Petar Golubski is an elementary school teacher in the Bulgarian city of Plovdiv. The man devoted his entire life to work. He never had a family, and spent his free time organizing various matinees, events for children, lectures for young parents and electives. In 1998, returning from a children's party, he met a child. The boy was looking around and seemed distracted.
When the man approached him and spoke to him, he jumped back a few steps and only asked what year it was. A surprised Petar replied, “1998.” The unfamiliar boy cried. The teacher didn't know what exactly had happened and offered his help. “You won't believe me,” the child continued to cry. The man had no choice but to take him home and there try to find out who the boy's parents were and what had happened.
At home, the child calmed down and ate eagerly. After the meal it was time to talk. The strange boy looked to be 6 or 7 years old. But he was not thinking like a child. He said that together with his friends they had snuck into the laboratory of the father of one of them. There was a time machine there - with its help it was possible to go to any time. But it was only a prototype. It was the year 2370 A.D. As usual, curious children tried to use the machine to travel to another era, not even realizing how dangerous it was.
Sur (child's name) and two other friends took three seats inside it and traveled to the year 2200, considered one of the most prosperous years for mankind. But something went wrong, and they found themselves in 1998. To correct the mistake, the oldest of them, Grad, started setting a different time, and he (Sur), interested in the lush colors outside the time machine, got out of it and went to watch. The boys ended up flying away without him.
When he realized what had happened, the boy was very frightened and cried for some time, expecting to be returned for him. But his friends were gone, and then Petar came to him. It was very difficult to believe such a story. And it was even harder to believe that the child spoke almost the same language as himself. It turned out that the Bulgarian language had not changed much over the centuries. It had only been supplemented with obscure terms that had apparently entered everyday life in the 24th century.
Suru was actually seven years old. Schools didn't exist at that time, and education took place by means of genome correction. You could stick on something like a band-aid and the child would develop a predisposition to learn math or other science, become an outstanding athlete or composer. And you could change those skills as much as you wanted. But there were age limits associated with health risks. So for the first few years of their lives, up to the age of 10, children were homeschooled with the help of a specially designed virtual assistant.
Petar left the boy to live with him. He tried to teach him, because, apparently, Sur had to exist not in his own time, but in the distant past of the 24th century. During this time, in secret from the boy, the teacher contacted the police and search organizations, but no results. No one reported the child missing, and in a small town like Plovdiv, it would have been reported in the media.
For three months Sur lived with a man. Petar claimed that the child's intelligence corresponded to a sixth or seventh grader, but not to a student of the first or second grade. Not immediately, but he believed the boy to be from the future. His gestures, speech, and accumulated knowledge indicated, at the very least, that he was unusual. And then Sur disappeared. This time Petar Golubski himself filed an appeal to the police, as he was very worried that the phenomenal child had been found out by ill-wishers and stolen.
The search lasted until 2008. Specialists checked all public and private institutions for orphans, where Sur could have been placed during these years. All over Bulgaria and even in neighboring countries searched for the mysterious boy, but no results of his presence could not be found. He disappeared as suddenly as he had appeared. Perhaps his friends or someone else from the 24th century came back for him after all?
