Chapter Text
As hard as he may try, Eric Cartman could not get to sleep.
It was already 2:15 and he had school in the morning. He knew he should have been to bed hours ago, but he just couldn't close his eyes. What made it worse was that he could hear his cat outside of his room, screeching like she was being murdered. He had gotten up about 5 times now, just to yell at her to shut up. It seemed to work for about 5 minutes before she started up again. At some point, he had given up and put her outside in his backyard.
He now realized that that was a horrible idea as he listened to her yowling right below his bedroom window.
"Damn cat." He groaned and pressed his face into his pillow, trying to block out the sound. His friends were probably already asleep. Kyle was always preaching about how good it was for your body to be well rested.
Suddenly, Mr. Kitty stopped screaming like a banshee and the house fell into silence. Usually, Eric would be relieved and go straight to sleep but he had been up for so long that he became curious at what made Mr. Kitty stop.
Slowly, he made his way from his bed over to his window. He opened it and peered down into the dark yard. He had to squint to see out into the darkness, but once his eyes adjusted, he blinked in surprise. Outside, just across from his window, a blue light was being admitted from the ground. A hole about 2 feet wide had been made directly into the ground. Debris surrounded the crater and the weird object laying inside of it. Mr. Kitty was silent, sitting right next to the object, her tail swishing playfully.
Eric ran out his room, stumbling down the stairs, and threw open the back door. He knew he shouldn't, but he was too curious not to investigate. Who knows, maybe if he was lucky, he could sell this thing and become rich. As he reached the hole in the ground, he moved Mr. Kitty out of the way and looked down at the object. It was about 8 inches, about the same size of Clyde Frog. It was glowing a soft pale blue color and if he leaned down closer, he could hear a low humming sound.
He reached for the device and picked it up. As soon as his fingers touched it, the light shut off and it stopped humming. Eric turned the device over in his hands, inspecting it. When he didn't see anything unusually, he sighed. Okay, so it wasn't a bomb. If it was, that would've been bad since he was, you know, holding it.
Eric looked at Mr. Kitty, who was currently staring at the device. She had the same look on her face when she catches a mouse. He moved the device slightly and her eyes followed it. Her tail was slowly moving behind her body, and she looked ready to claw her way up Eric's body just to reach the contraption.
Not knowing what to do, Eric shoved the device into his coat and picked up Mr. Kitty. As soon as the device was out of her sight, Mr. Kitty started acting normal again. Eric held the door open and carried his cat inside the house. He dropped her on the couch and headed back up to his room.
His door closed with a satisfying click, and he sat on the edge of his bed. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the device. As he inspected it again in the light, he noticed something he hadn't before. On the side of the gadget were names carved into it. His heart started racing as he realized that he recognized these names.
𝘑𝘢𝘯𝘶𝘢𝘳𝘺 2𝘯𝘥, 2024
𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘴 𝘗𝘰𝘯𝘥:
𝘒𝘺𝘭𝘦 𝘉𝘳𝘰𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘴𝘬𝘪
𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘯 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘴𝘩
𝘌𝘳𝘪𝘤 𝘊𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘮𝘢𝘯
𝘊𝘳𝘢𝘪𝘨 𝘛𝘶𝘤𝘬𝘦𝘳
𝘛𝘰𝘭𝘬𝘪𝘦𝘯 𝘉𝘭𝘢𝘤𝘬
𝘑𝘪𝘮𝘮𝘺 𝘝𝘢𝘭𝘮𝘦𝘳
𝘊𝘭𝘺𝘥𝘦 𝘋𝘰𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘢𝘯
Eric's eyes widened as his mind raced with questions that he could not possibly know the answers to. What was the machine? Why did it say 2024 if it was 2019? Why was his name on it? Why were his friends name on it? Hell, even Craig's name was on it. What was he going to do? What could he do? It's not like anyone was going to believe he just found this thing in his backyard, and it was glowing mere minutes ago. Plus, why wasn't Kenny's name not on this thing?
As he turned the appliance over again, he noticed something else. A big green button, front and center, was staring back at him. Eric could have sworn that button wasn't there a second ago. Has he looked at the button more, the machine seemed to glow in his hands. He was staring for so long that the bright light was starting to put a strain on his eyes. His brain was going a million miles per second. Thousands of questions were popping into his head. One statement cut through the rest of his thoughts.
𝘗𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘣𝘶𝘵𝘵𝘰𝘯
His hand moved without thinking. He took a deep breath and pushed the button down lightly. And nothing happened.
Eric laughed nervously. He was getting himself worked up over nothing. Of course this thing wasn't real. It was probably some kid trying to get back at him for a prank and he had fallen for it. Yeah, that must be it. The kid obviously rigged this thing with lights and a sensor just to scare Eric. They had probably even thrown it over the fence and that's why Mr. Kitty was so quiet when she found it. Eric was about to toss the contraption into the trash and try and finally sleep, but then the unthinkable happened.
The object in his hands started glowing a bright blue and shaking violently. Instead of the soft blue that it was glowing, the color suddenly changed to a bright green. The light was so bright that he dropped the device and threw his hands up to his eyes to block out some of the light. The machine bounced onto the floor but continued to glow and it vibrated so loud that the noise was ringing around the room. The mechanism had started to create what felt like a mini tornado. Old school papers and notes started flying around Eric's room, crashing into each other and cutting Eric as they zipped around him.
Behind Eric's hands, the world turned green in a flash, and it was quickly getting brighter. Blindly, he kicked his foot out and kicked the device. By some miracle, the thing finally stopped. Eric's room was slowly going back to the peace it once was. The wind that created the tornado stopped and the papers that were floating in the air drifted down onto the floor. The green light disappeared as the horror finally came to a stop.
But with the absence of light came a horrible realization. In Eric's room, surrounded by papers and notes was the spot that Eric was standing in the middle of all the chaos.
But Eric Cartman was nowhere to be seen.