Once Beyond Time [Ongoing]

Chapter 9: Secrets & Sunsets

Tristan's grip on his pen loosened and it fell. even though the voice wasn't too loud to initiate anything, but it did. All the memories rushed back to Tristan Jareth Noir. When he opened his eyes, the same dimly lit room welcomed him. His hand that was over his chest was still throbbing with pain but he looked at it like it was a trophy.

"I did it," he whispered with a wide smile that was now plastered on his face.

⋆.˚ ☾ .⭒˚

October 1920

He spun around in a desperate attempt to find where he was. 

"Am I still there? No way. It's the same forest. Curse you son of a..."

He wandered rethinking everything, regretting every moment he ever thought something like traveling through time was possible. 

"Was it all a lie? why do you trick me like that answer me. answer me right now." his voice was demanding. 

After getting no answer he sat there on the ground, after a while his cries echoed in the forest only to be met with silence. The stillness of trees around mocked his helplessness. His eyes burned with tears and rage and he started punching the nearest tree. He was too blinded by his tears to see the sharp protrusion in the bark of the tree that cut his palm.  He just yelled out in pain unable to decide what to do now.

after a few moments when he sat there cursing and screaming while his hand bled, he heard laughs. everything was laughing at him. the trees, their leaves, the soil, the muddy puddles, they all were amused by his stupidity, or he thought so. 

"you can not trick me like that, come out. I know you are here."

"follow the rules I told you." the voice of the stranger echoed once again

"but it is still 1920, we are still there you tricked me."

"do as I say." the tone was firm and enraging this time.

 He opened his notebook and opened the page with a dog-eared edge. "find the bookshop for travelers" was written there. 

After struggling for a day to find his way out of the forest, Jareth stood there at the back of the forest,.He was exhausted but the relief and excitement of finding his way out overjoyed him. He expected the bookshop to be charming and attractive but it wasn't. He had no time to be disappointed about it. He opened his journal to go over the next thing he was supposed to do. Tell the keeper you are a traveler and need a place to stay. He did the same. The old man was very joyous to have a traveler. 

The old man gave him a key and wrote an address on a paper. The moment he held the key in his hand Jareth knew he had made a mistake. It was like a sudden shot of poison rushing through his body. "what is it, what have you done to me?" he cried out. "oh dear, I haven't done a thing to you. I have only given the final touch to the journey you started. Traveling is never free, and traveling through time has a price. You know it too well." Jareth's head started spinning around he cursed in every language possible before an empty confusion was all on his nerves. 

"Where am I?" he asked. 

"Welcome to your version of the waiting realm, traveler." a hooded man gave him a hand to help him get up.

He looked around to see trees taller than any he had ever laid eyes on and a sky that wasn't visible, a fog covered the atmosphere, and the earth beneath his feet was white.

"Am I dead?" he was hesitant.

the man chuckled while helping him stand up. 

"No, not yet. not so easily... and I don't think you will ever die," he told him like it was the best news ever but Tristan's face went pale.