NATALIA'S P.O.V.
Date - March 25th
Time - 11:55
Location - Unknown Farm
I woke up lying on some sort of wooden furniture, staring at a wide expanse of grass and in the very far distance, a strip of cars.
I sat up, quickly noticing that I was on a bench, and looked around.
In movies and books they always depict the character to forget and suddenly remember everything that has happened after they blacked out, but not me, I remembered everything that very instant.
And I hated it that it was still the same.
There was no noise in the air. All the air, human, cars, animals, and even plants stopped moving. It felt unnatural, as if you are in a vacuum but then you can still breathe normally without changing the air volume around you.
"Natalia Freightwood," that rough voice called me once more.
I turned behind me to find the man, and again I almost fainted.
I couldn't believe it.
I still couldn't.
He still had the same striking blue eyes, but now it was hard and scarred, his hair didn't even have any shot of silver throughout its brown hood. And yet, it wasn't possible, was it?
"W-what's going on?" I asked briskly, feeling my voice quiver ever so slightly.
I might know who he was, but it still frightened me how everything had come to this.
He approached me, and I instantly jumped out from the bench, pacing backward slowly.
I didn't want to believe any of this was true, but I knew it was, and yet when I should be rejoicing in happiness, I gave it fright.
"Don't you remember me? I know from your face that you recognize me," he said in the voice that haunted me in my dreams, in my fantasies.
I swallowed the lump forming in my throat. I couldn't speak all of a sudden, as if any word I say will ultimately bring me down to tears.
"Nattie..." he called out to me softly.
Nattie
"No," I spoke out softly, suddenly feeling that all of my limbs couldn't move, that I was stuck to the ground.
My vision started to blur, but when I blinked it cleared away. I feel the cool touch of water roll down my cheeks and know that it wasn't rain.
It was tears.
"B-bu-but you're d-de-dead!" I stuttered out, my whole body trembling violently.
Impossible, I my mind said.
I remembered that day ten years ago perfectly in my mind. I remembered sitting in an office with my mother praying and clutching my hand with force. I remembered the pitiful look that the soldier gave my mother before she burst out into tears, with me feeling all numb and hollow.
All my belief was broken, and he made me suffer the last ten years.
"Nat...calm down," he soothed me a bit awkwardly, as if he wasn't too used to giving love.
He was behind me, clutching my shoulders in a sort of half-hug. I shrugged them off, still not able to process what was happening.
He's alive
and...young
"Nat listen to me," he whispered gently at my ear, his voice as commanding as ever, "you need to calm down and then I will explain everything."
I didn't know what he meant by calm down, but apparently I was choking on sobs and convulsing in fear and pain. He didn't deserve to tell me to calm down, he deserved to be punched in the face.
"How the hell can I calm down!?" I screamed angrily, turning to face him, my face still hot with tears.
His face was unreadable, his eyes were as cold as the last time I could remember them, which was never.
"I know that you're angry, but I'm sorry," he said with his stiff face.
"I am not ANGRY, I am more to TERRIFIED and FURIOUS! You had put me through hell, HELL!" I shrieked at him, my voice rising higher and higher with each word I spat.
"I know," he said, and for once I saw a glimpse of guilt in his eyes, but it was so small that I thought that I had imagined that.
I still couldn't stop crying. All this time he was alive, all this time he could have been there for me, he could have turned my fantasies into memories, and he could have saved me from the torment I had to endure.
"Explain," I croaked out quietly, unable to muster any more courage for the truth that I was about to receive.
"Explain why you are here after ten bloody years?" I cried out through gritted teeth, trying to calm my pounding heart and relax my strained lungs.
His face remained passive. He didn't even look like he knew what the meaning of emotion meant, he looked like a robot.
He gestured towards the bench, and with that I noticed for a second that we were in the field surrounding the I-10, near the farm.
The farm and stray road where the deaths occurred.
I felt a sudden fear kick in, but again I tried not to think about it, it wouldn't be good for my sanity.
He urged me on, and I let him. His touch seemed so unfamiliar, so alien from what I imagined. His touch was cold and hard, very heartless and emotionless that I thought that my fantasies had turned against me.
He let me sit down first before he sat as well, and he looked me in the eye and scanned through my face, as if analyzing every single detail of myself.
"You've grown," was all he said.
"Of course I've GROWN! IT'S BEEN TEN YEARS!" I burst out, trying to keep my emotions in check.
He sat still, still scanning my face, as if he was counting every freckle on my cheek.
"Just explain," I sobbed out gently, feeling so demolished and fragile. "Please."
He looked at me for a moment, and then he broke out into a soft smile that looked quite awkward, but it was somehow genuine. "You know that my ship sank, that a bomb broke inside the vessel and brought the whole ship down to its oblivion. I was lucky to survive, but I was ashore onto this classified base and was kept there as a prisoner for a few months. I had to work there as a cleaner, but throughout my job I found something, something that I had hoped to fix all the things that I had done wrong."
He produced a small item in his hand, the size of a purse, with metal contraptions sticking out of the silver body like antennas, and all around its body were control buttons.
"It's the Time Desistor," he said with a sort of wicked awe that it terrified me.
"It stops time," he explained simply, pointing at the small screen on its body, indicating the number of hours time will halt, which was five hours. "That's why I managed to stay young and preserved," he said.
"Why now? Why after ten years?" I asked once more with edge. It still didn't answer my question.
"Because I thought that it was the right age and time for you to know, and the right moment as well. I've been planning, Nat, I've been planning for years," he emphasized.
"But the pain that you had me go through! You could have prevented it, all of it," I accused him, feeling the tears fall faster.
His face darkened. "Aileen. What did she do to you?" he asked in a low voice.
I shivered. I didn't like those few years of grief, just my mother and I.
"What happened Nat?" he asked more strictly.
I locked my gaze into his eyes, feeling my gaze fill with venom. "You happened."
Then I saw the guilt in his eyes surface. "When you died, she couldn't handle it, she couldn't handle any of it. She blamed it all on me, she abused me, called me a devil's child, called me the black cat, which sounds stupid but Scottish beliefs made it sound offensive. At every chance she got, she would hurt me, she would slap me and she would curse at me. It happened for five years until someone noticed and told the police."
His eyes filled with rage; deep, aggressive. He had his veined hands tied into fists, and his eyes were murderous.
"I got emancipated from her, and from that day on I had to live from the government's money. But every year I visit your grave, your grave which you should be in, she would always abuse me again until it got so bad they decided to get me a guard. All of this you could have prevented!" I spat at him horribly, feeling rage slipping out of my mouth like poison. I honestly didn't care if it was mean, I had the right to say all of that.
He turned to me and nudged the device towards me. "That's why I'm here now, to fix it all."
"No one can go back in time, that's been proven to be physically and scientifically impossible," I argued strictly, being a woman of physics.
He shook his head, "I'm here to redo and repay you the time lost between us. I know that you had always imagined all those dreams of me with you, and I want to make that happen for real."
I felt a slight feeling of childish joy rise into my heart. I could live those events and mark them as memories, I could actually have a father figure.
He could tell that I wanted it, but I needed some more convincing. "We can be like all the fathers and daughters, we can be what we're supposed to be."
I still felt doubtful.
"Come on Nattie," he said.
I stared at him and saw all those imaginations play in my head. The Freightwood family united and having fun, laughing and exclaiming in joy. Oh how a little girl would want all of that.
I gazed up at him, and nodded.
He smiled a happy smile. "Great," he said, before adjusting the Time Desistor in his grip. "We have all the time in the world." He showed me the device, which now showed fifty hours.
"If it isn't enough, we can add more," he exclaimed gleefully, which kind of made me smile for a moment.
Father and daughter
Finally together
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So I decided that this chapter's a bit too long on its own, so this will be divided into two.
Also, thank you all for your support, you have made me so happy and I feel very blessed to have such wonderful friends and readers. Thank you all so much, this story wouldn't have life without you.
Love, Sonia
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