A Lifetime Ago

Chapter 4

The next morning as instructed by Avira, Timandra was waiting at her uncle's office sharp at ten. She watched him walked into his room and his assistant called her in after ten minutes or so.

She had never seen or heard about this uncle before. With spectacles hanging at his nose, unruly grey hair and long beard, he looked like a scary wizard out from a fantasy novel. He looked old enough with his unusual sense of dressing but she could also see some resemblance to Avira.

After a few minutes of interaction with Timandra, he got up from his chair and signalled at Timandra to follow him. 

She quietly followed him into a huge hallway which led into small glass cabinets. On her way, she was mesmerized by several artifacts, jewels, pictures and statues from ancient times.  

"This is where you will work." He said opening the door to a huge vault.  

Timandra's eyes widened at his words. "Does it mean I'm hired?" she asked curiously.  

"Yes." Avira's uncle kept his answers short. "This is where we keep newly collected items. Your job here is to organize and keep records of the exhibits. Is that understood?" He looked at her with his spectacles hanging way too lowly at his nose that she thought it might slip down anytime now.  

"Yes sir." She nodded thoughtlessly.  

"You will start working right from tomorrow and you need to be here by seven in the evening."  

"From tomorrow?" She exclaimed. 

"Is there a problem?"  He raised his bush like brow at her.

"N-no.. Absolutely not sir. I'll be here at seven in the evening tomorrow." Timandra said enthusiastically before leaving the museum.  

She decided to meet Avira at her house since she hasn't paid a visit to Avira's parents after her father's demise and she also wanted to share this news with them personally.  

She was welcomed by Avira's mother with a bone crushing hug. She spent some time before going to Avira's room and knocking on the door.  

When she heard a muffled 'come in', she walked in. Avira was working on her laptop with her back towards Timandra. As she turned around, she noticed the huge grin on Timandra's face. 

"You got the job!!" It wasn't a question. Avira screeched loudly and pounced to hug Timandra, tightly. They both jumped on their feet together to celebrate their happiness, like they always did.  

"Are you happy, now?" She asked studying Timandra's face.  

"I'm more than happy, Avira. I can keep the house now." Avira noticed the brightness that was lacking on her friend's face in the past few weeks, was back again.  

"I'm happy if you are happy. Let's celebrate. What do you say?"  

"Sure."  Both the girls spent the evening drinking and watching a rom-com in the living room until they both fell asleep on the couch.  

Avira believed in fate and destiny, otherwise she wouldn’t be here. She was delighted that things were turning out as she wanted them to be.  She just had to wait. Wait for the right moment but she knew that day wasn’t far away.

Timandra started working in the museum for a month now and unexpectedly she started to love her job.  She liked to observe the items of historical importance and started reading about them more. She came across rare artifacts that she had never seen before in her life.  

For Timandra, her job seemed so unfamiliar at first but she started to embrace her daily routine. She got to work peacefully in the night when the whole world was sleeping. Life was becoming normal once again for Timandra and she learned to cherish every moment of her life.  She could pay the house rest as she promised and Mr.Jefferson was happy that he didn’t have to kick the girl out. He would be left guilty for the remaining days of his life.

One day as she was getting ready to work she noticed that the weather had took a sudden one eighty degree turn in just a matter of minutes. She grabbed her umbrella and booked a cab since it looked like the rain wouldn't stop anytime soon.  

She reached the museum and took of her wet jacket before hanging it at the back of her chair. She started recording the details of the newest collections that had arrived late that evening. It was almost midnight when she thought she heard some noise coming from one of the vaults.  

She could have asked the guards to go and check but she was too aroused by curiosity to do so. She followed the sounds which resembled the rumbling of furniture. She walked along the corridors and reached the rearmost room.  

She walked through the galleries in the front room which were displayed for the public to see and stopped in front of the back room which was generally for the experts only. It had a 'Entry prohibited' sign board hanging on the door.  

Without minding it, she held the handle of the door and turned it, trying to be as discreet as possible. As if sensing her presence, the sounds stopped abruptly.  

She trudged in further into the darkness of the room and searched for the switches by touching the walls but to her surprise she couldn't find any. Far away from the entrance, she noticed a flicker of light from a candle and strode towards it. As she grabbed it, she noticed that she was surrounded by years old paintings, sculptures, potteries, arms, armors, jewelries and costumes that she had never seen before. 

As she once again started hearing those rumbling sounds from the opposite direction, she started following it until she came by a huge portrait of a man or probably a prince or a royal, she was not sure who he was. She held the candle closer to the description at its bottom.  

‘Prince Ragnar (1208-1235)’ She read out loud and her voice echoed within the deserted room.  

"He died so young. Poor prince." She murmured.   

She felt an uncanny attraction towards the prince on the portrait and suddenly grew more curious about him. She looked around herself for something which would give her more information about him. She discovered a huge volume of a book and it looked ancient. 

The book was title as, ‘The great kings of Vonentis.’ 

She dusted the book which caused her to cough a few times before she opened it. She landed on the context page and ran her hands through several names before she stopped her finger at a particular name she was looking for, ‘Prince Ragnar.’ 

She turned through the pages and reached the one which had the same picture of Prince Ragnar as in the portrait.  

'Born into the royal family of Vonentis, he was the only son of King Regis and his wife, Queen Thukira. He was the crown prince who would have inherited the throne after his father but the country was economically weak and in turmoil due to the frequent clash with his uncle, Prince Rocco who wanted to overthrow his rule on Vonentis.  

Prince Ragnar was a weak politician, a coward prince and stood out as a disaster of the highest order. He was too taken by drunken parties and women to govern his country.  

Annoyed by his poor kingship, Rocco wanted to take over the reign from his nephew, which led to a full-scale war between the two royals, resulting in Ragnar's death at the age of twenty seven.'  

Timandra read the lines from the book and looked up at the portrait once again. Oddly, he did not match with his description from the book rather he looked like an unsung hero to her. She knew the story had more to it.  

She didn't know for how long she kept staring at his portrait before her eyes fell upon a huge sword like weapon placed beside the big book. The weapon's blade looked deep red in color and she was sure that it wasn't made of any ordinary metal. It had an ivory handle which was carved into a lion's head.  

It was a beautiful piece of artistry and whoever made it must have been a professional at it.  

Thinking that, she traced her long forefinger over the sharp edge of the blade before she winced loudly. The candles which hung on the walls lit up on their own. She quickly withdrew her hand away and looked at the deep cut of her finger. Within a matter of few seconds, there was a hell lot of blood on the sword as well as her hands.  

She felt very light headed all of a sudden and when she felt normal again,  she thought she saw a flash of vision in front of her eyes but couldn't remember it all quite well.  

"Phew.. That was weird." She wiped the spills of blood off the blade with the back of her palms and walked out quickly. She tightly squeezed the bleeding finger within her palms to stop it from bleeding anymore.  

She realized it was time for her to punch out of work for the night and she got into a cab that she had booked earlier.  

"Mother Nature seems to be very furious tonight." The driver commented by leaning a bit and looking up at the pitch black clouds in the dark sky. She chose to remain quiet and looked out of the window.  The weather outside looked scary.

Suddenly, the rain started pouring heavily and the roads became invisible through the glass shields of the car. The driver drove the car carefully over the slippery road when they reached a bridge.  

The car was somewhere on the middle of the bridge when they heard a creaking sound which caused the driver to slow down the car but it was too late as she saw how the bridge started to collapse right in front of her eyes.  All she could feel was floating in air before the car fell into the river underneath the bridge with a loud splash.

She yelped and struggled to open the door of the car but unfortunately it was jammed.

The water was rushing into the car violently and she stretched her neck up so that she could be able to breath for a while. As the water completely filled the car, she waved her hands relentlessly, looking for someone or something that would save her. Her dress and her hair was floating in all directions. She looked at the driver who was completely motionless. She shook him up but there was no response from him in return.  

She kept trying frantically to get out of the car until she slowly started as her throat swelled leading to asphyxia. Her hands fell to her sides as water filled her lungs up to the hilt.