I Pushed the Button on My Boyfriend's Machine and Turned Him Into a Seven-Year-Old

The scent of ozone and hot metal bled from under the garage door, a familiar perfume that always signaled Liam was lost to the world. I leaned my forehead against the cool wood, the slinky black fabric of my anniversary dress feeling ridiculous and out of place. Through the door, I could hear the low, electric hum of his latest obsession, a sound that had become the background music to our lives for the past six months.

“Liam,” I called out, my voice firmer than I felt. “The reservation is in thirty minutes. You promised.”

The humming continued, unabated. Of course. He couldn't hear me over the sound of whatever monstrosity he was building in there. I knocked, rapping my knuckles hard against the door. “Liam! Earth to Liam!”

The humming dipped, and I heard the scrape of a metal stool against concrete. A moment later, the door swung inward, and there he was. His dark hair was a mess, sticking up in several directions as if he’d been running his hands through it for hours. A smudge of grease decorated one high cheekbone, and his blue eyes—the same brilliant, intense blue that had captivated me from the day we met—were unfocused, still seeing equations and energy fields instead of me.

“Chloe,” he said, his voice distant. He blinked, and slowly, I came into focus for him. His eyes widened slightly as they took in the dress, my hair, the makeup I’d spent an hour on. A flicker of guilt crossed his face. “Oh. Right. Dinner.”

“Our anniversary dinner,” I corrected gently, though a familiar knot of disappointment tightened in my stomach. “The one we’ve had planned for a month.”

“I know, I know, I’m so sorry, babe.” He stepped forward, his hands automatically reaching for me before he seemed to remember they were covered in grime. He wiped them on his jeans, a gesture that was hopelessly endearing and infuriating all at once. “I just… I’m on the verge of it. The temporal field generator. It’s finally stable. I just need to run one little test. It will change everything, Chloe. For us.”

I’d heard that promise before. I crossed my arms, the silk of the dress whispering in the quiet space between us. “It’s always one more test, Liam. I just wanted one night. For us. No generators, no particle accelerators.”

He looked genuinely pained, torn between the woman he loved and the work that consumed him. He closed the distance between us, his body warm and solid as he wrapped his arms around my waist, ignoring the risk of grease on my dress. “Please,” he whispered against my temple, his breath warm. “Just watch this one test. Be my good luck charm. You can even press the button.” He tilted my chin up, his gaze locking with mine. His lips found mine, a soft, searching kiss that tasted of coffee and a desperate apology. It deepened quickly, his mouth slanting over mine with a familiar passion that always threatened to undo me. His tongue traced the seam of my lips, a silent plea for entry, for understanding. A low groan rumbled in his chest when I gave in, my hands coming up to tangle in his messy hair. The kiss was everything he couldn't say—his love, his guilt, his all-consuming excitement. When he finally pulled back, his eyes were wide and pleading, his signature move.

His thumb stroked my cheek, a soft, hypnotic motion that unraveled the last of my resolve. A long, shaky breath escaped my lips. The fight went out of me, washed away by the familiar tide of affection he could summon with a single look.

“Fine,” I breathed, the word a surrender. “One test. But then you are taking me out for the best steak in this city, grease stains and all.”

A triumphant, boyish grin spread across his face. He kissed me again, quick and hard, a seal on our new deal. “You won’t regret this,” he promised, taking my hand and pulling me into the garage.

The air inside was thick with the electric hum and the smell of hot circuits. His creation dominated the space. It was a chaotic masterpiece of engineering, a central sphere of polished chrome suspended between two massive copper coils. The whole thing was connected by a nightmarish web of cables to a bank of humming servers and a particle accelerator that took up the entire back wall. It looked both brilliant and terrifyingly unstable.

Liam led me to a small, standalone console a safe distance away. On it was a single, comically large red button under a clear plastic safety cover. “This is the initiation sequence,” he explained, his voice buzzing with excitement. He flipped up the clear cover. “When the core particle stream reaches peak velocity, the monitor will turn green, and you just… press it. That’s it. You officially launch the first temporal field.”

He looked at me, his eyes gleaming, and my annoyance melted completely, replaced by a swell of pride. This was his dream. He squeezed my hand. “Ready?”

I nodded, my heart starting to beat a little faster. He returned to his main console, fingers flying across the keyboard. “Accelerator spooling up,” he called out, his voice tight with concentration. The low hum in the room began to climb in pitch, vibrating through the concrete floor and up my legs. Lights on the main apparatus blinked to life, bathing the garage in a pulsating blue glow. I kept my eyes fixed on the small screen beside the button, waiting for it to turn green.

The sound intensified, becoming a steady, powerful roar. “Almost there… Velocity is at ninety-eight percent…”

The screen flashed from amber to a brilliant green.

My breath caught. I reached out, my finger hovering over the button for a split second before I pressed down. The click was small, almost lost in the noise.

For a moment, everything was perfect. A beautiful, stable ring of white light formed around the chrome sphere. Liam let out a whoop of pure joy. “It’s working! It’s—"

His voice was cut off as the lights in the garage flickered violently. A groaning, metallic shriek ripped through the air as the accelerator’s roar became an ear-splitting scream.

“What was that?” I yelled over the noise.

“Power surge!” Liam shouted back, his face pale with alarm. “The whole grid must have spiked! It’s overloading the containment field!”

Red warning lights flashed across his console. The stable ring of light around the sphere warped, lashing out like a solar flare. A wave of intense heat washed over me, and the smell of burnt sugar filled the air. The central sphere began to glow with a blinding, impossible whiteness.

“Chloe, get back!” Liam yelled, but there was nowhere to go.

The world dissolved into pure, white light. The sound was gone, replaced by a ringing pressure in my ears as a wave of silent, concussive energy slammed into me, throwing me back against the wall.

My head hit the concrete with a dull thud. For a long moment, there was nothing but a high-pitched whine in my ears and the pulsing afterimage of the light burned onto the inside of my eyelids. The air was thick and acrid, a sickeningly sweet combination of ozone and burnt sugar that coated the back of my throat. I pushed myself up onto my elbows, my whole body aching from the impact. The garage was a wreck. Sparks showered down from the fried ceiling lights, casting the scene in a strobe-like, apocalyptic gloom. The great chrome sphere was dark, and a thin curl of black smoke rose from Liam’s main console.

The silence was what scared me the most. The deafening roar of the machine had been replaced by a quiet so absolute it felt heavy, pressing in on me.

“Liam?” I called out, my voice a raw croak. I scrambled to my feet, my legs unsteady. “Liam, are you okay?”

No answer. Only the gentle fizzing of dying electronics. A cold dread, sharp and immediate, twisted in my gut. My eyes scanned the wreckage, searching for him. And then I saw them.

In the center of the garage, right where he had been standing, was a heap of clothes. His faded jeans, the soft t-shirt from his university days, his socks. Just lying there on the dusty floor as if he had simply vanished out of them. My breath caught in my throat, a choked, painful sound. It wasn't possible. People didn't just… evaporate.

I stumbled forward, my anniversary dress feeling like a costume for a different life. I knelt beside the pile of clothes, my fingers trembling as I reached out to touch the worn denim of his jeans. They were warm. A single, tearless sob escaped me. “Liam,” I whispered to the empty room. “Where are you?”

A soft scuffling sound from behind the smoking console made me freeze. It was followed by a small, frightened whimper. My head snapped up, my heart hammering against my ribs. Was someone else hurt?

I rose slowly, cautiously, and crept toward the sound. I peered around the scorched metal casing of the console, my body tensed for anything. Huddled against the back wall was a small boy. He couldn't have been more than seven years old, his small frame swimming in a pair of Liam's boxer shorts. His dark hair was an untamed mess, and he was clutching a heavy wrench to his narrow chest as if it were a shield. He was shaking, his shoulders trembling with silent fear.

He looked up at me, his face smudged with soot. And then I saw his eyes.

They were Liam’s.

Not just a similar color, but his exact eyes. The same brilliant, impossible blue, the same pattern of darker flecks around the iris. But instead of the familiar intelligence and passion, they were wide with a pure, absolute terror that I had never seen in them before. The wrench slipped from his grasp, clattering loudly on the concrete. My own world tilted, the floor seeming to drop away from beneath my feet. It was him. It was my Liam, somehow trapped in the body of a child.