Time & Space

Everywhere I Go, She is There

There she was again, just casually eating a croissant with coffee as if she's just an innocent bystander. This lady, with her long black hair that gradually fades into purple. Who is she? Why, everywhere, everywhen, she's always there? I swear that even at the edge of time, she was somehow there, I swear I saw her for a split second. That should have been impossible, nobody would have been able to survive to see the edge of time.

Well, here I am now, curious as the hairless ape figuring out the world around them like how I am trying to figure out this mysterious lady in black. On a not so distant seat of a separate cafe, I observed her for any odd behaviours, but all she's done is taking little bites of her pastry, sips of her coffee. Scrolling through her phone, reading all the posts in her feed.

What is it that's so special about her? It's like a cliché romance story, unable to stop seeing or thinking about her. However, this time, I swear from the Heart of Takeloff, to the Eyes of Eleniadon, it's not just the trick of my perception. 

I mean seriously, even when I was saving Queen Elizabeth VI from that beastly, gargling, and honestly quite ironically called 'The Beast'. I swear she was the one who pulled on his tail behind him, I saw her hair flowing behind him for a moment as he turned around distracted. Somehow, there was nothing there, she wasn't there nor was there any trace of her. 

Whatever that was though, it really helped me come up with some bullocks about a new and further improved SAS called the SSAS. The Secret Special Air Service. Something about the elite of the elite being invisible the entire time, ready to blow his head off if he lands a finger on her Majesty herself.

Of course, that didn't trick him that easily, but with a few tricks with the lights and the convenience that we were in the ballroom, the idea of being surrounded was forced into his head soon after.

What about that time when I was surrounded by a crowd of Ambertreat civilians, accused of the Ambertreat genocide of 5034. It was actually caused by a civilization under the government, conspiracy, control, it's a story for next time. Cornered, stripped of all my equipment, angry and raging innocent civilians circling around me.

Amidst all the chaos, I could hear someone exclaiming, "Catch!".

Out of the blue, a small pack was thrown towards me from the middle of the crowd. For a short moment, I was able to only catch a small glimpse of their hair, black fade to purple. I caught the pack and immediately check the contents. Inside was a few Time Crushers, tiny capsules with their own localised time inside. Makes time go slower for you temporarily but at the risk of making you age way quicker than you're supposed to, these things are quite addictive too.

Luckily, it does not affect someone who has been exposed to time manipulation for so long, like me. I crushed one of the capsules in my hand as the localised time seeps into my wrist and spread across my body. Everything around me began to slow to the point that blinking would take them an hour in my time.

The first thing I did however was to look for the one who had thrown me my escape, as expected, they were gone. Who else could it be? That hair was 99.98% undeniably the same one from all the other times. It's her.

I blinked my eyes a few times before I realised that, the lady was gone. The seat she was drinking coffee on was vacant, she had left a while ago. Did I really lose track of her while I was reminiscing my past adventures?

There was then a sudden tap on my shoulder, making me look to my right. Nobody was there close enough to tap me, but I could see something peculiar in the distance. A lady with black to purple fade hair, walking away, disappearing into a crowd just as I looked.

The sudden sound of porcelain hitting the glass top table made me jump, turning my head back to see that the lady is right in front of me. She was placing her coffee mug and plate of croissants on my table as she took her seat on the empty seat in front of me. "When were you going to make your move?"

"Huh?"

"You've been staring at me from here for a while now, don't think I didn't notice just because you're across here. Well, you wouldn't need a search warrant to come over my place thats for sure." She winked flirtatiously as she took a bite off her croissant and did a tiny little smile with her lips.

Curiously, she seemed to not know me at all, as if none of the adventures was she there to not only observe, but to assist me and disappear just like that. "Do you... not recognise me in any way?"

"Hm? No, not at all. Is this not the first time we met? Did the MI6 finally caught up? I might say you lots has been getting rusty, you stick out like a sore thumb."

"No! No, nothing like that, I must've had mistaken you for someone else."

"Well that's a relief, I can't deal with another awkward moment where I don't remember someone I should." She paused for a moment before giving me a sharp stare. "Wait, so that's the only reason you're here? You're not even interested in the slightest in me?"

That question took me by surprise as I try to figure out a response and jumble with my words, "Well, no, I mean, yes I was but like-"

The lady laughs at my struggle, finding it amusing to the sudden situation I was dropped in. "It's fine, don't stress yourself, I'm not upset if you were or weren't interested. But hey, since we're here now... My name is Ash, and you are?"