Outta Time Chapter 1: The Timely Obsession, a don't starve fanfic

Behold, ladies and gentlemen, the next Don't Starve movie rewrite! Sort of….Well, it follows the general idea, but departs from it somewhat….

Anywho, the idea wouldn't leave me alone, so I went with it. And it gets started today because on this day thirty years ago, Back to the Future was released in theaters. :)

Playing the role of Marty McFly is one Wilson Percival Higgsbury! He won't be trying to get his parents back together...

Playing the role of Doc Brown? Three guesses who'd fit.

If there was one thing twenty-seven-year-old Wilson Percival Higgsbury wished he had, it was more time.

Working several jobs to pay off his student loans, interning at Shanter University as a student professor, trying to squeeze in his science in his spare time, on top of now maybe almost going to the next level with his friend-maybe-girlfriend Willow—he was lucky he had any time to sleep.

Thank goodness he didn't have to worry too hard about rent.

Of course, if the current owner didn't show up soon, Wilson would probably have to hork up the house payment—or at least the utility bill, before the electricity was cut off.

Wilson nabbed a slice of toast as he eyed the wall of clocks. At least he wasn't the only one around obsessed with time. Let's see…seven forty. He had time.

Among other things, Wilson quite enjoyed music, and was working on teaching himself how to play various instruments. His favorite so far had been an alto trumpet, but a close second had to be the electric guitar—as ungentlemanly as it was, it afforded quite a variety of playing methods. Plus, he could do some mighty fine CCR riffs on it.

He hooked up his amp to the stereo, turned the volume up, and struck a chord on his guitar.

And was subsequently blown through the partition.

"Wow," he coughed. "Rock and roll."

He climbed out of the detritus with the intent of fishing through the remains of the stereo and finding out what went wrong when the alarm bell rung.

That setup had been startling the first time Wilson had heard it, but after getting immersed in his experiments a few times too often, he had to admit the wisdom of attaching the telephone to an alarm bell. He scrambled over to it and answered.

"Hello, Carter residence," he said distractedly into the receiver, brushing some dust off of himself. "Professor Carter is unavailable at the moment—this is Professor Higgsbury, may I take a message?"

"Say, pal, you don't sound so good."

"Max!" Wilson blurted before he recovered. "Professor, where have you been?"

"Working. It's a nice activity—you should try it sometime."

"You certainly haven't been working around here then," Wilson said irritably. "The University's seriously considering revoking your tenure, and I'm fairly certain the house is a week away from going black."

"That reminds me—be careful with the stereo; there's a slight chance of overload."

Wilson looked at the ruined contraption. "I'll try to keep that in mind."

Professor Carter's next comment was cut off by the wall of clocks all bonging the three-quarter hour.

"What was that?" Professor Carter asked.

"Your clocks," Wilson moaned, rubbing his ear.

"Really? What time is it?"

Wilson looked up. "Seven forty-five. Why?"

"On all of them?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Perfect! I was trying to see if I could sync them all an hour behind. It worked like a charm!"

Wilson's stomach felt cold. "Hold it, Professor—are you telling me that it's eight forty-five?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Thanks a lot!" Wilson yelled into the receiver. "I'm late for work!"

He slammed the phone and bolted for the door.

Even pedaling as fast as he could and taking all the shortcuts he could, it still took him ten minutes to get to Shanter University. He locked up his bike as fast as he could and ran up the steps as the door opened—

Willow Ember Burnshigh came out and caught him, turning him around.

"There you are!" she scolded. "Don't go that way—Professor Strickland is looking for you. He catches you coming in late, he'll skin you alive."

"That'll go nicely with that deer head mounted on his wall," Wilson commented.

"What are you doing so late anyway?"

"Professor Carter changed the time on all his clocks—"

A cane snapped across his chest, blocking his progress and forcing his attention to the shorter Professor Strickland.

"Professor Carter," Strickland noised. "I should have guessed. He's a bad influence on you, Mr. Higgsbury."

"Doctor Higgsbury," Wilson corrected.

"Please, you're no more a doctor than dean of this school," Strickland said, jotting something down. "You're late, Mr. Higgsbury—you've been late every day this week!"

"Actually, there was a reason for that—"

"Which no one wants to hear. You either straighten up, Mr. Higgsbury, or so help me, you are out! You don't have tenure covering your ascot like Carter does!"

And with that, he stormed off.

"That went well," Willow commented.

"No, Miss Willow," Wilson noised, watching him go. "The Hindenburg went well. That—went off like an atomic bomb."

Willow made a tsking noise before checking her watch. "Listen, I've got to go—Mrs. Wickerbottom will have my hide if I don't get back to shelving books. I'll see you later, okay?"

"Sure, sure," Wilson said, waving goodbye as she dashed off. So much for asking her for a romantic evening alone later.

He breezed into class, distracted—

In time to see something he wasn't ready for.

"What is this?" he squawked. "Put some clothes on this instant unless you want to see your GPA flushed down the loo! Out! Out!"

That squared away, he turned to his students.

"Honestly, we have standards at this school," he scolded, reaching up to pull the other chalkboard down. "So today we're going to discuss—"

He read the chalkboard. "'Da Vinci and the art of figure sketching,'" he read. "This isn't my class, is it?"