It all started on April 19, 2011. That was the day that everything changed. I did not feel like anything could be trusted anymore. Everything was unstable. The world was a wreck.

I have been living alone, taking care of myself for three months now. I have learned to be an independent girl. Although I may look strong and brave on the inside, I am not. I just want to crawl in a hole and wait there until the world ends.
Although, that may not be possible, because I am the only person left on earth. I was the one who triggered it, too. At first I was in denial; how could I, Jennifer Raven, have triggered the end of the world. How could I, a mere girl of sixteen, killed seven billion people in one throw.
I was running along, from the bus stop, trying to get home, couldn’t wait for my vacation, when there it was sitting on the sidewalk, a box. Like anyone might do, I picked it up. There was a note, I still remember the exact words, how could I forget, “Do not keep this, instead destroy it as quickly as possible; if you do not obey, I will know, and the safety of everyone around you will be in danger.” So I threw it, and that choice will haunt me forever. Thoughts still run through my head, What would have happened if I hadn’t thrown that, where would the world be, Is the man after me, or is he angry, or happy with me, is he even a man? But I threw it, and everything was gone, and I blacked out. That is all I remember. When I woke up, everything was gone.
I am scared, very scared. I know that this person is after me, they set me up, they know that I triggered the end of the world. That is all I remember from before the accident, nothing else, although sometimes I have flashbacks to things before the explosion which lead to me to know more about my life before the explosion, and so far, all I know is that my name is Jennifer Ackert, I was a popular, loved girl; my family loved me, I had tons of friends; I had a life that any teenage girl would want; I had a couple enemies, but none mean enough to set me up like that.
As I sat outside on a warm summer day, I thought about the things that keep coming back to me, Where would I be if I hadn’t thrown that bomb. It was too late now, I really should stop thinking about it, but there was nothing better to do. If only I had known then.
I was not the last person on earth. I had to read the note at least three times to really process the meaning “You are not the only one left, I am here, and so are your best friends, you all set of the end of the world, I am leaving it to you to find them, Good luck, and this is only the beginning.” I could not stop myself from smiling; Charlotte and Paige were alive. I didn’t kill my friends. But there were mixed emotions. Two different things running through my head, and so are your best friends, so are your best friends, your best friends, best friends, but also, I am leaving it to you to find them, it is only the beginning.
So now there was something to do - find my friends - before it was too late. We couldn’t survive out here forever, we needed each other, and I decided then, I would do everything I could to find them, I would risk my life to find them and be with them. Off I went, searching the town screaming their names, there was nothing to be afraid of, no one to be embarrassed in front of. So I bellowed their names at the top of my lungs, wondering if they had gotten the same note and were searching for me, too.
I searched day and night for four weeks in a row- talk about perseverance! I was exhausted and ready to give up. I could not take it any longer, maybe it was all a joke, the man was tricking me again. I was worried of that, but I was the type of person who it took a little while to face the truth. I wasn’t ready to realize that my friends really weren’t here. There was no use stopping now though, so I kept on going.
I felt it in my gut, that day, that my friends were there. It’s a hard feeling to describe, but somehow, I knew that they were in that tall, broken own building. It was a sign. I ran into the building, yelling their names. “Paigeymack!” “Char!” I screamed. “Are you in there?” “It’s me, Jenny, I am alive, too.” Couldn’t they hear me? Wouldn’t they be yelling back if they were alive? Maybe they weren’t in there. Or maybe they were dead.
I searched through the ruins of the building, still yelling their names, dust in my eyes. There I saw a movement, and that gave me hope. I ran towards it, hoping it was one of them, and it was, but not what I expected. Charlotte was different than me now. Only Paige looked like me, ragged dirty clothes, tired, dust in her eyes. But as my eyes scanned them, Charlotte was different, she was clean, tidy, and had an evil look in her eyes, not what I expected. Paige looked at me, scared as I watched the Charlotte’s every move. Her voice was different when she spoke. “Leave, now, if you know what is good for you.” When she said those words to me, I saw the old Charlotte gleam in her eyes, I think she was trying to protect us. Paige mouthed words to me, Come with me, we can escape. We had gotten good at mouthing words and reading lips, after so many boring school classes, so I knew exactly what she said. Okay, I mouthed back. In a flash, I grabbed her arm, and we ran. We ran as fast as possible, as far as possible, not looking back, not thinking about anything, just running. If I really think about it, it felt good. To run freely, holding onto Paige’s hand, the wind in my hair, my face feeling the cool air, legs moving fast, arms moving with them, just plain running. I haven’t done that in a while.
I guess all I got from that was right back to where I had started before I started looking for them. But now I had a friend with me, and I knew that the man who made me end the world, had Charlotte as a worker, and he may have others.

After talking, we realized we were going to do something about this, we weren’t just going to sit back and let this happen to us; now that we had each other, we were going to do something about this. So when we heard a sound in the bushes outside of the cave, we went to investigate. There we saw the man.

My heart jumped out of my chest. It was him. He was horrible and almost undescribable. His eyes looked silver and they could just about bore a hole through your body. He was pale and looked almost like a vampire without the pointy teeth. He looke old and he was wearing all white.

I had now realized that if I wanted to survive in this crazy unreal world, I had to get over my fear of this man and stand up to him.
“Who are you? Are you the one that has been sending me the notes? Why are you doing this? What did you do to Charlotte? Why am I the one you chose to trigger the end of the world?”
Wow I thought as I yelled these questions to him, wasn’t I the shy girl who never stood up to people or really talked much? What happened? Since when did I have all this confidence? As the man took a deep breath in, he said
“You are not a human anymore; you are one of my workers; you all are. You will work with me until I am sure that I am the only one left on this earth. Am I clear?”
“Yes, yes you are.” Paige and I mumbled. And with that he grabbed us by the shoulders and we were blindfolded and handcuffed. I could feel his cold hands on my shoulder as he positioned me to walk straight forward. We walked for at least a mile, twisting and turning until my brain spun so much I was positive I would never be able to remember the way that we came.
Finally we walked up a flight of stairs, and dramatically spun us around, plopped us down on chairs, spun us one more time, and ripped the blindfold off.
We were in an all white room. It was like something you would see in one of those scary sci-fi movies. There was only one worker, other than the man, who was sitting down in front of the big computers, I could tell who it was of course; Charlotte.
“You three are my workers” the man said. “You can call me Victor Black, or for short, just Victor. I will tell you your schedule, and you will get to work. Everyday each of you will wake up at 6:00 in the morning, eat breakfast, and work on these computers all day, finding a way to stop all living creatures but me. Once you are done you will eat dinner and go back to bed, and repeat.
“What about lunch?” I said.
“No questioning me, and no lunch. You will eat breakfast and dinner, period. That is all.”
That is what we did, for weeks on end. Yes, it was boring, but no there was nothing we could do about it. We were watched by security cameras at every second, alarms would go off at every bad move we made, we could not escape, or even think about it.

Until one day, Charlotte, Paige, and I hatched The Plan. Actually, to be correct, that box hatched the plan. I don’t have a very good history with boxes and things that lie on the ground but this box was different, this box was a time machine. It had been sitting in my room, right behind my bed. Whoever put it there was trying to save us. With a note. Saying “This is your only hope, this box can fix everything that has happened, go back to right before you threw the bomb, and don’t throw it, you will be fine. Do what I say, and remember, this is your only hope.” With those words in our head, we decided we were just going to have to put that time machine to use, and fix what we had done. It had been two months since the end of the world had been triggered, by me. We would go back in time and get back to right before I triggered it. But first we would have to have Paige, being the smallest of us all go and turn off all electricity in the building while Victor was asleep. All memory would be lost on the security cameras, and the alarms would not work. So once she sneaked back we would make sure Victor was asleep, slip in the time machine, and go.

It sounded so easy when you describe it like that. The three of us tried not to think about what could happen if it failed, or if the alarm went off when Paige turned off all power. It was hard though. We waited patiently, actually not so patiently, until the day we had planned came.

Finally, it was time. The day had come that we were going to get out of this place. Undo this mess we had started. We were antsy in front of our computers all day, we could not concentrate on our work, but we had to conceal our worry incase Victor would sense something. We vowed to stay up until we knew he was asleep. When he was, it was very clear because of his loud snoring habit. When we heard the first of the snores we sat up in our beds and were ready. The three of us got into a hug, whispering words of encouragement to each other. We knew what the three of us were capable of if that time machine worked. We knew the power that we had. “Go on Paige, it’s time,” I could feel her trembling as we embraced for the last time. “I can do this.” she said confidently, her face questioning it. “Yes you can!” said Char, “We know you can.”

She set off from the dark of our room into the light of the room, that would soon also be dark, and the security cameras, that would soon be turned off, with the alarms. We knew until she sneaked back into our room, the only thing we could do was worry. Sit there and worry. So that is exactly what we did.

When we heard the faint creak of the door opening, I had to hold onto Charlotte to keep from squealing. “Part one, check!” I whispered not even bothering to hide the smile that beamed across my face.

Hand in hand we walked into the closet, where our time machine was hiding. We slipped into it as quietly as possible, the note in between Charlotte and my hand. The button was on the inside so as we went back we chose the date and time we wanted. This better work out, I thought to myself. I still remember the exact date and time, April 19, 2011, at 4:16. As we entered that in, I closed my eyes really tight, and squeezed Char and Paigey’s hands.

It was the strangest feeling. It was not describable. You actually felt like you were going back in time. A strange rush filled my whole body and lasted about a minute before the box bumped on the ground. Although one minute sounds quick, it felt like a year to me.

Wow that weird, I was alone, I suppose Char and Paige had gone back to where they were at this time, because I was on my bus home from school. Same kids, same bus driver, in their same seats, doing the same things. Just thinking about how the time machine works makes my head spin. So I sat and waited, heart beating fast.

I stepped off the bus, my whole body shaking, I would not be picking up the box with the note this time. I felt so proud when I looked on the ground and saw the box, and with my head held high, a smile on my face, I just walked on by. It was awesome.

After I passed the box, I full on sprinted to my house. As my mom was standing in the kitchen, I grabbed her in a huge hug, “Um, hi honey, how was your day at school, you are looking chipper today!” Even though whenever she said words like chipper and honey, that would usually bother me, today I was just so glad to hear her voice. The dog walked in and I strangled t in a hug, “I missed you so much my little puppy.” Instead of answering, it just slobbered me with kisses. “You saw her this morning, Jenny. Why are you acting so weird?”

“Oooh, its nothing.” I answered back, a smug look on my face. Never before have I appreciated my life this much. I was noticing the small things that I loved. And in this moment, I never wanted to leave.