Any Other Day

He woke up that day just like any other day. He got dressed the same as any other day, with jeans and the first shirt in his closet. And again, the same as any other day he brushed his teeth. Kit Little woke up like any other day, but this was in no way any other day. Kit went downstairs and grabbed a bowl of cereal. His parents were nowhere to be seen, as usual. They both worked at an office building an hour from the house so they usually left before he even woke up so most of his mornings were spent alone just getting ready for the day. He packed his lunch and made his way to the bus stop at the end of his street. On the bus he put in his earbuds and listened to music while he played a game to kill time. 

Everything was going according to the usual routine- that was, until he glanced up at a seat ahead of him on the other side of the bus. He nearly screamed when he saw it. One of the students had horribly twisted and warped skin. Where his arms once were now sat claws that looked like an overgrown praying mantis. Kit rubbed his eyes in disbelief but when he looked back, everything was normal. He stared for a moment before the student turned around and gave him a nasty sneer, telling Kit to look elsewhere, which he promptly did. He didn't like starting trouble and mostly kept to the back of his classrooms to avoid attention from everyone, students and staff alike.

Getting to school Kit still felt a bit shook from what he saw, it was probably just his imagination mixing with a bit of sleep deprivation but it still rocked him to his core. Good news his first hour had something he knew would help get his day back on track. In the back of his Trigonometry class sat the most beautiful boy he'd ever laid eyes on: Theobold Walker, most people just called him Theo though. Kit had had a crush on him since they met in 8th grade, now well into his senior year he still couldn't pull his heart away from Theo. This is the one class he had assigned seats in and he had begged the teacher to put him in the back, he had left out the part where he wanted to be next to Theo. Thankfully this teacher really liked him since he had one of the highest grades in the class. 

He hardly even tried honestly, most of the work just came naturally for him. He had a harder time in younger grades because he could never really show his work, he never did any so he couldn't show it. One teacher even made him do problems made up on the spot in front of the whole classroom to catch how he cheated. He got every single one of them right, the teacher was baffled and pissed that he didn't get even a single incorrect answer throughout the entire thing. He got detention for that too, but he didn't really mind. The teacher running it saw the reason and let him play on his phone for the whole hour long punishment.

He sat next to Theo and set his bag down on the floor. 

"Hey Theo, how was practice yesterday?" Theo smirked and gave Kit a sideways glance.

"How'd you know I had practice?" Kit's face flushed a gentle red hue, he forgot how super stalkery that sounded.

"Oh, uhm well you know, I just overheard some guys on the bus talking about it." That was utter bullshit and Kit knew it, he checked the school sports calendar almost religiously. He was at almost every one of the football practices hiding near the bleachers. It honestly was pretty stalker-like, but he chose to think of it as a more romantic gesture of love. That didn't stop it from being pretty creepy though. Theo chuckled, "I figured you heard it from the announcements" Kit laughed nervously 

"I guess that, too. I must have forgot." 

After that little bout of nerves and awkwardness, Kit put one of his earbuds in and zoned off. He did the homework that the teacher assigned in class in about 2 minutes and went back to his day dreams until he felt a nudge from his right. He looked over and saw Theo's gently pleading face.

"Hey, mind giving me a hand with the homework? I don't really understand any of this and my grades are already uncomfortably close to failing eligibility." Kit's face lit up like a kid on Christmas morning.

"Y-Yeah!" His face heaved the red hue back onto his cheeks as he realized his unchecked excitement and he cleared his throat. "Sure thing,” he corrected himself, “Uhm, what part do you not get?" 

Kit spent the rest of the hour walking Theo through the various problems that had been assigned that day. When the bell rang Kit wished it was broken; they had gotten about halfway through the questions when they had to pack up, his perfect little moment snatched away from him. He was glad to have had it though, just a glimpse into the dreams in his head playing out in real life. Theo smiled at him and put his fist out.

"Thanks for the help man, I think I get it enough to finish later." Kit grinned like an idiot and bumped the extended fist.

"No problem! Maybe we could study it together sometime to make sure you get it? If you want to though! Not like you have to." He practically flinched waiting for the inevitable rejection he was expecting.

"That sounds great! You want me to swing by today?" Kit slowly relaxed his body and slowly answered back.

"Uhm, yea that sounds perfect, well not perfect, like good, I mean not that it's bad or anything, it's uhm, it's good." He smiled, trying to save that trainwreck of a sentence. Theo just chuckled and gently slugged him in the shoulder.

"Alright teach', see you then." He walked off to his next class, leaving Kit too flustered to speak properly. That was probably one of the most embarrassing things he'd ever experienced in his life. With that he walked to his next class, cursing his awkwardness under his breath. He spent most of the time looking at his feet during the walk but he made the mistake of looking up. 

The scene in front of him was nothing like what he'd expected to see. The whole hallway was covered in moss and plants; he heard far off calls of animals he'd never heard before; roots from trees that were almost certainly massive burst from the carpet beneath his feet; carpet seemingly much older than the carpet he was used to staring at during the walk from class to class, but almost definitely that same carpet. 

He could barely even believe what his eyes were seeing. Then he heard it: the footstep of something much larger than him. He looked and just down the hall, peeking from behind a bush were two piercing yellow eyes. He could see the gleam of razor sharp teeth right under them. When he made eye contact with whatever this thing was it glared, slowly creeping from the bush came a Velociraptor, growling as it lowered itself and approached Kit. He was almost too scared to move. He took one step backwards and the Cretaceous monster lunged forward, dashing down the hall at incredible and terrifying speeds. Kit could feel his heart threatening to burst out of his chest. He turned around and started sprinting for his life. He didn't understand what was happening, all he knew was that he had to run. He turned to look back at the monster just in time to see it flying through the air, claws and jaw prepared to attack and kill its prey. Kit did the next natural thing he could think of and threw his arms up to defend himself while shutting his eyes tight and praying to any and all gods that would listen to him. Then, silence; everything was dead silent, until a voice shattered it like glass.

"Dude what are you doing?" Kit opened his eyes. No dinosaur, no moss, no trees. He looked around and saw the hallway completely normal, and standing in it was Neil, the person that had said something. 

"Uh, nothing, just practicing for something." He quickly put his arms down and righted himself "... Uh, bye." 

Kit took down the hall as quickly as he could, ducking into the boy’s bathroom and quickly locking the door. His heart had hardly calmed down and he could still hear it pumping in his ears, his breath matching. His lungs burnt and he backed against the wall, gently sliding to the floor while he regained his breath. After his body calmed down enough for his legs to stop shaking he slowly stood up and checked the time. He had completely missed his second hour, he elected to just skip it today and go to his third when the bell rang. He set his hand on the door handle and took a deep breath, then opened the door and stepped through.

When he looked around his heart stalled. This still wasn't the hallway he was expecting, in fact now it wasn't a hallway at all. He looked around, sawdust covered a wooden floor, dozens of boots clattered against it while sounds of cards, chips, and empty drinks could be heard just under the loud conversation. Everywhere he looked he saw people that could only be described as cowboys. He stumbled forward when he took a shoulder from behind. He saw the perpetrator walk past him while speaking to Kit with slurred words through gritted teeth.

"Watch it pal." 

Kit jumped aside and made himself as small as he possibly could, his eyes frantically searching for the exit. When he spotted the swinging doors he made a dash for them. Stumbling out, he saw a dirt road slicing through the center of a town that looked distinctly western. The horses were hitched to posts and drinking from a nearby trough, men smoked large cigars while loading revolvers, and the dirt kicked into the air by feet and hooves alike. From right behind him Kit heard a fight coming closer, just over the swinging doors of what he realized was a saloon he saw two men grappling each other while charging the door. He jumped aside just as they came crashing through, fists flying and blows landing between the two men. Kit turned tail and ran.

He just wanted to go home and lay in his normal bed. 

After running until he no longer heard the jeers and noise of the town he found himself on the outside of a barbed wire fence with wooden posts. On the inside of the fence Kit saw a boy, about his age, with bulging muscles and sweat dripping from his brow while he slowly lifted a hay bale onto a cart. Once he looked up, Kit saw his face.

He looked almost identical to Theo, if he didn't know any better he would say it was Theo. The boy caught his eye.

"You got some strange clothes there friend, what can I do for you?" Kit opened his mouth to speak and suddenly he watched his world warp around him. The dirt became metal, the fence became a wall, the sky became a ceiling, and the air around him became cold as a winter's day and it almost felt heavier as well. He looked around and saw that he was in a confined room, one side of the wall made of beds that looked surprisingly comfortable for how tight of a squeeze it would be to fit into them. To his side he saw a strange door, it had no handle or anything to open it with. He stepped towards it and cautiously pushed against it- nothing. He slid his hands up and down the strange metallic design until he felt a bump, looking just under his finger he spotted a button, not hidden but not apparent by any means. He pressed it and the door hissed while sliding to the side. On the other side he only saw another door across a metal hall. He cautiously stepped outside of the bunk room he found himself in and moved into the hallway, looking around for dinosaurs and cowboys while staying low and quiet. Suddenly a hand clamped down onto his shoulder and slammed him against the wall where another hand pinned him to it by his neck. All the air in his lungs was knocked out and he struggled against the hand’s grip.

“Who are you and how did you get on my ship?” Kit could hardly breathe past the fingers wrapped around his throat, he desperately patted the hand choking him before it dropped him, and slammed into the wall next to him

“Talk.”

“I-I don’t know! My name is Kit I'm a normal high school student and I’ve spent all day changing time periods and I just want to go home!” His entire body was tense and he had pressed himself even further into the wall than the man in front of him had. The man stopped leaning forward and stood straight, giving Kit the chance to properly look at him. He was tall, crazy tall. His height and his muscle mass matched each other, his uniform was almost skin tight against his arms and legs. His blonde hair and angular jaw in tandem with his body made him look like the peak of masculinity. After an uncomfortable amount of time of the two sizing each other up the large man finally spoke

“It’s you.”

“Me?”

“Yep, you. You’re coming with me.” 

The man picked Kit up like he weighed nothing, he was always a bit smaller than other kids. He didn’t struggle though, he figured he might as well go with him till he felt like he needed to run, not like he really had any plan anyway so this was as good as anything.

They didn’t walk for long, a few turns and the strange man set him down in a room with nothing except for a chair with restraints  and strange things that almost looked like Tesla coils covering the walls, floor, and ceiling. He fidgeted with his hands while the man pressed a button set into the wall.

“Everyone, I want you down to the….” There was a pause before he let out what sounded to Kit like a long, tired sigh, “The dimensional room, stat.” He released the button and turned to Kit. “Sit in the chair, we’re gonna reset you back to your original universe.”

Kit hesitated before he slowly walked over to the chair, avoiding the coils on the floor, and sat down. Just as he made it into the chair the door slid open and a cast of strange humanoids filed into the room. One of them looked like a lizard, another had a robotic arm, another looked almost like he was made of plastic. 

“This here is our anomaly,”

The Lizard man spoke up, “How can you tell? Could just be a stowaway.” 

“He says he’s been jumping through time all day.”

Next the woman with the robotic arm spoke. “Let’s get a move on then, I’m itchin’ to get paid.” The blonde man nodded and pushed another button on the wall and steel shackles erupted from the chair and clung to Kit’s wrist and ankles before the chains dragged them back into their hidden chamber, pinning Kit to the table.

Shit.

“Wait wait, what’s going on?” Kit thrashed as best he could but he could barely move. He watched as the group left the room and the door sealed behind them. The blonde man’s face appeared in the door’s window, his voice suddenly coming through what had to be speakers in the walls.

“Calm down, this’ll only hurt a bit but you'll be back home, and you’ll forget any of this ever happened.”

Kit continued thrashing as the room started to hum as the coils pulsed, lighting up and shooting strands of electricity into him. His skin screamed as he felt them scrape through his flesh and latch onto his spine. All at once the electricity crackled and sent a surge through his body that felt like he’d been whipped a thousand times at once, and then -

And then, he woke up, just like any other day. He got dressed the same as any other day, with jeans and the second shirt in his closet. Just like any other day.