3TS: The Chances of Starting Again

Somewhere; Eight

Feb. 28 That Mysterious Woman REVEALED.

Journal, my mind was full of jumbled thoughts. My brain was blaring with ambulance lights in my head because I knew we had hit something. And I was afraid I had died.

Seriously.

My mind was so mixed up with feelings of panic, anger, and wonder that I didn't know that I could feel my arms were still tightly curled around my head. That I was breathing too hard. And that my heart was racing.

I'm alive!

I never knew how joyous it felt to really say those words to yourself after that fleeting moment of life-or-death.

I opened one eye, looking in the tricy window in front of me. There was no house, only a dirt hill we had hit.

I peeked slowly out of the sidecar. This wasn't my neighborhood. It was my school...or was it?

I climbed out of the tricy. The buildings of the school were whiter, and cleaner, then I remembered it.

"So. Ito...yung destination mo? School, right?"

I looked back at the girl driver who was leaning against the motor controls, putting her elbows on the controls. Resting her head like that, she looked bored. As if she wasn't surprised by the surroundings.

As if my mouth wasn't dropping to the ground.

"W-where are we?" I hugged my backpack as I realized I wasn't at 'my school'. My school, where the buildings were streaked with rust and dirt.

She scoffed, "I just said it. Scho-o-o-l."

I walked slowly to peek around the corner of the main building. I saw my principal, with more REAL black hair than gray. But he looked younger than the last time I saw him and...happy. That was odd, he never smiled anymore. He was shaking hands with a man in a business suit, with flashes of a camera as they took a picture. Their postures seemed familiar. The way they shook, it looked exactly like the picture that hung in my real school. In the hall, they were shaking hands when the school was about to be opened. I remember seeing that picture right before Juan and his gang to my chemistry book. But the time that this pose, this picture, was taken was -

"Eight years ago. We're here at your school, eight years ago girl." The woman tricycle driver blew a small bubble and chomped on her gum again when it popped.

"WHAT?!" I jumped and looked at her. She was being serious!

"Hey, you asked for my 3TS. So there, we're here." She gestured to the place with her two hands.

"Wait, what's 3TS?" I clenched my backpack tighter.

She turned to me, even if I couldn't see her eyes, I could see her questioning glance as she looked me up and down. "Gorgeous, it means Time. Traveling. Tricycle. Service. Three T's, and one S." As if I knew that already. Which I didn't!

"T-T-Time T-T-Travel?" I pressed my backpack even tighter to me until I felt like I couldn't breathe.

She popped a gum into her mouth, "Yes, you didn't know that? It says on the card."

I whipped out the card from my pocket. I remember seeing a '3TS' as a logo or symbol. Now, there was a small hole next to the corner of the card.

"See, that's one time-travel used up. You have three more times to use time travel." The woman held out three fingers as visual aid as she chewed her gum.

Right now, I didn't need any more visual aid to know that I was in the past. My own principal was happy. Which was totally opposite of her attitude in my day. The buildings of my school were so clean that my eyes hurt from just gazing at them. This was probably the worst nightmare of my life.

Either my principal smiling, that I was standing in a time where none of my friends didn't even know me yet, or that this woman next to me was a tricycle driver.

No, she was a time-traveling tricycle driver. She had just leveled up from weird to crazy. Yes, this was probably the weirdest dream or the oddest nightmare. Ever.

And then my thoughts drifted to my real present time. Would I change into a little kid? Would I be stuck to live for eight years before getting to my present time? Would I meet Arlene ever again? What would happen to me if I didn't get back?

My racing heart seemed to freeze, my lungs seemed to have a harder time inhaling oxygen. I clutched her arm and pleaded.

"Take me back!"