After winning the definitive battle, brother Katos brought Atos to the neighbor town, Gaprin. It was isolated. Part of it was because a lot of people died in the battle. Also, no one wanted to stay there, it was a complete chaos. Katos suggested that they could reconstruct houses and welcome more people to Berem.
Once they arrived at Gaprin, Katos tells Atos to look for any weapons, they should make that place safe before starting any construction. They walk together for a while, Atos suddenly realizes he just passed something shiny, he steps back and stops to glare at it. Bother Katos was very focused looking for any weapon so he kept walking.
Atos stood there glaring at the shiny object as if he was possessed. The shiny object was blinding his view. He never saw such a thing, he felt like touching it, so he stepped further. He stepped further and further. His hands started to move towards the object’s’ direction. He was confused, why was he so interested in this object? His hand reached the object, it was oval shaped and was rough, very rough.
He felt a temblor. His arms shook for two seconds, he thought that was weird but he decided to put it in his pocket. The sun was about to go down, he realized that Katos was no longer there, he started walking towards the previous direction to find his brother. As the sky was getting dark, Atos pulled out the mysterious shiny object to light his way. He felt a temblor, again. He didn’t really give importance to it as he was getting scared as the day was getting dark and he couldn’t find his brother in that chaotic place. He was holding the object thigh and his hand started to sweat. Suddenly, his view became blurry. Atos blinked his eyes again and again but still, he couldn’t see anything but blurriness. Anxious, he wiped his eyes with his left hand, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He opened his eyes.
He saw a blinding bright light that started to fade before he realizes he was no longer in Gaprin, he was no longer in his era. The mysterious object transported him in time to the modern days. He was in shock. He kept asking himself questions. Where was he? Where is his Katos? Why does everything look like this? He observer people in the streets for one whole hour, he was standing in the middle of a street, still in shock. Finally, he got tired, he looked for a place to sit and think of what on earth has happened. He sat on a bench in Union Square Park.
And the other side——
“It’s Halloween season again,” Nana mumbled, “It used to be mom’s favorite festival…”. The Halloween vibe is around the city, shops, streets all have decorated, even the Union Square’s annual flower market started to arrange. Years and years, so many things changed, but these are still the same, which reminds more memories from Nana’s childhood and her mom. However, there’s a man catches Nana’s attention while she was walking down the market. He dresses so weird like people in the past centuries with armor, and even with a sword at the waist. And the way he’s walking the same as those soldiers, Nana saw in the old movies. He seems interested in everything. “What a freak,” Nana said.
When she was going to leave, a colossal arguing stopped her. It’s the man! He grabs a bag of coins and tries to buy the pumpkin cookies, but none of the coins are people use today. Comparing to the models sold in the vintage shop, they looked like the one that can use in the past. “Give me the cookies, or I will let someone to catch you!” The man yelled. “I can give you the cookies unless you give me the money! Don’t use this tricks to fool me; I’m not a three-year-old kid. What I said is real money, like this!” The peddler said and took a money from his pocket to show to the man. Nana feels something is not right, she gave money to the peddler and took the man away.
After hearing his story, Nana was shocked. She heard X talking about time crossing before, but never experienced it. Right now, there was a man called himself prince Atos and said he’s from the ancient Greek, even Nana’s has seen many magical people with magic power, she still couldn’t believe it. Her superpower suddenly shut down, when she tries to observe and knew something from him. There’s no any information shown in Atos mind and the more she looks deep into him, the more she felt a headache and neurological disorder. So she took Atos back to home and showed to X, he seemed not surprised at all. He kept silent for a while and gave Nana an address said, “Go find him.”
Two days ago—
“Round that corner man~ hiding in the trash can~” A weird man in a black suit with a guinea pig on his shoulder is humming while mopping a cocktail glass.
“Something’s waiting now to pounce~And how you’ll SCREAM! Ahaha! Aha!” His prank definitely worked as the guy walking in the door jumped and fail onto the floor. He does not intend to help at all—actually he is laughing so hard that his glass almost drop.
“99! Till when would you quit your horrible habit!” The guy just walked in now is climbing up from the floor, gnashing his teeth at the man who he calls 99.
“Oh, Bob your naiveness almost makes me think you are stupid.” 99’s guinea pig is making a noise like it is laugh along, then 99 quickly changes the subject before the guy jumped up: “How can I help you today?”
Bob finally remembered what he was here for: “Oh 99 you have to help me this time! I’m gonna lose my house and everything! Even my daughter is in dan…”
“Do I look like I care or what?” 99 cut in between his cry, “The business and the price, otherwise get your hip out of here, you are scaring Perona.” 99 still gets a smile on his face, but he is clearly impatient. Bob shut the right up, and move towards 99, mumbled something in his ear. “For the price…I think I have something you will be interested.” He takes out an object robbed in a ton of fabric with a mysterious smile.
“What do I need a broken camera for?” 99 knits his brow, fiddle with the camera with a face full of rejection. “It is not just a camera.” Bob looked at the camera greedily and afraid at the same time.
“It has magic.”
A long time ago, there was a small but peaceful village located around where is now known as Sweden. The village was far from cities and countries where most of the population were at, thus dwellers were able to live near each other and built up close relationships. Among all of the dwellers, there was one girl, adored by everyone else in the village because of her kindness, named Teresia. Since the village had an isolated location, adults from each family have to go across mountains in order to attend markets and earn money, but leaving their kids alone at home would not be secure. Teresia was always the person who stood out to take care of those children. So every morning, with the natural light provided by the rising sun and the sweet chorus sang by those birds settled in the village, you can see Teresia in her easily recognizable yellow dress, wind passed through her brown curly hair and left a kiss on her energetic young face. She hurried from house to house to pick up little kids and took them to her place. Even though Teresia herself didn’t live a wealthy life, she was willing to devote all she had to help and protect those kids.
After continued taking care of lonely kids for years, Teresia’s benevolence finally touched the god. One day, the god came into her dream and offered her a deal. The god would provide Teresia an object with magic, this object can allow her to predict others future and guide them to avoid possible tragedies from happening, but the price is it will take away part of Teresia’s life each time she uses it. Teresia, who strongly wished she can help more and more people, agreed without hesitating. On the next morning, she found a weird rectangular shaped creature occurred beside her pillow. Following the god’s guide, Teresia helped a lot of people and soon became famous as the prophet of the village. When she was not using the magic object, she would also locked it in a box and hid it under her bed, as the god had said to her: “ The object contains an extremely strong magic, besides the function you used to predict future, it also has the power to disturb the timeline of this world. You must protect it carefully.” However, the accident still took place no matter how careful Teresia tried to be.
On a rainy morning, the road was all covered by wet soil and fallen leaves. It took Teresia more time than usual to pick up all of the kids in the village. When she arrived home with all those kids, Teresia surprisingly found that the door of her house was opened. A bad guess appeared in her mind and she rushed to check the box where she stored that magic object. It was gone. The lock was on the ground, and there’s nothing except the empty wood box.
“I hate people lying to me, and you know that.” 99 narrows his eyes, Bob feels sweats dripping down his back. “There is no magic in this world as I know. You better explain what is this and where does it come from. My patience is running out, Bob.” 99 takes his guinea pig in his arm, massage its ear gently. Bob swallowed briefly on watching 99’s movements “ I can’t tell you how I get it, the secret is too heavy to carry even for you, 99.” He thinks kinkily about what to say: “All I can say is, it is from this era.”
99 stares at Bob’s eyes as if he is checking the reliability of Bob’s word. He does felt something strange about the camera immediately as he put a finger on it. If Bob is telling the truth, tonight is going to be a busy night.
“All right, I’ll trust you for this time, and your business is on my hand now. If this camera is as verified, three days, you’ll get what you want.” 99 put on his formulaic smile again, gesture Bob with a sweeping motion indicating the door.
The Present time—–
“Are you sure this is the right address?” Nana looks at the dirty broken sign of the closed convenience shop. “This place is turned down years ago!” Nana yelled at X in the phone.
“Does the sign say 1999? Yes, just open the door.” X on the other side says. “Wait, which door…HE HANGS UP ON ME?” Nana stares at her phone shocked, Atos shrugs his shoulder acts it is not his business.
“How long are you planning to stand there with that stupid face?”
Nana heard an unknown voice behind them, and the words that voice makes does not sound like anything nice. She turned around angrily, but 99 already head back inside mumbling “I’ve never open the door for anyone but who knows there is people that clumsy? Am I right Perona?”
It was a mumble, but it was loud enough for Nana to hear. Nana takes a deep breath: “ Calm down Nana, if he is the one X was talking about, it is no good to fight him at this time.” Nana leads Atos enters the door.
Nana resisted an urge and repeated the whole story to 99 again, she could not read the face expression on 99’s face, but he seemed not surprised at all. “Why X would send me to him? Is he reliable?” Nana starred 99 with doubts. It feels like a century, 99 finally moved his eyes from Atos, then he told Nana something. “What?!” Nana shouted she couldn’t believe everything she hear about, “You want me to send him to the past?!” Usually, there nothing that could scare Nana, but at this time, she tumbled. She knew that the camera that 99 hold is a magic tool, people could use it to connect it to the past. Every Monday in a week, it’s the time to create a bond between the present and the future. The usage is to write things down whatever it’s a question or sentence then take a picture and put the camera into the closet, people in the past would know somehow.
After took it back home, Nana observed the camera for a while, wrote things she confused about, took a picture and put it in the closet. On the next Monday, she opened the camera with uncertainty. “ Jesus! 99 was right! It really can connect to the past. But wait, what does it say about, it seems like another language…”, She hurried to 99’s place and asked him to recognize the word that written in the picture. It was Swedish. Through the communication on every Monday, Nana knew there’s a woman named Teresia who’s also the owner of this camera. At first Teresia said she just accidentally received it, so she treated like a god’s gift and kept it as treasure in her closet, however someday it’s gone and left a roll of papyrus instead. And every specific time when she checked the papyrus, there are always some sentences in it. The pictures that she took all would transform into papyrus. Teresia said she knew the way to send Atos back, but the premise is he have to press the button on the first day of a month alone. Nana was concerned about it, but since it’s the only way that could send him back, they both have to give a try.
Teresia was deeply depressed by the fact that the gift from God had been stolen without a single clue towards the thief. Her mind was full of anxiety, she didn’t know if she could get her magic back again, she didn’t know how could she guide her villagers now, and what’s more, she didn’t know if the thief will use the power in an evil way and bring chaos to the whole world. Teresia carefully checked every corner of her house again, hoping to find something that could help her find the magic object. But still, she couldn’t find anything useful. Then when she came back in front of the empty wood box, surprisingly she saw that a roll of papyri suddenly occurred at where the magic object was usually put. Teresia was confused by this situation, she sat down and went over all of the papyri, but found that they were all blank. Knowing that the god would definitely came to her dream tonight for the stolen object, Teresia decided to keep those papyri in the box first and asked the god about them.
“I know that my gift to you has been stolen, but you don’t have to blame yourself too much. You were taking good care of it, but greediness is just too strong for some people to overcome it.” was the first sentence the god said to Teresisa that night, this largely appeased her anxiety.
“But how can I get it back now? And what is that roll of papyri for?” Asked Teresia.
“Those papyri can be viewed as part of the magic object, they also have magic, but not as strong as the object itself. The magic object is trying to lead you to find it, you can use those papyri to communicate with the person who currently hold the object every Monday.” The god indicated.
On the next Monday, the first thing Teresia did is to check that roll of papyri. Words appeared on one papyrus, they were from a girl called Nana. Teresia began to communicate with Nana by writing on the magical papyrus, and knew that Nana was trying to send a person who lost in time back to his home. As a person who always want to help whoever she could help, Teresia asked the god want could she do for that poor guy. The god told her that the person must took the object with him, and press the button on the first day of a month. The magic would then send him back to his own time period, and during the time travel, the magic object would automatically come back to Teresia’s place. Hearing what the god said, full of happiness and excitement, Teresia told this method to Nana through papyrus.
The first day of the month arrived. Today was the day when Atos could possibly return to his homeland. As they agreed, Atos would be pressing the bottom alone in order to return back to the past.
Everything was ready, Atos was nervous and excited at the same time. He missed his brother Katie and all the people in Berem, he couldn’t wait to return to the past where he belonged. They chose a time where union square had less people, Atos was standing in a corner where no one else could see him. He was holding the camera tight, ready to press it. He pressed the button.
He felt a temblor. His arms shaked for two seconds. He was still holding the camera as his hand started to sweat. His view became blurry, just as the way it became blurry when he was teletransported to the present. A blinding bright light appeared, the next second Atos found himself in Garpin, the same place he was before coming to the present.
Atos heard someone calling his name, it was Katos. Atos started to move towards the direction of the voice. His footsteps became faster and faster. Finally, he found his brother. Atos Hughes him with all his heart and told him he missed him. Katos didn’t understand why he was acting like that but Atos didn’t care, he just wanted to hug him at that time.
