The Zero Countdown

Chapter 14: Change

The blow of the wind was the same as he remembers, Elyon stares at both Elora and Ruther walking away from the opposite street, unable to believe the way they waved, take steps, and turn over the cross-section was exactly the same from his previous experience of the past recurring again as his present.

"Hey, you're staring too much at Elora's rear. Pick someone of your age and don't even think of fantasizing about the woman of a guy who can send you directly to the hell with a touch." Brina teases him since she noticed him eyeing Elora's curves.

"No, I'm not! By the way, I'll tell you something, but don't freak out okay?" Elyon may have accepted the strange things that kept transpiring the moment he accepted the devil's arms, yet he can't help but be confused cornering what was even reality anymore.

"Based on what you'll say, I'll listen and offer an answer. Neither I care nor accept a p*****t like you." Brina said. She didn't mean her words for having a sharp tongue around him was her way of telling him she's comfortable that he's with her.

"I'm not a p*****t, let's make that clear. Though the weird thing I noticed is... I feel like this scene already happened and I, no, we reverted back in time." Elyon had said what was troubling him. He couldn't explain the feeling of going back in time and realizing it.

The only thing he knows is that the past he experience that shall become his future was like a fleeting dream that he couldn't forget. He'd never get the way he died out of his head, and the method of which he experience death most horribly was eye-opening for him, reminding him of the worst that could happen in a game standing atop a thin string line of life and death.

"Really?! You believe you miraculously returned in time?" Brina was unexpectedly curious. She held his shoulders tight and confronted him.

"I believe that is the case. I'd never mistake it. I should already be dead but..." Elyon can't help but overthink. He sat on the wooden bench again and Brina saddled himself beside him, scooting over the corner preventing onlookers from supposing they are together.

Finally hearing him that he felt the time had reversed, Brina once again read something from her smartphone and she confirmed what she thought was right.

"What you underwent is time dilation with extra steps," Brina mentioned. She was reinstating her notes and inspecting the variables that were under her reach.

"Time what?" And Elyon totally had no idea as usual.

"You see, maybe my past self that you encounter may have said that our next enemy can manipulate time, which devoid our predicting abilities and force us of obsoletion. Although, we should not care about it. We must first understand that time travel isn't physically possible, and rather it is more of shifting the reality of things as they are..."

Brina went on discussing the fundamental knowledge of time in a more scientific approach than relying on fiction. Her topics became too deep Elyon no longer had any idea what she was talking about.

"Uhm, you're passionate concerning your studies about time and science eh?" Elyon sidetracked Brina's crucial argument.

"What?!" Brina blushed, just noticing that she'd been babbling her passion for the underlying mystery of science and time. "I mean, not to brag or anything, I kinda wanna become an astrologer so... Wait, you're making me say embarrassing things!"

She gets to him and pushed him further to the opposite corner, pulling his sleeves and blaming him for the transparency she showed.

Instead of teasing her so he can lighten up the mood, Elyon chuckled from his comfort, patting both his thighs in apparent laughter.

"What? Do now adults laugh at someone's dream?" She pouted, coiling the tip of her sideburns.

"No, it's just... You're still young yet mature. Hold onto that dream of yours and always remember your goal. Never become like me who couldn't see what is important amidst blues and grief."

Hearing him say what a wise grown-up could have said in her situation, Brina couldn't say a word, hiding the slight mark of a smile on her facade while Elyon's trying his best to avoid eye contact, embarrassed of showing the face of a failure both in his mess.

"Ehem," Brina cleared her throat, dispersing any lingering sadness he harbors. "Anyways, to put what I stated earlier in a nutshell; I'm already aware that we're in a constant loop of time, after all, time reversal is only possible by reverting both space and time, thus resetting any memories of the future that had turned into the past."

"Wait, how did I manage to remember and tell you we're in a spiral of the repeating points of time?" Elyon had the gist but he's still having a hard time grasping the entire thing as a whole.

"Good question. The answer is quite simple; you already had met the one responsible for the time distortion. We can't argue that you realized it was merely a coincidence, because who knows for how many days this scene had been repeated and we still have no clue who is the Time Keeper."

What Brina had told him was her speculation that the repeating time was caused by Time Keeper's interference. The proof that her guesses were all correct is because no matter how she uses her power and glances through the future, she can't see the one accountable for the time-reversal as the one who had done it kept doing it to make sure none could unveil the mask he or she tatters in the twilight.

As matters stand on a precarious footing, Elyon began filling Brina with his previous experience of the future and recounted all the details he gathered so far.

"But even I still have no clue. I mean aside from the owner of the Hestia Flower Shop, I encountered a man and a high school girl the same age as you. Amongst the three of them, I believe Saya, the one who killed me, is the Time Keeper." He deduced that whoever his killer was must be the culprit of time distortion, except Brina felt there was something wrong with his statement.

"So that Saya brutally ended your life... That explains why you were writhing on the ground earlier. However, what intrigues me was the appearance of the man who can walk through walls as your life flashes before your eyes."

The entangling mess became confusing now that she found out Elyon was the one who'd die in the flower shop. She's stroking both her temple, critically contemplating why the wall guy had interfered right before Elyon's life had ended.

"What now?" He asked.

"Staying idle here won't alter the future. Approach the woman who entrapped you from your demise, and ensure the change that you sought to be different from your previous mistake."

She got up from the bench and strolled her way towards their only destination as Elyon follows her around like what had happened before.

No matter how many possibilities of reality exist just like Brina always kept saying, Elyon was baffled by the teeny-tiny details that come from experiencing what is already ahead.

From how people around the area were exactly the same one he had already seen walking past him, the way the traffic lights glitched out because it is getting old, and most of all, the exact point when Brina took a break from strolling straight to the 4th avenue with him on a nearby public wooden bench.

"Ugh... I'm having a migraine again. Go inside and get it over with." She says, massaging her forehead this time and since he already knew he would be fine, Elyon went to the flower shop with no hesitation; the chimes of death from the entrance rang out loud.

His eyes darted from the corner to the opposite end, seeing the exact same man choosing a flower but ended up going out after he changed his mind, as well as the teenage girl at the corner who's too shy to even hand out a few bucks on the counter, and most of all, the perpetrator of his first demise; none other than Saya herself.

But he'll no longer fall from the same trick again, and his second chance could give him a second opportunity of trying an entirely different approach that is out of his character.

Having the benefit of recollecting what comes next, Elyon gave himself a push on his back greeting Saya who's reading a book behind the counter filled with small potted plants and herbs.

"Well, well, finding a rare jewel of a lady amidst the sweet fragrance of the pollen bloom."

He knew there was no turning back so instead of showing his laid-back personality that led him to her bloodcurdling cage, he thought acting more aggressive and adventurous would entirely flip the coin of his inevitable fate.

And Saya closed the book she was reading and places it in a compartment below the counter.

"Oh my, I'm flattered by your assertiveness mister." Saya acted completely different from their previous encounter. Her tone became rather seductive, she had taken Elyon hints and changed her facade. She had brought the constitution of a person that could fancy who she talks to in a manipulative manner.

"Mister? You may call me Elyon, pretty." Elyon's putting up the character of the protagonist from the last romance movie he watched in order to make it believable he's hitting on her.

"And pretty's not my name. You may call me Saya, Mister Elyon." She teases him for a while, patting his shoulder as she quickly gets more physical than their previous encounter.

Things went smoothly and they talked about most of the things Elyon pretty much anticipated with the sole difference he's showing interest in her just like what she wanted.

He even bought the same lavender growing in a ceramic pot and had a chat with her for the remainder of time enough to witness the man and the high school girl go out of the scene.

"So will you share a dinner with me tonight?" Saya said the cue that tells Elyon when to start changing the outcome of his own destiny.

"Why of course! I'll be here early as your guest later then." And he waves back at her wearing his attractive grin.

However, when he went out of the shop of a murderer, he clenches the g*n in his pocket praying his speculations are correct.

"The time above your head matches the duration, Saya. I'll take you down myself once and for all."