The Summoned

Thirty-year-old inventor Ethan Caldwell had spent a decade in his cluttered garage, chasing the impossible–a time machine. His life was a tangle of circuit boards, coffee mugs, and scribbled equations on whiteboards.

By 2025, he’d burned through his savings, alienated most friends, and earned a reputation as the neighborhood eccentric. But Ethan didn’t care. He was close—so close—to cracking time itself.

The machine, a hulking mess of wires, steel, and glowing capacitors, filled half the garage. Ethan called it the Chrono-Anchor.

His theory was simple–time wasn’t a river but a web, and with the right frequency, you could tug a thread and step across. After years of failures—sparks, blackouts, one memorable explosion—he finally nailed the calibration.

On April 23, 2025, at 2:17 a.m., he flipped the switch.

A low hum filled the garage. The air crackled, heavy with ozone.

The Chrono-Anchor’s core pulsed blue–and Ethan held his breath, expecting to blink and find himself in 1920 or 3000. Instead, nothing happened.

He cursed, kicking a stool. Yet, another bust.

Then, a pop—like a champagne cork. A man materialized, stumbling forward in a woolen tunic, reeking sweat and woodsmoke.

His eyes, wide with terror, locked on Ethan. “Where am I?” he stammered, his accent thick, maybe medieval English.

Before Ethan could answer, another pop.

A woman in a sleek silver jumpsuit appeared–her hair neon green, holding a device that beeped frantically.

“Temporal breach detected!” she snapped, glaring at Ethan. “Who’s running this op?”

Pop. Pop. Pop. More arrived—a Roman centurion, a Victorian lady in a corset, a kid in a 1980s tracksuit, and a warrior with face tattoos clutching a spear. The garage was chaos, voices overlapping in languages Ethan barely recognized.

They weren’t traveling through time. The Chrono-Anchor was yanking people from their times to him.

“Who’s doing this?” the centurion bellowed, drawing a gladius. The Victorian woman fainted. The futuristic woman scanned the machine, muttering about “amateur quantum splicing.”

Ethan’s heart pounded. It wasn’t time travel—it was a temporal kidnapping.

“Stop! I’m fixing it!” Ethan shouted, dodging the spear-wielding warrior. He lunged for the Chrono-Anchor’s control panel, hands shaking.

The medieval man grabbed his arm, pleading, “Is this the end of days?”

Ethan shook him off, slamming the emergency shutdown.

The hum died. The blue glow faded. With a final, ear-splitting pop, vanished—the warrior, the centurion, the neon-haired woman, all gone, snapped back to their proper times. The garage was silent, save for Ethan’s ragged breathing.

He sank to the floor, staring at the lifeless machine. No proof remained—no photos or artifacts, just the faint smell of ozone and a toppled stool.

Had it even happened? His dream of time travel was dead, but something else was born–a machine that could summon the past and future.

The implications terrified him. Ethan unplugged the Chrono-Anchor and vowed never to touch it again.

But as he lay awake that night, one thought gnawed at him–what if he could control who it brought? Nikola Tesla, maybe?