The two brothers stood in their room in their new house. The room was quite large and would have looked quite clean and fancy if not for the number of unpacked boxes scattered all across the room, making it look more like a storage area than anything else. Kevin, the shorter and younger of the two siblings was fifteen, dark brown hair and blue eyes and was staring at his older brother in a look of complete annoyance. David, the older of the two, was seventeen and thus was a lot more mature and responsible. He looked almost exactly like Kevin but simply with a more mature and calm face.
Kevin had been trying, fruitlessly, to try to convince David to accompany him down the mysterious trapdoor in the bottom of their new house's basement. He knew for sure that through the trapdoor existed something very bizarre and worth exploring, but David, knowing Kevin's popular reputation of being extremely superstitious at times, was point black refusing to believe him. Kevin wasn't going to give up on him though; he was too scared to approach the trapdoor by himself and knew he would need David alongside him. Truth be told, the boys' dad was probably largely at fault for telling them that their very house was rumoured to be a portal through time - something that he had heard from the neighbors. Since then, Kevin had been entirely obsessed with the trapdoor, which, he was sure - was the hidden time portal his dad had told him about.
"Please? Come on man. Just give it a shot; if I'm wrong then there would be no harm would it?" whined Kevin, for what seemed the thousandths time.
"No there wouldn't," replied David calmly, "but it would waste a whole chunk of my time, and I have a date with Amanda tonight". It was his dad's fault, he though angrily, why did he have to tell Kevin about the stupid imaginary time portal anyway.
Kevin rolled his eyes, ever since Amanda had admitted that she had a crush on David, David had told everyone who would listen that he had a date with her on Saturday - which happened to be on the exact day that Kevin had planned to venture down the trapdoor.
"All right man, look. All we do is take a quick peak down the trapdoor, if there is nothing there, ill shut up about anything related to time ever again, but if it is actually true! Dude, just imagine what we would discover!"
David sighed; he knew there was no way to stop Kevin badgering him and finally decided to give in. His date wasn't until another three hours after all.
"All right, but only a quick peak and that's it, OK?"
"YES! Knew I would get you at last! Meet me there in five minutes, all right?" shouted Kevin excitedly, and half skipped out of the room.
David sighed again. His brother had always been the more - energetic of the two of them - while he had always been the quieter and more rational guy. He knew nevertheless, that by accepting to accompany Kevin tonight, he had done him a large favour and that Kevin would never forget it. Truth be told, he was - at least a little, curious of the tale that their dad had told them and wondered if the trap door was, actually a lost and hidden time portal. He shook his head distractedly; he had been hanging by Kevin too much and was starting to think like him. Sighing once more, he walked down to the basement to meet Kevin by the trapdoor. He had no idea, of course, that he was also walking towards total disaster.
"There you are!" said Kevin, looking relieved as he saw David coming, "was thinking you changed your mind... I'll go first okay?" Without waiting for an answer, he sped towards the trapdoor and - with a grunt - opened it. As soon as he had heaved it open, a flash of bright light filled the basement from the other side of the trapdoor. The flash of light vanished just as soon as it had appeared, it was simply one second there and the other second it had gone. David, who had put his hands over his eyes from the sudden manifestation of light, opened them squinting. The basement had not changed, it was exactly the same as before - only Kevin had now disappeared.
David's first thought was that he was having his leg pulled on some stupid prank Kevin had devised. As he thought more into it however, he realized that not even Kevin could make himself completely invisible. In any case, there were no hiding places in the basement - it seemed that Kevin had just vanished from the face of the Earth. David was anxious now; what if the trapdoor was truly a time portal? What if the tale that his dad had told him and Kevin was actually true? It was stupid and it was the sort of thing you usually read in fiction books, but then again, there was no way of explaining how Kevin had just vanished and most oddly of all - what about the flash of light?
