"Emma!" Her roommate burst in her bedroom and skidded to a halt in front of her, pulling up his pants that had dropped down his legs in his haste. He looked like a mad scientist with his red hair all mussed up, his glasses askew and that gleam in his eyes which even coupled with that huge grin of his was kinda creepy.

"What the fuck?" Emma cried in surprise and sat up in her bed where she had been calmly reading her favorite book. She had never seen her friend like this and was starting to wonder if she should worry for him or herself. It seemed like he had definitely lost it this time.

"I did it!" He told her, jumping around like a lunatic.

"Did what?" She said, completely lost as to what was happening. As her friend was still doing his weird victory dance and chanting "I did it! I did it!" all around her room, not answering her she shouted "Archie!"

He stopped wide-eyed with a leg still in the air. She gave him a small apologetic smile for the shouting and asked again. "What did you do Archie?"

He dropped his foot to the ground. "My machine..." He told her, suddenly growing serious "It's working!"

"What!?"

"My mach-" He started to repeat but the blonde cut him off. "Yeah I heard you, man. But are you trying to say that your TIME machine is working?"

"Yes!" Archie nodded and barely caught his glasses as they slid down his nose. "Yes, I tried it myself. It's working!"

Emma looked at him and sighed sadly. Of course. The only real friend she's managed to make and he had to turn crazy before his 30th birthday. Perfect.

"And I want you to be the second one to try it, Emma." Archie continued, not realizing that his friend did not believe him. "Come on, follow me, it's in the living room!" And with these words he ran out of her room.

"Wait, Archie I-"

"I can't believe this is happening." Emma mumbled as she followed after her red-haired friend.

"Oh my god!" The chairs were piled up in one corner of the room, the sofa had been pushed against the back wall with the table folded on top of it, and the TV on top of the whole thing and the entire living room space was taken up by a huge metal contraption which looked like it would crumble to the floor with just one gentle touch. "Are you fucking kidding me Archie?" She yelled.

A hatch opened at the top of the machine and Archie's head popped up. "Oh no, this is the real deal believe me." He told her, his wide grin still firmly in place.

"This is unbelievable..." Emma grumbled.

"I had my doubts at first too" Archie said from inside the machine, his voice having a strange resonating quality now. "But Cricket here works like a charm."

"Cricket?" Emma asked as she moved closer to the side of the machine where she could see a sort of step she supposed was used to get in.

"Oh yes. That's how I called her. Because she jumps through time, you know? She's like a cricket in a way."

"She? This thing's a she?" Emma put one foot on the step very carefully, and as apparently Cricket was sturdier than she looked, she pulled herself up and could finally see inside through the whole at the top. It seemed quite clear that it was a one-person machine, there was barely even enough room for Archie alone.

"So... What are you doing?" She'd already watched him for a good five minutes while he pushed buttons, turned on switches and encoded numbers here and there. And now it was time to try and break it to him that his "Cricket" was clearly not working.

"I'm preparing it for your trip of course." He answered a bit absently, looking at a piece of paper he'd just pulled from his pants. "Aha! Yes, that was it!" Emma watched him push on a few more buttons and suddenly he looked up at her, a triumphant smile on his face. "Emma, get your jacket."

Taken aback, she didn't question it, went into her room grabbed her red leather jacket and came back in the living room. Archie was standing next to the machine now and said "Ok, now get in and listen to me very carefully."

"Archie, no I -" She started to say, thinking it was time to stop this madness.

"Don't worry. It's perfectly safe." He pushed her up on the step and she was about to tell him that enough was enough when she thought that maybe if she did what he asked, when the machine didn't work she could show him that he had just imagined it and his Cricket was just a big scrap of metal in the middle of their living room and nothing more. So she got in and looked up at Archie with a smile.

"Ok Emma, I put in the same coordinates that I'd put for me so you will find yourself sometime during the middle ages. I'm not quite sure when I couldn't see any dates or a calendar or something when I was there. Now, I landed quite close to a village on my trip, which is how I knew it was the medieval period, but you could possibly land somewhere else. Cricket here can work at any time of day or night, in whatever environment and I'm sure she would still work even if she was abandoned for a century, but of course to be sure you should probably not stay too long. Also you can get out of Cricket, walk around, explore and everything all you want but you should try not to be seen by anybody unless you can get local clothes or something because they would probably be very freaked out by your appearance and well, you never know, they might attack you or something."

"Yeah sure, you got it man! Don't be seen and don't stay too long. Well I'm gonna get going now -" She was about to push on the start button to get this over with when Archie stopped her. "No wait!" He handed her a piece of paper "Those are the coordinates to get back..." and a small black box about the size of her thumb "And that's so you can see Cricket once you're in the past. I thought people might panic if they saw our little friend suddenly appear out of thin air so it's completely transparent outside of our time. If you hold the box you'll be able to see it though."

"Er... Thanks!" Emma said, thinking it was getting worse by the minute. His Cricket could turn invisible now? How could he even believe that? She put the piece of paper and the box in the inside pocket of her jacket and waved at her friend who closed the hatch door above her. In the dim light of the tight space she could see the start button clearly. "Well, here goes nothing." She said as she pushed the button.

The entire world turned to a blinding white and seemed to start to spin around her. Emma closed her eyes and fell down as an intense pressure suddenly dropped on her shoulders. Then just as fast as it had begun, it all stopped.

Emma opened her eyes and sat up. Her head was killing her. What sort of a machine was this? Archie was definitely gonna regret having put her through that. She opened the hatch and protecting her eyes started saying

"Well I've got a massive headache now! I hope you're satis-"

Emma never finished that sentence as she had just realized that she was standing in the middle of a forest and, seemingly, in mid-air. "It really is invisible." She whispered looking underneath her. And that's when it hit her.

"That son of a bitch built a time machine!"

Hi guys! I thought this up the other night, what do you think? Is it worth continuing? Let me know