“Congratulations, you have been nominated to take a step into time!”
The small package she had received had a card stuck onto it, containing these words. She thought this was curious, what could this mean?
She glanced at the small package and saw it was stamped with the logo of Comm-co. Comm-co, or Common Company, was a large-scale, cheap department store that sold interesting new products, with the normal, mundane things that most stores sold.
Comm-co was always looking for testers for their products, and would randomly choose their ‘contestants’, as they would call them from a list of a names, anonymously suggested by the public.
She did not like Comm-co for this selection process. It meant friends would turn on each other, co-workers ever suspicious of the people they work with, classmates nominating others for the pettiest of reasons.
Her own co-worker had suffered of this- he had gotten so paranoid that someone would randomly recommend him that he just about stopped coming to work, and would outburst violently at whomever dared speak to him. When he was suggested, and he received a package in the mail, he had hung himself. No-one found him until more than a week later.
She’d seen this happen before, of course. Many people rather killed themselves than tested their products, for a good reason. One of the first deaths was for a kid’s product- a ‘home-brewing witch set’. It was sent to a day-care she had ties to. The children were burnt in acid when they accidentally tipped the cauldron. One of those children was her best-friend’s daughter.
From that accident, her best friend, a single father of that poor little girl, was suggested and killed by a product. From then on, she decided to boycott all Comm-co products, and eventually grew to hate Comm-co as a whole.
This way of nominating had existed since the department store chain became popular three years ago.
There was some glory in testing these products, though. If the product you received was successful, it was rumored that you would get a great reward for it.
She was reluctant to open the stamped box. She didn’t particularly want to die at this moment.
Hands shaking, she slowly started to open the box. She knew the consequences of not opening a package sent from Comm-co. She looked to the security cameras, which had been installed in every house decades ago, for ‘citizen safety’.
Inside the package was a small pendant. The delicate links looked like polished silver, and the pendant was a small orange crystal. The crystal looked like it was alive, light reflecting the amber outside, and it even looked as if the inside of the crystal had something through it- like a pond of honey inside those tough walls.
What could it be? She questioned herself. Comm-co could make the strangest things- from the first magma-fueled toaster to a blanket which can make you invisible.
She searched for the instructions. There were always instructions included in Comm-co’s products, to make sure the test subject was using it right. She just hoped this wasn’t riddled instructions- her neighbor had received that type when he was tasked with testing a shape-shifting bracelet. She felt sorry for him.
The instructions where in the form of a brightly colored pamphlet. The front had a picture of the necklace and the name of the product- Time Travel Pendant. Inventive.
She read the instructions twice over, as thoroughly as she could. She didn’t want to end up like the people who didn’t read the instructions- there was no hope for those contestants.
She flipped the amber pendant and saw a small copper dial sticking out of the crystal. As it stated on the booklet ‘find the dial, set it to 1, rub the pendant in a clockwise motion, find your nearest Comm-Co™ retailer, and show this pamphlet to the staff member to claim your prize!’
She turned the small dial, wondering how many numbers it could go up to, and circled the amber pendant. She observed that it was warm as she circled. And that was the last thing she felt before her vision went black.
---
She didn’t know how long she had been asleep for. Her head was murky, vision unsteady, and as she tried to get up, she found her muscles where terribly cramped. She must have been sleeping for hours.
She looked to her hand. The living pendant was still in her hand.
A/N: "And that's all she wrote"
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