For as long as Dawson Rhodes could remember, he had never had to worry about a thing. He had two great parents who taught him everything. His parents love story started out as a platonic friendship that eventually turned into a movie-like love. His mother, Rose Turner Rhodes, was a smart woman and Dawson remembered when she substituted paint brushes for lab coats and tools when he was a mere seven years old.

He asked her one day about when she knew that she wanted to be an engineer instead of an artist and a wide smile appeared on her face as she said, “I wanted to change the world so I am doing just that.” This was when she had first started working on the creation of the time machine.

Justin, Dawson’s father, was the coolest dad he had ever seen. He worked at Rhodes Technology & Designs which is a business that he had started on his own. Once this new era of technology had emerged, his dad was able to conjure up a business idea that aimed to help young engineers develop their work in a place where they could experiment freely.

When Dawson was a little boy, his father found him playing in the upstairs hallway with his lightsaber and his imaginary friend, Harry. As he and his “friend” fought, Dawson edged closer and closer to the staircase. Dawson dodged a would-be “fatal” kill to the heart by springing backwards off the top of the stairs and into thin air. At that moment, his father came around the corner and what looked to be an electric rope tethered to his hand extended from his expensive new watch to Dawson’s small body. Dawson was so close to the ground that he could see the tiny layer of dust encasing the stairs. He was floating. This was weird at the time since inventions like these had not become popular yet.

He remembered his father with disbelief in his eyes shouting, “IT WORKED, IT REALLY WORKED!!”

“Dad I almost died! I am so mad at Harry. I am never going to play with him ever again.” Dawson said as he motioned to be placed on the floor where he felt safe. In a way, this was always one of Dawson’s downfalls. He was always a little bit too pessimistic even at this age. He had a hard time seeing the bright side when things started to go the wrong way.

Eighteen years later, Dawson (age 26) was now working at his dad’s office, if one can count having a giant floating desk surrounded by bubble like yoga balls that were strapped to all sides of the room, an office. It was something about letting your creative juices flow he recalled his father saying. Dawson was working in this very office on a new project one day when his dad came running in.

They exchanged frantic looks as his dad said, “Mom is.. How do I put this? Um, she is..”

“Dad spit it out, what happened?” questioned Dawson.

What’s wrong? I never see him act like this.

His dad runs his fingers through his already tusselled hair and says, “Well, you see mom finally finished the time machine. And she was testing it out because why wouldn’t you test out something that you have finally finished after spending ten long years of hard work on it.”

Dawson interrupted by saying, “Hold on, she finished the time machine? That’s amazing. Sorry, keep going.”

“It’s okay. Anyways, she was trying out the time machine and she pressed the green button and uh.. She froze.“

“She, she froze? Dawson stammered.

“Yes, she froze. Literally. Like she is stuck in a 5 foot 10 glass-like frozen box.”

“When did you find her like this?” Dawson asked.

“About 20 minutes ago. I was bringing her favorite coffee over to her as I usually do around that hour and I walked in as she was pressing the big green button. Then poof she was covered in a block of ice. The coffee slipped out of my hands as I rushed to her. She was with one of my good friends and we started freaking out together.

Dawson looked into his dad’s eyes. They were wide with fear. Together, they sprinted out of the room and into the car. They raced to the next block over where both his mom and the time machine were inside a big concrete building and stormed into the glass room.

It was one thing to hear about your mother being trapped in an ice-box but it was a whole different story actually seeing her like this.

Dawson thought about this morning when he stopped by his parents house and gave his mom flowers since today was his parents twentieth anniversary. An eery thought popped into his head…

What if that was the last conversation they would ever have? He shook it off and looked at his dad.

“How did this happen?”

“I’m not sure kid, I’m not sure. I’ve never seen anything like this in all my years of this crazy career.”

Dawson circled around the see-through ice box encapsulating his mother. He traced his finger along the outlines of her face which looked expressionless. In the corner of his eye, he saw the time machine in the back of the room. He slowly turned and walked towards it. There were many buttons and tiny lights flashing throughout its metal figure blinking back at him. Suddenly, a middle aged lady in a white lab coat jumped out from behind the machine and started frantically speaking.

“I had a feeling this would happen. I knew it. I just knew it. I told Rose that I had a scary feeling about this and she went ahead and did it anyway. The problem is that I don’t understand what happened.”

Even though Dawson felt exactly the same way, he for once tried to put on a strong face as he said, “Please try and calm down. Take a deep breath and tell me your name and what happened.”

She took in a long breath and blew it all the way out, “My name is Tilly. I’m sure you don’t remember me but I am the one who made the invention that saved your life. Although we have never met before, I recognize you from pictures with you and your mom. Whom of which I was working with when we thought that we had finally finished this life changing invention, however, that is obviously not the case. She told me that it was okay and that she was ready to try it. She said, and I quote,

“What’s the worst thing that could happen? It’s not like we haven’t failed before.”

“That was when I got a bad feeling in my gut.”

Dawson motioned his hand to Tilly and snapped his fingers as if to say, “Get on with it already. I just want to know the story.”

.

“Ok, anyways she was about to press the button and in a matter of a second she was ice. That is what threw me off. She hadn’t even pressed the button.”

“My dad said that she did press the button and that was why she is frozen.”

“Well he’s wrong. I was standing right next to her when it happened”

Dawson turned to look at his dad who had made his way over to them during their conversation. He uncharacteristically shrugged his shoulders and sadly walked back over to his wife without so much as a grunt or a scream of frustration. He looked heartbroken.

Dawson looked back to Tilly and asked, “Is there any way we can fix this? Did my mom say anything before she became like this?”

Tilly raised her hand to her chin and thought for a second. Finally, she said, “ Wait. She did say something. It was.. It was.. Oh yeah she said that she had a flashback of some sort and saw a version of herself standing on top of a building looking like she were about to jump off.”

“And you didn’t think this was a good thing to mention until now?”

“Well it’s not like remembering every detail your mother ever said to me is at the top of my priority list right now.” She snapped back.

Dawson rolled his eyes and said, “We are never going to get her back. I just know it. I mean what can we even do? She is trapped in a box that won’t melt or break.”

Dawson was about to give up after a long day of brainstorming when he felt a strange breeze go through his hair. The breeze turned into a strong wind which turned into a full blown wind tunnel in the middle of the room. The lights started to flicker and Dawson and Tilly looked into the middle of the tornado-like wind. A small circle started to open inside the wind tunnel and it slowly became bigger and bigger until eventually it was human-sized. Dawson looked deeper into the circular portal and saw exactly what his mother told Tilly. It was a teenage looking version of his mom standing at the top of a building in an ill fitting pale blue dress. Then, she jumped.