She let the hot air fill the lantern.

"Goodbye. I won't cry," she promised, as she read one last time, his name, which she had written all over the ballooning object.

"Don't give up. Please. I'm still here. I'll find my way to you," he said into her oblivious ear.

He was trapped in another dimension. Funny, because before his uncle's machine came alive, such a thing to him was only science fiction. But somehow his uncle's mad concoction worked. It was supposed to be a time machine. It was supposed to take them back to 1993.

In 1993, his parents were still alive.

His uncle adored their family.

"Your mother and father made sure I finished my PhD at the university, took care of me as much as they did you. We have to go back and save them from that stupid drunk driving tragedy," his uncle vowed.

And they did get to 1993. But they could not do any life saving, because they had entered another dimension, present but unfelt by the world and time they had wanted to be.

At least they could still touch things, make things work.

And now they are back in 2020. But the dimension they are in right now is all spongey.

They would appear for minutes in their original dimension, but the dimension that had sucked them in back in 1993 would eat them back before they could even leave the machine.

"I'm working on it," his uncle promised.

"Please, Jo, don't forget me. I'll come back to you somehow," he whispered again into her ear.

For a brief moment, it looked as if she could hear what Adam had just said.

"I'll never forget you. I'll never find another you. I'll hang on till we meet again," said Jo.

His heart soared as Jo let the lantern go. The yellow object flew up a few inches, and Adam grabbed its bottom ring.

"I'm here. I'll always be with you. Pray that I'll find my way to you," said Adam as he held the lantern from ascending.

Then slowly, he let the lantern alight.

They both watched it fly above the lake, enthralled.

She went home, a slow drive across a quiet neighbourhood as Adam kept her company.

Adam won't do much more than that.

He had tried writing in Jo's notebook and sending her text messages through his old phone, but that had only gotten Jo in therapy. Jo's parents thought she had gone crazy after Adam went missing. So he limited his interaction for her sake.

However when she got his messages on her phone, she knew he could not have been dead. What she could not figure out was why he would leave without saying anything. When her mom caught her replying those text, she was immediately referred to a shrink.

"You saw his car being pulled out of that ravine. It was badly burnt and found only a month after it skidded off the cliff. They are dead, Jo. We love him too but you have to move on," her mom advised.

Adam couldn't tell Jo that a thief had stolen the vehicle while his family abode was left unguarded and uninhabited.

His note scribbling on the pages of her book only got Jo a prescription for stronger medicine.

How his heart broke each time he watched her cry to sleep. For months they had went on like this.

Yesterday, his uncle said their machine is ready for a cross-dimensional journey.

"Say a prayer, Adam," said his uncle as the machine whirred. Then, unlike in movies, they suddenly disappeared into thin air.

Adam felt as if he was trying to move while being in a tub filled chest-up with jelly. His uncle's hand latched steadfastly onto his, and they are both seeing rainbows.

"Humans," a voice, which sounded almost mechanic, boomed into their ears. "Once you leave this territory you must not come back nor speak of it, do you promise?"

"So it was you who kept messing with my calculations!" Adam's uncle accused.

"Yes, only because you found our world by accident and I needed to test you. It seems clear now that you would do anything to go back to yours."

"That's right. I will no longer attempt time travel," Adam vowed. His uncle remained silent.

"Even if it means not being able to reunite with your dead family?" the speaker tested.

Adam nodded, then so did his uncle, both with tears running down their faces.

And just like that, they were back at the basement lab in his uncle's workplace.

The staff on duty looked precisely the same as on the day they left their original time and dimension.

"Professor, your machine broke down again?" an assistant who was standing nearby questioned.

They are home! They are back at the right time and place!

His uncle nodded.

Adam grabbed his bag pack and ran out of the office building. His battered old car still contained a Subway sandwich he that didn't get to eat before he went missing. He fished his phone from the pocket of his bagpack.

The clock showed 8pm and the date, Thursday, February 20, 2020.

He drove to Jo's home.

"Adam, I know you're a nice boy and you know we don't mind you dating Jo, but it's close to 9pm," Jo's dad said when he answered the door. "Besides, didn't you two saw a movie together yesterday?"

It was like he never left.

"I... I came to take all of you out for ice cream!" Adam stuttered.

Jo's mom smiled. "Well that's nice of you to invite all of us, but it looks like you have something very important to say to Jo. How about you two have some ice cream in the kitchen?" she offered.

Adam was overwhelmed. Jo's parents had been treating him almost like their own since he and Jo became friends years ago. He could only nod.

Jo was at the kitchen cleaning up the family's dinner. Adam went straight to her and held her hand, catching a plate that she nearly dropped with another.

"Adam? What are you doing here?"

"He came for ice-cream, hun," her mother's voice pipped in.

Adam nodded. "I wanted to ask you out, tomorrow. Let's fly a paper lantern together, shall we?" Jo nodded. Then she looked at him again, with an amused expression.

"You know I had this strange feeling when you mentioned paper lantern. Like I had done it before..." she mused.

"Dejavu?" he guessed.

She didn't agree. "More like, a dream. Or maybe, a rewind."

Adam could not help but smile.

P/s: Wrote this after nearly deleting half of #Remy8's new chapter. I think I need a rewind. Plus all this news about drunk drivers is pulling me into a funk.

4.13 pm - Feb 20, 2020