The Hands of Time

Chapter 2: Angel From The River

Children always had fears. Fear of clowns, fear of monsters, fear of nightmares were the ones that were very common. Jimin never had those.

But that moment where she realized that she still had something that she shouldn't have with her, she remembered the huge wave of fears that suddenly washed over her.

As she opened her eyes now, with her head vibrating with pain, she wished that it was a mere nightmare.

"Shit." A familiar voice came out not too far from her. "No, Jimin, don't get up."

She breathed out a sigh of relief when Aeri's voice rushed to her, feeling her touch on her shoulder that was pushing her to lay back down. Maybe it really was a nightmare, with Aeri's gentle touch, maybe Jimin had been sleeping for a really long time and now waking up in her early college years.

But the clothes Aeri was wearing when her blurry vision refocused made Jimin groan and wished that she was dead instead.

"Tell me the machine didn't work and we're at a hospital because I collapsed this morning due to my unhealthy lifestyle and you just didn't have time to change out of your costume."

She shut her eyes tightly and gripped the woman's arm.

There was an eerie silence before the sound of Aeri's chuckles filled the room. "That was the longest sentence I have ever heard from you."

"Kim Aeri."

Sighing heavily, Aeri eyed the woman who refused to open her eyes still. "Unfortunately for you, your brain worked wonderfully as usual."

"Shit."

"But thank God you weren't correct about losing the limb part, you only have a few wounds. Thankfully, Ningning has a hobby of watching surgery videos." She chuckled. "She stitched you good."

"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Jimin cursed in frustration and Aeri let her. She could only imagine being dragged into something this big without any preparation.

When the four of them landed in the middle of the woods, back to six hundred years before their current lives, all of them felt extremely nauseous and fell unconscious for a while. Ji Hoon was the first one to wake up.

They were ready to start their plan, nervousness and excitement shared among them. Then shock was mixed in when they saw Jimin a few feet away from them, laying on the ground, bleeding to death.

Their lack of technology worried her former friend, she was ready to press her button to go back but Cha Eun Woo insisted that it would be a big waste since they had no way to go back in time again once they did come back.

Aeri didn't care. She just had Jimin's safety in mind. She was so sure that the woman wouldn't survive until Ningning reassured her.

And that was three days ago.

"So everyone left to go on with the mission." Aeri nodded to the distressed woman in front of her, staring at her knees while hugging the blanket closely to her chest. "Alas, you can just hang around here until we go home."

Jimin scoffed. "For how long? I have work, Aeri."

"We can just go back to the day we left." She said it, but there were still doubts in her mind. Slowly, while scrunching her nose, Aeri continued. "Though our timeline kinda messed up, we didn't come to the year we were supposed to." Seeing Jimin's eyes change quickly, she shook her head. "But no worries, it's actually not that bad, only a few months ahead and–"

"Ahead?" Jimin breathed out angrily. "You're saying we're in a war time?"

Aeri grinned nervously. "At least you didn't skip your history classes?"