With Christmas music playing in the background over the family's entertainment unit, a tiny mouse stared at flashing letters that had erupted on the Chronivac's view screen.
"SUBJECT WILL RETAIN FORM UNTIL..."
Before his beady little eyes, the flashing letters scrambled and then re-formed on the view screen. "Subject?" Nathan wondered.
"SUBJECT WILL RETAIN..." Nathan watched as the pattern of the letters scrambling and re-forming repeated itself, causing him to view the screen with increasing worry as he realized he was the subject of the error message.
"SUBJECT WILL..."
As he waited for the letters to re-form, Nathan heard the loud noise from outdoors. The commotion sounded closer. He waited impatiently for the message to re-form.
Instead, the screen went dead except for a tiny pinpoint of red that slowly faded.
"Oh no!" He scrambled onto and over the unit using his tiny mouse paws for traction.
While Nathan tried to determine what had gone wrong, the source of the noise revealed itself...