever crashed it at least attempted a soft landing. Vinnie kind of knew how the strange thing-a-ma-jigger must've crashed. Vinnie and her father lived in the remote countryside of Alabama, but there was a large radio tower near the woods in a big field. Vinnie concluded that the tower must've interfered with the machine's controls, and it caused the machine to malfunction. Socks was sniffing the machine, and then he sniffed the ground. "What's up, Socks? Do you smell something?" Vinnie followed Socks until the dog looked in a bush and stuck his head in. The dog was in there for a minute before Vinnie decided to look in the bush as well. When Vinnie looked in the thorny bush, however, she was shocked to find a young boy there. The boy had a black hair that was mildly messy (Vinnie suspected that maybe he was operating the machine and was thrown from it) and his skin was slightly pale. He looked to be about her age (fourteen) and seemed to be about as tall as her. Vinnie looked to the machine and saw that the top of the strange vehicle was opened. "Oh, no. He must've been thrown from that strange machine..." She muttered. Vinnie tried to feel for a pulse on his wrist, and she did find it. Just to make sure he was alive though, she put her head on his chest. She heard his heart beating at a normal pace. Vinnie was relieved to see that he was okay, but what was going to happen to him out here? He could get eaten by bears, or he could die from starving or dehydration, or worse. Vinnie didn't want this boy to die, she wanted him to live. Even if he wasn' t human, even if he was a man-eating alien, she wanted him to live. Vinnie's heart was having a war with her head, instinct fought against intuition, and reason against gut. Vinnie's conscience was fighting with her.

"I should take him back home and care for him until he's okay"

"But you'll get into big trouble with your dad..."

"He'll die on his own out here!"

"But he could be an alien, he could just be obtaining a disguise to fool you. Didn't you see the machine?"

"Well, yes, but that "means nothing! He's a living being like me, and my dad, and Socks. He deserves to live as much as the rest of us!"

"He could be a deadly escaped convict."

"No! Stop it! Whatever he is I HAVE to help him! He's hurt and I'm not just going to leave him out here to die! I'm going to help him and that is my FINAL decision!"

Wilbur's head was spinning a bit. All he really could remember was crashing the time machine, being thrown from it and being knocked out. He had opened the top accidentally and next thing he knew he was thrown into a bush near a tree and hit his head. He did remember being in a bush with thorns and scratchy branches. But Wilbur didn't feel any thorns or scratchy branches now, in fact, he felt like he was home in his bed. Was crashing the time machine all simply a nightmare? Was he just dreaming? No, it felt too real. He was sure he got into the time machine, but at the moment, Wilbur couldn't remember why. Wherever he was, he concluded that maybe he was in a house. Wilbur found his guess to be correct when he opened his eyes. It looked like a basement, but this basement looked like someone lived in it. There was also a bed above him, so he guessed that there were either siblings in this basement or this person just had a bunk bed in their basement. Wilbur sat up only to hear a voice saying things like "I'm going to die..." and "My dad is going to kill me and dance on my grave..." He looked around the room, finding things like strings of lights shaped like blue phone booths, a few boxes and book shelves full of huge novels, but Wilbur also saw a girl. She looked about his age, with long brown hair that went to her mid back, and tanned skin, like she got a lot of sun. When she looked at him, Wilbur saw dark honey-colored eyes that simply looked frightened and scared. The girl stopped pacing and froze. For a brief moment, all they did was stare and breathe. Wilbur saw the girl put her hands over her face and muttered something he couldn't hear very well. Then the silence was broken when she said "I can explain everything please don't panic."