Part One (633 KB) - Whoa is (Not)

Pulling out his homework for that day, Marty glanced at the question for his history essay and sighed.
He had no idea how to go about answering it. After all, who would have been able to pay much
attention in class if they had just spent the previous night riding through time and trying to save the
universe
Marty gazed aimlessly around the room, hoping for inspiration but getting none until he suddenly
remembered the computer sitting right in front of him. A slow, mischievous grin spread across the
teen’s face as he accessed the Internet and typed in the key words of the question into the Yahoo
search bar. Several results appeared.
Feeling rather guilty, Marty clicked on one of the links. He wondered briefly if this was considered
cheating, and then decided that it wasn’t really. It was just about the same as getting answers from a
textbook, after all, something the teacher didn’t mind them doing.
The page downloaded and Marty got down to his work.
The future.
Chapter Two
10 th November 1895, Sunday
Hill Valley, California
That was what six-and-a-half-years-old Verne Brown longed for more than anything else in the world.
He yearned to belong there, instead of in the late nineteenth century where he currently was. Ever
since he could remember, he had always had the feeling that he didn’t belong. And then, when Verne
was four years old, his father had revealed his greatest secret to him and Jules: he was actually from
the year 1985.
And Verne believed him straight away. He had known, somehow, that there had to be an explanation
for why he felt different from everybody else, an explanation for his ever-present feeling that he was
missing something important. From that day forth, not a minute passed without Verne dreaming of that
faraway time his father had come from, wondering if he would ever be able to return to his true home.
The family’s short trips in their train – and later the new DeLorean – time machine served only to deepen
the boy’s desire. The more he saw of the future, he more he loved it and the more he longed for it.
Several nights would find him staring wistfully out of his bedroom window into the starry sky, wondering
what it would have been like if his parents had managed to return to the future with Marty all those years
ago.
He imagined how his life would have turned out then, as he created various scenarios in his mind down
to the tiniest detail. He imagined not having to hide in the secret room whenever he wanted to watch a
movie or use the computer or play on his Game Boy; he imagined what his house would look like; what
kind of friends he would have; he imagined being able to live in the same kind of world as the people he
knew online did…
The installation of Internet access in the family’s computer earlier that year had seemed to Verne like a
dream come true. After painstakingly teaching himself to type, he would spend hours online instead of
watching parts of his family’s movie collection in front of the television set as he used to before. Most of
his Internet time was spent playing his favourite online multiplayer game, Runescape, where he went by
the name of RuneJedi.
Online, no one knew who he was. No one knew when he was really from. Best of all, no one cared.
Slowly but surely, Verne built up his online identity. He pretended to be like everyone else, from the
year 2004 and not 1895. He had fun building up his fictional background. No one doubted him; who
would have
He made friends from the future and learnt about their lives, wishing more and more each day that he
could be just like them. Verne couldn’t understand those who kept complaining how boring their lives
were – to him, their lives were the most interesting he had ever known and he would gladly have
swapped with them any day.
Verne lived a dream so intense that he almost believed it to be true. He was living a lie and he knew it,
but he didn’t know how he could carry on if he were to just face the truth – he was stuck here in this
time, and no amount of hoping would change that.