Milo squinted at the index card in his hand. It was supposed to be a school assignment, but it felt more like a treasure map. His teacher, Ms. Temple, had called it the "key to unlocking any mystery." But this just looked like random symbols to him: 1, 7, %3, and a weird crescent triangle thing at the bottom.

He flipped the card over. No instructions. Nothing.

"Mom!" he called, rushing downstairs. "I’m going on an adventure!"

His mom barely glanced up from her crossword. "What kind of adventure?"

"The kind that starts with this card!" Milo said, holding it up like it was a golden ticket.

She sighed. "It's just a school project."

"Nope," Milo grinned. "This is way bigger. You’ll see."

With that, he dashed out the door, determined to figure out what this index was really leading to.

Milo soon finds himself alone surrounded by nothing but woods. He was just walking around, and then, he started thinking about the index card and less about where he was. The next thing he knew he was on his own in the forest and—

“Wait a second!” Milo said aloud with sudden realization, “It takes about an hour to leave town by foot and according to my watch its only been twenty minutes.”

”Right you are,” said a mysterious voice from around a tree, then it continued, “your watch doesn’t work right now and it will stay that way, for the rest of your adventure. So will your phone, and other electronic time telling device.”

Milo immediately pulled out his phone, and the voice was right, the time on his phone matched the time on his watch. His next instinct was to call someone, but when he tried to unlock his phone it wouldn’t do anything, it was like his phone was just an image and not real at all.

”I told you it wouldn’t work, any electronic object that. Is used to tell time will lose it’s ability to work at all.”

”You keep saying that, ‘electronic,’ what other way is there to tell time.”

”Oh, you have much to learn,” said the man wisely, “it will all be revealed to you in good time. No pun intended.” With that, the man stepped out of the shadows and reveled himself.

…