*Knock, knock, knock*

At the sound of the door, Daniel got up off the couch, set down the bowl of cereal he had just finished, and walked over to open it. Dan was a 20 year old college student who was quite tall and somewhat skinny with dark brown hair. On the other side of the door he found his girlfriend Olivia. She stood about a head shorter than him with wavy blonde hair. “Hey, Liv, you’re here early today.”

Olivia rushed inside as if it were her own house. “Sorry, but I couldn’t wait to show you this.”

Dan shut the door and noticed a tablet-like device in her hands. “Wait, is that-?”

“Yep. It’s my new invention.” Olivia walked over and sat on the couch which was in the center of the living room. She was a 19 year old genius and able to create machines that could do the impossible. “Come take a look.” Dan began to walk over himself. “Is anyone else home?”

Sitting down, Dan answered, “My parents are out of town for the weekend, but Megan is home.” Megan was Dan’s 18 year old sister. Dan loved her as a sibling, but was usually annoyed by her common childish antics. “She’s still asleep right now, though.” As if on cue, Megan was heard yawning as she trudged down the steps. Her usually straight light brown hair was a bit of a mess.

“Morning, Megan!” Olivia said cheerfully to her while waving.

Megan glanced over and sleepily grunted something that sounded like “hey” before entering the kitchen to get some breakfast.

“She’s really not a morning person,” Dan said.

“I can tell,” Olivia chuckled. “Anyway, my invention is finally done! The world’s first ever portal-making machine!”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Dan said with a smile.

“Alrighty then. I’ll show you.” Olivia tapped her fingers on the touchscreen and in a few seconds a glowing portal appeared on the floor in front of her. A few more touches created another one of equal size in front of Dan. Then she grabbed an apple from the table and tossed it into her portal. It popped out of the other and Dan caught it.

“Wow! That’s amazing!”

“And that’s not all. Check this out.” Olivia made the portal on her side smaller. “Toss it in.” Dan threw the apple in his portal and it came out of Olivia’s, except this time it was half its size. Then she made her portal much smaller and tossed the apple back in. Dan ended up catching an apple the size of a basketball and nearly fell off the couch.

“Holy cow! That’s insane!”

“I appreciate your amazement.” Olivia said happily.

“Let me try!” Dan exclaimed, grabbed the device abruptly.

“Whoa! Hold on! That thing is complicated.” Olivia took it back.

“Oh, come on! I just want to check it out.” Dan grabbed on again, but this time Olivia held her grip. Now they were both holding on.

“Dan, I’m serious. Let go!”

“No, you let go!”

“It’s my invention!”

The two of them pulled at the machine until Olivia’s fingers slipped. The sudden release of force caused Dan to lose his grip too and the tablet flew up into the air. Before either one could grab it, the machine landed in Dan’s cereal bowl full of leftover milk. It sparked as the liquid seeped in.

“Whoops,” was all Daniel could say.

“Dan, look at what you did!” Olivia quickly pulled her invention out of the milk. The touchscreen was going haywire. “You idiot! I can’t believe you just broke my invention!” The portals that were on the ground disappeared and then reappeared on the wall and ceiling. “Great! Now it’s spitting out portals all over the place.”

“Can’t you turn it off?”

“No, the screen won’t work. I’m gonna run to your garage and try to fix it.”

“You’re leaving me alone? What if I fall in a portal and get sent to Japan or something?”

“The device is only able to create portals within a short radius. They won’t appear beyond your house.”

“Okay, that’s good. But what if...”

“Listen, I need to fix this ASAP so there’s no time to argue. Just make sure the portals don’t destroy your house.”

“Alright, fine.” Olivia ran off and left Dan by himself. “These portals can’t be too troublesome, right?”