Novel: Running Out of Time

Premise
Jessie lives in a carefully controlled historical village where daily life follows the routines, technologies, and beliefs of an earlier century. When a mass illness strikes the village and the adults appear unable or unwilling to seek outside help, Jessie realizes that the danger is beyond what her community can handle by itself. Told with brisk pacing and clear stakes, the story follows her decision to leave the only world she has ever known and find help in the modern 1990s outside.
The escape reveals a shocking truth: the village is not a real nineteenth-century settlement but an elaborate tourist attraction, sealed off from contemporary life. The revelation reframes everything Jessie has accepted about authority, safety, and what people will do to protect an image or a business.

Main character and setting
Jessie is a practical, resourceful thirteen-year-old whose upbringing has taught her skills that prove useful in crisis , observation, common sense, and an unflinching willingness to act. Her familiarity with the village's routines contrasts sharply with the bewilderment she feels on encountering cars, phones, and people who speak and move in unfamiliar ways. That contrast fuels both the novel's tension and its emotional center: a child's courage confronted by institutions that underestimate her.
The setting shifts from the contained, anachronistic village to the bewildering openness of the modern world. The village's managers have curated an experience of the past, complete with roles and restrictions, but the controlled environment cannot contain the urgency of a public-health emergency. The collision of staged history and contemporary reality becomes the engine of the plot.

Journey to the modern world
Jessie's journey is propelled by necessity and sharpened by quick thinking. She slips past the village's boundaries, encountering modern technology and strangers who initially dismiss or misunderstand her story. Her navigation of the contemporary world is convincing because it is rooted in the girl's practical instincts; she adapts without romanticizing either setting, and her discoveries are depicted with immediacy and clarity.
Confronting bureaucracies, media skepticism, and the disorienting speed of late-twentieth-century life, Jessie persists in making authorities understand that people's lives are at risk. The narrative treats her encounters with officials as a realistic scramble rather than a tidy rescue, highlighting how systems meant to protect the public can be slow or compromised when profit or reputation is at stake.

Stakes and obstacles
At the heart of the conflict is urgency: lives are endangered by a disease that spreads through a population isolated from modern medicine and vaccinated care. The village's status as a tourist attraction complicates rescue efforts because managers fear legal and financial fallout. Jessie must bridge a gap not only of distance but of assumptions, persuading strangers to act and overcoming the institutional inertia that privileges preservation of an image over people's welfare.
The obstacles are practical and ethical. Physical barriers and miscommunications impede swift aid, while the adults who enforce village rules are often constrained by loyalties to the enterprise that sustains them. Jessie's determination forces readers to confront questions about responsibility, exploitation, and who gets to decide what "authentic" history costs.

Themes and resolution
The story explores independence, truth, and the moral responsibilities of caretakers and corporations when human lives are involved. It challenges romanticized notions of simpler times by showing how the past can be manipulated for entertainment and profit, sometimes at the expense of real people. At the same time, it affirms the impact one courageous individual can have when systems fail.
Resolution comes through a blend of public intervention and the exposure of the village's deception, which compels action and forces a reckoning with the consequences of manufactured history. The ending emphasizes accountability and change, showing that confronting uncomfortable truths can save lives and reshape communities.