Time Twins by Monkswalk (best summer reads .txt) 📕

burst of music coming from the mp3’s plugged into their ears, pushing forwards like a river of smart suits Their constant movement gave me only brief glimpses of my brother before he would be obscured by the crowd once again. I had to get to him; he was the only thing I recognised in this ocean of chaos. Barging my way through the crowd, much to the protests of the business men who obviously thought that their trip to work vastly outweighed what a teenage trouble maker was trying to do. Finally, the crowd seemed to end, allowing me to offer Sam my hand.
“Where are we?” he asked groggily.
“When are we?” I replied.
He slowly rose up from his position on the floor, only to be knocked back into the wall by some business man, swinging a leather briefcase, obviously late for a meeting.
“What do you think you’re doing!” He shouted in his direction, waving his fist at him.
“So sorry about that. Just didn’t see you there.” He replied smoothly, seeming to not see Sam’s fist just inches from his face.
Sam’s belongings were sprawled out over the pavement, not that he had many. I bent down to pick them up, but the business man intervened.
“No, it’s my fault. I’ll take care of it”
He scooped them up, passing Sam’s belongings back to him. Up close I could see that his appearance was immaculate. His hair was gelled down, his suit perfectly organised. He certainly didn’t seem be the short of person who ever ran late and he didn’t seem to have been running for long…
“Thanks mate. Sorry about yell-Hey!” Sam cut off mid sentence, as he saw the man hadn’t been as nice as he had seemed. He had palmed some of Sam’s belongings, putting them in his pocket. As he turned to run away, I snatched his arm, only for him to swat away my arm, sending me flying into the feet of the other pedestrians. He hit Sam in the stomach with his briefcase, causing him to double over in pain.
I did not!
Shut up Sam. You’re lucky I didn’t tell them about the tears when you hit your head. Now let me finish.
The man disappeared into the crowd. He was gone. Along with everything Anne Boleyn had given us.
We tried finding him again, but it was hopeless. Even by the time it had gone dark, we still had no idea where he or any of our stuff had gone. Eventually we just had to admit defeat, find somewhere quiet to sleep, and try to find warmth under a newspaper. Sam was asleep first, obviously less trouble by our predicament. But my mind was still tossing and turning. By the time I finally did succumb to fatigue, the large clock in the distance told me it had gone midnight.
“Amy? Amy! Amy!”
For the second time since the hospital, I woke with a start. Crouched over me was a tall man in a short green duffel coat, shaking me with his arm.
“Ah, good you’re awake!”
My first reaction to seeing a strange man with a creepy grin on his face bent over me was to try and run, but the man was so close that he could catch before I even got up.
“Don’t worry. I’m not here to hurt you. She sent me” He replied.
He spoke with a slight Scottish burgh, barely noticeable apart from when he finished his sentences. He had short blonde messy hair, which, along with the thin line of stubble along his chin told me that he didn’t have much time for his appearance.
“Who’s she?”
At this, the man frowned.
“Hmm. You should know that by now. But she probably wouldn’t like it if I gave you all the answers, so I’m afraid you’re going to have to work it out on your own.”
I was still only half awake, so this barely registered in my mind.
“You don’t know me, but I know you. Now, she told me not to tell you anything point blanc, but she didn’t know you were going to get mugged, which she should have expected in somewhere as busy and hectic as London. CCTV’s useless. But anyway, that’s beside the point. The book triggered it last time, right? Well you’re going to need to trigger it again. Tomorrow morning, catch the bus at the stop over there.”
He pointed to the tall stick with some sort of sign at the top, which was situated at the end of the alley.
“Here’s some money to pay the driver with,” he said, producing coins from his jacket pocket.
“Stay on it until you see a big marble building with stone dragons outside. Get off, and go outside. Now remember, Daniel Rashouk. Remember that name. You’ll find it in the gallery, and that’s all you need to get to the next stage.”
He turned and walked away. After having all this information thrown at me, barely anything sinking in, only one question came to mind.
“Who are you?” I cried out, trying to fill at least one of the gaping holes in her memory.
But he was gone.


Chapter 5
The gallery
Sam

I woke up first. Amy lay next to me, her brown hair covering her eyes. I held her shoulder and shook it gently.

“Amy, wake up.”

She frowned slightly before opening her eyes. She doesn’t take to being woken up when she isn’t ready, it seems. She sat up and looked around.

“Where are we again?” She asked, trying to figure out what happened yesterday. To be honest, it took me a little while to remember too. Then it came to me. The arrival in London and the mugging. Wasn’t exactly a great first impression.

I told Amy what happened. She seemed to be a bit disappointed at first, but then she smiled.

“Well, no use us sitting here doing nothing, is there? Let’s go look around, see if we can find that relative again.” She stood up off the floor, me following. I had a look around the area. It looked like the rest of London that we had seen before, grey concrete paths, black tarred roads and lots of white buildings. Shame, not a bit of nature in sight. Well, there were a few flower baskets but they didn’t really count. Amy suddenly tugged my shoulder. I turned to her.

“What is it Amy?” I asked. She seemed excited.

“Look, look! Lots of people are going somewhere! It must be popular! Can we go?”

“Do we have to?” I whined, sounding like a little kid.

“Well, you decide.” She commanded, crossing her arms. I swear, she’s so bossy sometimes.

I bit my lip. We couldn’t really waste any time, seeing as we needed to restore our memories, but we weren’t really going anywhere …

“Alright. Let’s go.”

She smiled and started walking to a nearby bus stop. She handed the driver some money. I didn’t know where she got it from. How did she get it?

Anyway, we arrived at a large crowd. Amy got off the bus and walked up to the crowd’s reason of gathering. I followed closely behind, a bit nervous. Last time we followed a crowd, it led us to an execution, and that wasn’t very pretty. However, this seemed to be a nice time, seeing as everyone was chatting cheerily and some little kids were holding balloons.

We soon saw the building that was causing the crowd. It was white (big surprise, being in a city that looked like it was carved out of chalk), and had pillars at the front. A sign was above the double doors. It said ‘TATE MODERN’.

“It looks like a temple. Maybe it’s a modern temple!” I exclaimed. Amy hit me at the back of the head and sighed.

“It’s not a temple, stupid! It’s an art gallery. I overheard someone talk about it.”

She turned to the gallery. Her forest eyes seemed to light up like fireworks at the sight of it. Chuckling, I trailed after her and entered the cream walls of the gallery. Sis seemed to be glancing around, looking for a particular picture. I, however, just strutted around, admiring the different styles of painting. Suddenly, I noticed something a little odd. I beckoned Amy over, and then pointed to a Tudor painting.

It looked like the execution of Anne Boleyn, and seemed a bit overdramatic for my liking, but that wasn’t what was strange.

What was strange was the fact that there was a boy and girl in white clothing with brown hair and green eyes.

That was us to a T.

Amy seemed to realize it too. “We’re … In a painting? What the ...?”

Another painting was next to it. It seemed similar to the one we were looking at, so I had a look. It had us in it too.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” I said, scratching my head in thought. “How are we in paintings hundreds of years old?”

Amy looked clueless too, but then muttered something to herself and walked away. I was too busy thinking up options as to why we were in the painting that I didn’t notice. I gave up after a few minutes and turned to where Amy was last time I saw her.

She wasn’t there.

Realisation swept over me as I remembered that she was looking for a certain picture. Luckily, twins have some sort of physic power, so it would be easy to track her down. Sure enough, I found her with her arms crossed and concentrating on an A3-sized sketch. I walked next to her and stared at the picture too.

It looked like a futuristic city of some sort. Buildings were mainly made up of silvery steel and glass, and there were a few floating contraptions that resembled cars. I turned to Amy, confused.

“Why are you looking at this painting? It isn’t exactly a masterpiece,” I said. She pointed to a plaque under it. It read ‘”The Future” by Daniel Rashouk’. Amy seemed to recognise it. I asked her if she knew the picture. She sighed.

“Someone told me that we needed to find this picture for some reason.”

I shrugged. “Well, we found it. Now what do we have to do-“

I didn’t finish as I was suddenly out like a light. Again.


Chapter 6
The Future
Amy
Hi, it’s Amy here. Sam and I have both been transported to this really futuristic place, not sure what year it is but I think Sam’s already off to go and find out, I had better be going. Bye. Hey Sam wait up!”

“Get a move on!” exclaimed Sam. “Are you entirely sure we should be venturing of into the unknown the minute we arrive?”

“Do you have any better ideas?” Sam said enquiringly.

No but I think we need to be very careful.” “I’m going to ask that lady over there what year this is” said Sam; w-e-l-l be careful “and what do you think an old lady like that is going to do to me?” questioned Sam.
Sam’s gone off to ask this lady what year it is so I’ll just sit here and wait for him. “Hey Amy, The lady says it’s the 12th November 3000, our birthday!” exclaimed Sam, I don’t care what year it is all I want is to get out of here. All these people must weigh the same as 5 elephants and they’re hovering around on wheel chairs without the wheels. It’s creeping me out.
Ever since I found myself in that mysterious hospital I’ve been feeling really strange. I