Chapter 6: The trick

With her heart aching, her brow furrowed, and tears brimming in her eyes. Her fingers glide across the phone screen in eagerness, desperately in search of answers that explain what is happening to her.

Every article she came across wasn't giving her the answers she sought until she came across a link and clicked on it, taking her to another article with more detailed information. Eloise shifted in her seat as her eyes glanced across the information about time traveling.

‘This is it,’ she muttered as she read.

-For every individual who traveled through time, faced different emotions, the most common ones are fear and confusion. Time traveling could make everything that happened feel like a dream or a vision-

Eloise nodded as she read, relating to the information until she read the next paragraph.

-Time traveling could be an opportunity for some, while it could also be a horrifying trap, especially for those trapped in a loop whereby they have to relive everything that has happened to them, the trauma, the death, the suffering, over and over again-

Eloise's stomach churned, her heart palpitated, and her breath quivered as she read further.

-Traveling back in time occurred mostly as a result of a death felt too wrong, a person whose death felt like a mistake of fate, or a soul taken before their time. And at the point of their death, they always happened to be in possession of something precious and extraordinary-

Eloise grunted, running her fingers through her hair and rubbing her face with her palm, not knowing how to take in the information. This isn't something she'd ordinarily believe in, but she needed an explanation, leaving her with no choice but to believe and read further.

-Many have mistaken a vision that felt too real as time traveling when they're back in the present. A back in time case tends to have everything repeating itself, left to the individual, to change their fate-

She looked up from her phone, her heart beating so fast, and tears streamed down her cheeks.

‘ I'm not crazy, all that truly happened,’ she whimpered and covered her mouth with her palm, realizing, ‘ I'm back in time.’

A remembrance of the reminder alarm ringing after the call from Mason, and it happening again a few minutes ago, hit her. She stopped sobbing when another realization hit her, and her eyes widened. She jumped to her feet immediately and grabbed her coat and phone before running out of the room.

**

Mason whistled as he flipped the pancake, the white apron around his neck was stained with flour and some yellowish spots. His heart leaped with joy as he looked across the table, loving the meal he was preparing for Eloise.

‘There's no way she'd eat my food and not lighten up, she had better be happy to be lucky to have me as her husband,’ he giggled as he said in his mind and made to grab the whisk when he heard the loud thuds.

He turned around to see her running outside.

“ What happened?” he panicked, but she spared him no glance and just ran out of the house.

“ Babe? Eloise!” he shouted and almost went after her in worry and fear, surprised to see her run off like that, but the smoke from the burnt pancake caused him to rush back inside to carry the hot frying pan off the fire with his bare hand.

“ Ouch!,” he winced as he was carried away with panick, “ fuck,” he cursed between his teeth.

*****

In the VIP ward at Bastion Hospital, a six-foot-tall man stood before the doctor, who couldn't maintain eye contact with him. He is a man who walks into a room and silences it without saying a word. His posture is always straight, his suit immaculate, his presence commanding.

“ She has approximately four months left,” the doctor had just told him, but his sharp, cool, piercing grey eyes flickered no emotion.

His lips remained sealed. His face, a mask of calm, unreadable restraint, yet a kind of face that makes people stop mid-sentence; sharp cheekbones carved like marble, a strong jawline, lips that looked both cruel and kissable, lashes too long for a man but too perfect to complain about. His nose is straight and regal.

“ Now?” his question, sharp and direct.

“ She's stable for now, as long as she sticks to the diet schedule and keeps to her medication time,” the doctor replied and turned to the woman, a grey-haired woman lying on the bed, “Are you feeling any pain, anywhere?”

“ Not at all, doctor, I feel okay,” she answered wearily,

“ That's great,” he returned with a smile, but on turning back to the man before him, his smile vanished, replaced by his dry throat and sweaty palms, “ there's nothing to worry about.”

He nodded and watched the doctor leave in a hurry. The nurses behind him were blushing and looking away from him shyly, but he simply turned back to his grandmother on the sick bed.

She was diagnosed with blood cancer six months ago, one that's eating her up faster as the days roll by.

“ Are you really feeling okay? Old lady?” Antonio asked, looking at her personal maid, a woman in her late forties, covering her properly with the duvet.

“ No,” she shook her head, pouting, “ No, I'm not,”

“ Didn't the doctor…,”

“ I'm dying, do you expect me to be okay?” she cut him short, pouting her lips and looking sad.

Antonio smacked his lips, he isn't a man to be cut short, but not with his grandmother.

“ The doctor said you'll be fine, as long as you take your medication as you should.”

“ Doesn't mean I'm not going to die, you heard him, I have four months left.”

Familiar with the reminder that had been frequent since she got diagnosed months ago, he knew exactly what would follow next.

“ I am going to die soon, but you kids have chosen to make my last days a living hell. How can I die peacefully without seeing my grandchild?”

He knew it.

“ We're your grandchildren,” he corrected, causing her head to snap at him, glaring murderously. He quickly averted his gaze.

“ Just tell Zade, he has lots of girls flocking around him, it'll be easier for him to give you one,” he said, avoiding her gaze.

His shoe poked nothing on the floor while his eyes looked everywhere except at his grandmother.

“ Your brother? That unserious nuthead, if he brings a baby here today, I can swear he rented the baby. He chases after everything under the skirt, I can't trust the lady he'd even bring that she isn't hired,” Mrs Brayden voiced worriedly.

“ And you,” she pointed at him, “ totally opposite your brother, hate everything under the skirt,”

“ I don't, I love women,” he quickly interjects,

“ How come I've never seen you with one?.”

He shrugged, “Not enough to keep them around.”

Mrs Brayden broke down, but Antonio rolled his eyes away. He's too familiar with her fake tears and fake wails.

“ I wished for nothing but to see you not lonely, to see a woman by your side, to have a daughter-in-law, a grandchild, how would I die peacefully with my heart aching and worrying this much?” she lamented and cried.

Antonio indifferently glanced at her when his eyes hooked, and his heart skipped so hard. His tucked hand pulled out of his pocket, and his lips parted. He'd seen her put up an act, fake a cry, but never seen her actually shed a tear.

His throat felt so dry as he swallowed. He clenched his fist, and his toes curled inside his shoes.

His heart sinking, “ I'll get a wife.”

Mrs Brayden and her personal maid's head jerked up with their eyes widened.

“ Huh?”

“ It's a wife you want, right?”

She nodded.

“ I'll get you one,” he said coldly, “ and clean those tears.”

With that, he walked out of the room. The moment the door shut behind him, Mrs Brayden and her PM grasped each other's hands, beaming joyfully.

“ It worked! It worked!”