Part 1

London, 1815. The rain tapped steadily against the grimy, cracked windows of a small attic apartment, the only sound in the dead of night. Inside, by the dim light of a flickering oil lamp, sat William Ashcroft, an inventor whose spirit had been worn down by years of failure. His hands, once steady and filled with ambition, now trembled as they hovered over a cluttered workbench, surrounded by the remnants of his once-bright ideas. His apartment was more workshop than living space. Copper wires, gears, and broken parts littered the floor, scattered among crumpled blueprints and long-forgotten projects. Each device he had built over the years, each contraption, had been a potential breakthrough—a stepping stone to the future of modern science. But none had worked. Steam-powered contraptions had sputtered and died. Mechanical wagons had collapsed before they could even roll. Even the self-turning clock, which he had been so sure would revolutionize timekeeping, now lay abandoned, ticking mockingly in its half-functional state. Ashcroft ran a hand through his graying hair, which had once been thick and dark with the vigor of youth. Now, the toll of disappointment had left its mark not only on his inventions but on his face. Lines etched deep around his eyes told the story of a man who had wrestled with hope until it was nearly gone. His clothes, worn thin and patched too many times to count, matched the shabbiness of the room itself. And soon, even this pitiful shelter would no longer be his. Tomorrow, he would be evicted.

His landlord had finally lost patience. The eviction notice lay ominously on his bed, its bold letters a cruel reminder of how far he had fallen. With his funds depleted and no product to show for the years of work, Ashcroft faced the grim reality that he would be homeless by morning. He sighed deeply, staring at the one invention that still gave him hope.The "Chronometer" stood in the corner, unfinished but humming faintly with potential. Unlike his other inventions, this device was not meant to solve a mundane problem or make life more convenient. This was something bigger, something bolder—a machine that could alter the very fabric of time. He had worked on it for years in secret, tinkering with theories of temporal displacement, bending the rules of physics, and sketching out ideas that would have been laughed at in any respectable scientific circle.It had taken every last ounce of his ingenuity, and now, in his desperation, he pinned all his remaining hopes on it. If this worked—if he could travel into the future, witness the rise and fall of fortunes, and gather knowledge of the stock market—he could return to the present a man of vast wealth. Investments made with future insight would erase his debts and restore his name. His legacy as an inventor would be secured, and history would never forget William Ashcroft.

The lamp flickered, casting long shadows across the room as thunder rumbled ominously in the distance. Ashcroft tightened the last bolt on the machine, his fingers trembling with a mixture of fear and anticipation. He had nothing left to lose. This was his final gamble. "This has to work," he muttered to himself, adjusting the brass dials that gleamed faintly under the dim light. He had calculated everything meticulously. The Chronometer was set to take him just fifty years into the future—a time when technology would surely be more advanced and market information would be ripe for the taking. He would slip through time unnoticed, gather what he needed, and return to build his fortune. He took a deep breath, running over the calculations in his mind one last time. The energy buildup was stable, the gears were aligned, and the core was humming with the pulse of possibility. His hand hovered over the switch, his heart pounding as the moment of truth arrived. Outside, the storm picked up, wind howling through the cracks in the window, as if nature itself anticipated the leap into the unknown. With a sudden burst of courage, Ashcroft flipped the switch. The room was immediately engulfed in light. The Chronometer's gears spun wildly, faster than anything he had ever seen. The air around him seemed to thicken, and his vision blurred as the machine took hold of reality, bending it to its will. He felt a strange sensation, like being pulled through water, as time itself unraveled before him.

A whirlpool of color and light enveloped him, and for a moment, Ashcroft thought he might disintegrate into the void. But then, just as quickly as it began, the light faded, and the machine fell silent. He stumbled, disoriented, clutching at the controls as his surroundings solidified. But something was wrong. Very wrong.Instead of the bustling streets of future London, a vast, untamed landscape stretched before him. Thick, towering ferns and colossal trees filled the horizon. The air was warm and heavy with the scent of damp earth, a far cry from the cool, rainy night he had left behind. The familiar noises of a city were gone, replaced by the eerie stillness of nature. In the distance, the ground shook as something enormous lumbered through the jungle. He wasn't in the future. He had gone too far. Far too far. Ashcroft's heart raced as realization dawned on him. The machine had malfunctioned, and he had been thrust backward in time, millions of years, to the age of the dinosaurs. Trembling, he turned to the Chronometer, frantically adjusting the dials, but the control panel was fried. The delicate copper circuits, now scorched black, offered no response. Smoke curled lazily from the machine’s core, its once-promising hum now a lifeless silence.

"No, no, no!" Ashcroft cried, kicking the useless machine. Panic gripped him as he scanned the unfamiliar landscape. He had wanted a glimpse of the future, a chance to change his fortune. Instead, he had plunged into the distant past—a time when man did not exist, and the world belonged to beasts beyond imagination. His breath caught in his throat as the ground shook again, this time closer. A low, rumbling roar echoed through the jungle, and the leaves of the trees trembled as something massive approached. He spun around, eyes wide with terror, as a shadow fell over him. Towering above, a giant creature emerged from the underbrush—a creature that had long been extinct in his own time. A Tyrannosaurus rex, its eyes glinting in the dim light, regarded him with a predatory curiosity. Ashcroft froze, every fiber of his being screaming at him to run, but his legs refused to move. He had gambled with time itself, and now, in this ancient world, surrounded by the monsters of a forgotten age, he was completely and utterly alone. The future he had longed to see had slipped further from his grasp with every heartbeat, and in its place, the harsh, primal reality of a world millions of years past now surrounded him. And William Ashcroft, the once-hopeful inventor, realized his greatest creation had become his undoing.