Lucy - Sat. August 12, 2017
Lucille Anne McCoy, who went exclusively by Lucy, was a 27 year old woman with self-esteem issues and social awkwardness. She was used to blending into her surroundings and to be honest, she preferred it that way. She was an elementary school teacher and she absolutely loved her job. The children didn't care what Lucy looked like, how many friends she had or what her love life was like. They liked her for who she was and their trust and honesty was so refreshing, she never had to wonder what was on their minds, or if they liked her or thought she was weird, like she did with adults. Lucy had always struggled to build relationships with people, and it wasn't because she was mean, dumb or ugly (not that that would matter), but it was because she felt, very deep down, that no matter how hard she tried she just didn't belong. People generally liked her, but even social successes still felt like failures because they did nothing to make her feel like she belonged. The last time she had truly felt like she was a part of something and was meant to be there was when she was 8 years old, and a lot had happened since then.
Lucy had been in a couple of relationships, but none had worked out, and no matter how much Lucy told herself she was in love, it always felt wrong somehow, like she was still out of place. That didn't mean she didn't get hurt of course, that would have made not fitting in almost worth it, but she wasn't spared from that. Her last relationship had lasted five years and she had loved Freddie, it hadn't been like the love you saw in the movies where you couldn't eat and couldn't sleep because of your love for the other person, but she was sure it was still love all the same. She had assumed that Freddie had felt the same about her, he had never said any different and yet year after year Lucy expected a ring, and got nothing. Then, two months after their fifth anniversary, he broke up with her after she found a password protected folder on his phone with another woman's name on it and she had questioned him about it. Devestated was not a broad enough term to describe how Lucy felt, it had shaken the last vesitiges of Lucy's emotional foundation and she knew it would only take one more hit to send it crumbling to the ground. It had made her an even bigger introvert and she often sought out seclusion. That had been two years ago, and without even realising it, Lucy had all but given up hope of ever finding her other half, not that she was looking of course. She was perfectly content to go about her days in business casual wear, making small talk with other staff members when need be, and spending her nights alone in sweats with her auburn hair piled up ontop of her head and a good book or some mindless T.V. She didn't care, it was other people that seemed to have a problem with it. Co-workers were always trying to get her to participate in extra-curriculars or team building activities. Nosey neighbours that suggested she go out more or her well meaning, but pushy, step-sister making her a tinder profile and trying to make matches for her. Everyone seemed to think that being alone in her late twenties was the worst thing in the world and her lack of concern on the subject made it even harder for her to fit in.
"I don't get why you hide your hotness, you're a total babe if you try." Melodie, her younger step-sister often said. It was so effortless for Melodie of course. She was a cute, average height of 5'4, she was rail thin with a great butt. She was blonde haired, blue-eyed and turned heads in almost anything she wore and she just exuded confidence. Melodie was always put together, she was one of those women that enjoyed doing her hair and make-up everyday and thinking about her outfits, whereas Lucy simply thought that that was a waste of time. Lucy's hair was just past shoulder length, pin straight and very lack-lustre. Lucy had never learned to do anything with it apart from brushing it, throwing it up into buns or pony-tails and of course your standard braid but, even if she had, she would end up looking dishevelled anyway, even the rare occasions she did put effort into her appearance a few hours later she looked like she had just weathered a storm. Once, a school friend's mother, had beautifully curled Lucy's hair and did some sort of fancy up-do with it for their grade 8 graduation and by the end of the ceremony half of the pins had slipped out as well as most of the curls, leaving Lucy's hair with a weird kink in the middle of it, which you can imagine looked just great in all of the photos. Lucy might have said she had pretty eyes, they were a very vivid green colour, the exact same colour that her mother's had been, and her mother's eyes were gorgeous, but Lucy's eyes were on the smaller side and she was often squinting in annoyance and they always seemed to look suspicious taking away any affect the bright colour may have had. She also had a row of freckles that spattered her cheeks just under her eyes and went across the bridge of her nose and it was that more than anything else that got noticed, and being noticed for freckles was almost worse than not being noticed at all so Lucy often wore non-prescription glasses just to have another thing to hide behind.
There would be no hiding at the event that Lucy was being forced to attend that night however. The chairman of the schoolboard was hosting some sort of party, or gala, at an art gallery and the principal of her school had made it very clear that everyone was expected to be there. Lucy had considered bailing and reminding the principal that she couldn't be fired for not going to a party come Monday morning, but it was coming up to the time of year that reshuffling of staff in the school district happened and Lucy didn't want to have to leave her comfort zone and go to another school, which there was probably a higher chance of happening if she didn't go to this party. Melodie happened to be in town not long after the invites went out and insisted on taking Lucy to the mall to buy a new dress for the event. Lucy had every intention of wearing an old, comfortable, unassuming dress she already had, but that would never fly with Melodie, so it was for that reason that Lucy wandered around the art gallery a few nights later in a form fitting, green, strapless dress, made out of some sort of satiny material with a matching shrug. Lucy couldn't remember a time she had felt more uncomfortable. Lucy wasn't amazon tall or anything, but she was above average height, she wasn't over-weight but she certainly didn't feel small enough to be wearing such a form fitting dress and she wasn't the most elegant person in the world either and therefore opted for flats as opposed to heels whenever possible, but just as Melodie had refused to let her wear a dress she already owned, she vetoed the flats and forced Lucy into a pair of silver heels. The only fight that Lucy had won, was her hair which, she had left down but one side pulled up with a sparkly clip.
Her co-workers had all commented on how nice she looked and that they had never seen her so dressed up, and Lucy flushed furiously each time and longed for her sweat pants. The party wasn't as awful as she had expected though, the food was good, the drinks were strong and there was lots of room to wander and avoid small talk or co-workers she would rather not talk to on a good day never mind one where she felt like dress-up Barbie. Lucy was just beginning to think that she might loosen up and have a good time that night when she turned a corner and saw Freddie in a suit with some skinny, short brunette on his arm. Of all of the things she had expected to happen tonight, running into him was not one of them. He had nothing to do with the education industry, he was a car mechanic, which meant it had to be the girl on his arm that brought him there. Lucy looked about her wildly wondering where she could slip away unseen, but she had turned into a wide open corridor with no nooks or crannies to save her, and before she could turn around and run away he looked up and saw her. He was frozen to the spot for a second and their eyes locked, then he looked down guiltily at the girl and dropped her hand. Lucy rolled her eyes and turned around.
"Lucy?" He called. The sound of his voice, still so familiar despite the two years that had passed since they were last together, echoed around the hall and sickened her. She ignored him and continued to walk back the way she had come, but to her horror he continued to call after her and she could hear his footsteps following along behind her.
"Lucy! Come on!" He had called, closing the distance between them.
"Hey, come on, let me talk." He said, hand closing around Lucy's elbow. She immediately ripped her arm from his grasp, feeling disgusted that he had just touched her.
"You had five years to talk." Lucy managed to say through her anger. Her last nerve snapped then and Lucy could officially handle no more. She turned around and actually ran down the hallway as fast as the stupid dress would allow, looking for any door out of the building. She knew that she should have said her piece, and calmly went and found her boss and co-workers and made some sort of excuse to leave instead of just running out of there, but she couldn't do it. She had nothing left to give that night and just had to get out of there before she completely unraveled. Finally, spotting a door, Lucy threw herself into it and went bursting out into the night. She gulped in the fresh air and tried to steady her breathing, the absence of people helping immensely. After a moment her heart rate had almost returned to normal and she could think clearly, but instead of making things better, it only reminded her that she had carpooled in a limo with her other staff members, meaning she was going to have to hail a cab. Sighing, she trudged around the side of the building towards the front and almost cried with relief when she saw several cabs parked in front of the gallery. Lucy gathered up as much of the dress as she could in one hand and ran towards the line of taxis and as soon as she reached the first, she knocked on the passenger side window.
"You lookin' for a ride?" The middle-aged driver asked, his voice gravelly like he had smoked a pack a day for the last twenty years. Lucy nodded and muttered a 'please' and jumped in the moment he nodded towards the back seat.
"Where are we headed?" The man asked as soon as Lucy had climbed into the back and closed the door behind her. Lucy gave him her address and then slumped against the seat, feeling totally defeated. Her one cinderella-esque evening, the one night that might have convinced her to 'rejoin society' so to speak, had gone down in flames. Lucy's body had an annoying habit of producing tears when she was sad, angry, happy, or basically feeling any strong emotion, and she was fighting them back as she stared out of the window into the darkness.
"Looks like we'll have to take the scenic route." The driver said. Lucy blinked and looked out of the windshield to see that the on-ramp to the highway was closed for construction. Lucy swore under her breath but nodded. She was so close to tears, her throat felt tight with them, but she refused to let Freddie cause her to break down in the back of a dirty cab with no one but the driver for support so, she was doing everything she could to keep them at bay. She had hoped that maybe the scenic route, the long way, would give her some nice views to keep her mind off of what had just happened, but it was pitch black and there wasn't as much light on these mountain roads as there were on the highway and Lucy could see nothing but darkness. Just as she was thinking 'just my luck' many things happened at once; the driver gasped, Lucy whipped her head around to look at the road but before she could see anything she felt the car slam into...something. She felt the car spin like a top and in a gut wrenching moment she felt the car lurch as if it was balancing on the edge of something and in the instant that she realised they were on the edge of something, the car went over the edge and began flipping over and smashing it's way down an embankment. Somewhere after the first flip Lucy had lost consciousness and remained that way, upside down hanging by her seatbelt, for who knows how long.
Lucy's eyes snapped open as if she had just had a nightmare, but as she blinked and tried to get her surroundings into focus, she realised it hadn't been a dream, the taxi had crashed into something and the car had rolled down a hill. Lucy screamed for help, but no sound came, the night was eerily quiet. Lucy let her tears fall then, but after carefully assessing herself she determined that apart from a cut on the side of her head, she was unharmed and she worked to get herself free. She unbuckled her belt and swore when she landed on the roof of the car. Her window had already been smashed from the collision so she grabbed her clutch, which had been laying below her, and shoved it down the front of her dress and crawled through the window as carefully as she could in the darkness while completely disoriented.
"Hello!? Help! Can anyone hear us?" She called as she pulled herself to her feet. She walked over to the other side of the car to peer in the driver's side and was shocked to see that the rest of the car was empty. She searched the ground around the car for the driver, thinking maybe he had been thrown from the vehicle, but the only light to help her find him was the upside down headlights from the car. Lucy couldn't be sure how far the car had come from the road but she was worried because she couldn't hear the sound of traffic. She now had to make a choice, stay near the wreck and try and locate the driver and wait for help, or try and make her way back to the road and flag down help, and she decided that the latter was her best bet, so she carefully started picking her way across the ground, passed the car and started up the hill, hopefully towards the road. It wasn't going to be an easy trek in heels, had it been daylight she would have taken them off, but she couldn't hope to see anything sharp like broken sticks or stones, or glass and avoid stepping on them in the dark so, the safer option was unfortunately to keep the heels on.
As Lucy began her climb she cursed Melodie again for forcing her to go so far out of her comfort zone and not only attend this party, but to attend it in a tight dress and heels. She fully intended to tell her off after she survived this ordeal, but if she was going to be fully honest with herself, just hearing Melodie's voice right now would have been a very welcome surprise. As bitter as she was about this evening, Lucy did like her step-sister and her step-mother Ella, they were very kind people and her father couldn't have chosen a nicer woman to remarry after...well after. But Lucy had moved out of the house by the time her father and Ella had married and she had never lived with her step-mother or step-sister so it wasn't a very familial relationship they had, and frankly they had nothing in common. Whenever Lucy would come home on holidays Ella would give her and Melodie some money and send them to the mall to bond, and as much as Lucy hated shopping (and Melodie loved it) they had always managed to have fun together despite being polar opposites in everything. Unfortunately, only a few short years after the marriage Lionel, Lucy's father, died and everything changed. He had been the glue holding everyone together and without him it became so easy to only come home for the holidays, and then only Christmas, and then only call each other on holidays and now they really only saw one another if they happened to be in the town in which the other lived and texted each other for the holidays.
"Hello?" Lucy called out, stopping her climb. She had been lost in thought, but she could have sworn that she heard someone yelling. She listened hard, but she heard nothing but the sound of her heart beating in her chest, and then it came. A faint voice calling. She couldn't make out what they were saying, if it was a man or a woman, or how far away they were, but it meant that she wasn't alone. She stayed silent wishing for the person to call out again and hopefully get more of a sense of where the noise was coming from, and they did. It sounded like a painful yell more than words and Lucy's stomach clenched, what if it was the driver? She couldn't leave him there in good conscious, if he was seriously hurt her early intervention could be the difference between life and death, so she carefully picked her way back down towards the wreck calling out to the person and pausing for an answer. She walked blindly in the direction she thought it was coming, and although she thought the yell was indeed getting louder she still saw no signs of anyone, and she was well passed the over-turned car, in fact she couldn't even see it anymore. Could the driver really have been thrown this far from the car? She wondered doubtfully.
"Hello!? Is anyone there? Are you hurt? Call out if you can hear me!" Lucy called when the frequency of the yell stopped, leaving Lucy in the middle of the woods with no idea where she was and no noises to follow. Panic had started to set in, it was pitch black, she could no longer see the headlights of the car and the night was silent. Lucy decided that it was no longer safe to look for the driver, injured or not she couldn't help him if she got hurt herself, she was going to have to find her way to the road. Someone would stop for her and she could tell them that the driver was missing and she had heard someone yelling for help. The only problem was, she must have gone farther than she realised because she couldn't seem to find her way back to the car. She walked for 5 minutes without a sign of it.
"This can't be real!" Lucy cried in frustration. She dug her clutch out of her dress and took out her phone.
"Of course!" Lucy's phone had 3% battery. She debated making a 911 call quickly and trying to at least alert somebody as to what happened, but thought better of it, deciding to save the 3% When she found the road and could pinpoint a location. She shoved it back in her clutch and the clutch back in her dress, and continued walking. She carefully took in her surroundings, as she picked her way through the dark brush. It was eerily quiet still, all she could hear were leaves and twigs snapping under her feet. She knew should couldn't be too far from the road, and that this wooded area was relatively small, it wasn't like a national forest or anything. She really didn't want to spend the night in it of course, but she had little doubt that she would be able to find her way back to civilization in the daylight so the worst that would happen was that she would be forced to spend a very uncomfortable night in the woods. Lucy was exhausted, cold, frightened and on the verge of tears. She had never been in a car accident, or been lost before and now she had experienced both at the same time. She needed to rest, her legs were getting tired and her feet were killing her so when she found an upturned log she sat gingerly on it and tried to take some deep steadying breaths. She pulled off one of her heels and squeezed her cold, tired feet, whimpering in pain and relief. After she begrudgingly slipped the heel back on her foot she went to repeat the process with the other foot when she heard someone's voice calling again. She went absolutely still, straining to hear everything possible. Nothing happened for a moment and then she heard it again! She was positive it was a voice.
"Hello!?" Lucy yelled loudly then forced herself to stay quiet as she waited for the voice to call out again, and to her delight, it did. "Hello? Is somebody out here?" It said.
"Yes! Yes, I am over here! Help!" She called, groping around her for a stick and then banging it against the log.
"Over here!" She called and continued to bang. A few agonising seconds later she heard the bark of a dog and saw a flashlight beam.
"Hello?" A 40ish year old man and a German shepherd came into sight. The man looked like a college professor. He had grey slacks, a navy wind breaker, rounded glasses and salt and pepper hair that was beginning to thin.
"Oh thank god!"
"Are you hurt?" He asked, approaching her carefully. Lucy shook her head and forced herself to her feet.
"No, I don't think so. I was in a car accident and the cab it...right down the hill and the driver...I have no idea where he is, but I thought I heard someone calling out and then...well then I got lost." Lucy heard the words tumbling out of her mouth, and was even surprised by it, but she couldn't do anything to stem the flow of words.
"Ok, alright. It's alright." He said calmly. "I was bringing my dog in for the night and heard what sounded like yelling, that's why I came out to look. It's not safe to wander around in the dark though. I live nearby, we should go call for help." Lucy took a deep breath and nodded. Part of her was wary, but he seemed trustworthy so she went with her gut and followed him back to his house. It was a surprisingly short walk to a path that lead to a road and she could see a house in the distance.
"Wow, no neighbours huh?" Lucy said looking around the dark country road.
"Just passed the trees behind my house I have a neighbour, but there are only 5 of us on this street. It's very private." Lucy nodded, looking sideways at him trying to size him up.
"Not a fan of the city?" Lucy asked, trying to keep her voice free of suspicion.
"I'm a scientist at the university so I am in the city every day, but I like the peace and quiet, it is nice to have somewhere free of the hustle and bustle to just relax and do my work." Lucy nodded immediately relating to this kind stranger. She liked the convenience of being in the city, if she was craving a milkshake at 9pm she could just hop in the car and go get one in a few minutes and that wasn't possible out in the country, but she felt like she would enjoy living somewhere that removed from people. It would be wonderful to have a traffic free drive, a quiet peaceful street that didn't notice or care about her comings and goings, or lack there of, and of course the solitude and absence of sound from other people.
As they approached the house Lucy realised they were approaching the back of the house. They crossed a patio and went in a set of sliding glass doors into the kitchen. The kitchen was in good shape, there was nothing special about it, but it was nice. The man flicked on a light and led her through the kitchen into a rather plain sitting room. There was a black leather couch in front of a big screen TV and a shabby wooden coffee table in front of it covered with books and papers and a few mugs. The wall behind the TV had a bunch of sci-fi art, but the rest of the walls were covered with awards and diplomas.
"Sorry, I wasn't expecting company." He said sheepishly.
"I've just spent who knows how long stumbling through sticks and dirt, this looks like the coziest room ever right now." Lucy joked, moving over to look at some things that were in a display case along the back wall.
"What are these?" She asked, looking at...some sort of devices.
"Oh, erm...I'm a physicist and I sort of..dabble with inventions. I enter competitions and what-not." The man smiled tightly and went and unplugged a phone from a charger on the floor beside the couch.
"I'm going to call the police and give them my address and then they'll probably have some questions for you." Lucy nodded nervously even though she had obviously not done anything wrong. She had never called 911 for anything before and it just felt wrong. She walked along the wall reading the awards and looking at all of the inventions and what they were supposed to do. She had never been particularly strong in Science, English and geography had always been more up her alley, but she was still fascinated by all of this stuff. It was incredible that someone could have so much knowledge, create something that has never existed before and potentially change the entire world.
"Hey, uh the police, fire and ambulance are on the way, I am just going to go turn the front lights on to help them find the house." The man told Lucy, as he pocketed his phone.
"Oh ok. They didn't want to speak to me?" Lucy asked, somewhat relieved as she really hadn't even taken a moment to really think about what had happened to her, and she really didn't want to do that for the first time in front of a stranger.
"No, the dispatcher just said to stay put and someone is on the way immediately." Lucy nodded, thankful that she was that much closer to a warm bath and her bed. The man left to go turn on the front lights and Lucy remembered her phone, she sighed and pulled it out, she had better contact her boss, he would be worried about her, especially if there was news that there was an accident.
"Hey, uh do you have a charger I could borrow? I should probably call somebody." Lucy said when he returned to the room.
"Oh, uh sure. What do you have?"
"Samsung Galaxy...S7? I think?" Lucy said, showing him her phone.
"Ah ok, I have an iphone, but I think one of my tablets has the same charger." He said crossing to the battered coffee table and pulling open a drawer that was filled with random things like pens, lighters, and cords. Lucy didn't want to be weird and stare at him as he searched so she went back to checking out the inventions and stopped at one that looked like a bit like a Nintendo DS but with a small screen on the edge beside a row of numbered dials and lights. She looked at it for a while trying to figure out what it could possibly do and coming up blank.
"Oh, I know! I have one in my laptop bag, I'll go and get it." He said, closing the drawer.
"Hey, what does this do?" Lucy asked, pointing at the object. The man turned to see what she was pointing at and then blushed furiously.
"Oh that. It -it's nothing really. It is just a proto-type. It's never been done before, but it is widely believed to be possible. Of course, it's hard to test something that is supposed to change time but..." The man rambled nervously.
"Is this...supposed to be a time machine?" Lucy asked incredulously. It was hard to believe that such a well decorated scientist would actually believe in time travel.
"Well really it is a device that speeds up molecular travel..er...ok yes. There have been some large successes in the field of molecular travel and more is being unraveled everyday that makes it seem...well possible. Just theories of course but, isn't that how all discoveries are made?" Lucy couldn't help but smile at the man's passion. It was clear that even in his embarrassment he couldn't help but show how passionate he was about it and Lucy thought that people should be more transparent about the things and hobbies that excited them, no matter how unusual they were.
"I'll er, be right back." He smiled tightly and left the room again. Lucy continued to look around the room, but it was taking the man a while to locate the charger and Lucy's curiosity got the best of her. Checking over her shoulder she walked over to the case that the 'time machine' was sitting in and opened it up. She looked over her shoulder one more time before taking it out. It was surprisingly light for what it was meant to do, but the sleek and technical looking design was rather impressive, this man was no weirdo tinkering with scraps in a garage, he was the real deal. She pushed the on button and the machine made a sudden loud humming noise as it powered on and then the 8 lights flashed red for a few seconds, then orange and then finally a steady green. Lucy rolled a dial, trying to figure out what type of numbers these were supposed to be, and she tried a few combos, figuring they were dates, just to see what happened. The screen simply displayed the numbers, but nothing seemed to happen. Lucy fiddled with the dials once more and the screen said 09081814 and again nothing happened, so she plugged in the current date 09082017 and then things started to get weird. All of a sudden it felt like there was a weird, electrical sort of pain aching in her hand, and making her grip the device tightly. A numbing sensation startled to travel up her arm, Lucy felt like her whole body was vibrating. She swallowed nervously, trying to force herself to think, was she having a seizure or something? Lucy could feel her heart rate rising, she was breaking out in a sweat and she suddenly felt nauseated. This had to be some sort of delayed reaction from the car accident, like shock was setting in or something. Lucy could feel her blood pressure continuing to rise, her vision was getting hazy and she felt like was was going to pass out. She stumbled towards the table trying to put the device down and catch herself before she collapsed to the floor, but her legs didn't seem to want to co-operate. She forced herself to take another step forward and she raised her arm, trying to put the device back in the case before she dropped and broke an item that was probably more expensive than her car, and she noticed that her arm looked...blurry. Almost like she was looking at it through a camera lens that had a smudge on it. Lucy squeezed her eyes closed and re-opened them, trying to regain her focus, but her arm seemed to be getting more blurry and the tingling sensation was spreading through her body. She heard something clatter to the floor and a gasp and she turned her head to see the stunned face of the man in the doorway, the charger he had left to find on the floor at his feet.
"Oh my god, it's working!" He said. Lucy blinked again, and then the darkness enveloped her as she passed out.