Lost In Time

Chapter 7

“Do you think my mom will believe Alden?” I ask Nikkita.

“I don’t know David. Maybe if she believes in something like this.” Nikkita replies.  I shake my head and sigh. I look over to where Natalya is standing looking at something with her parents. Looking closer I notice that she seems to be shaking uncontrollably. She slowly shakes her head like she is arguing with her parents. When she is done, she turns away and walks over to the opposite wall with her back to her mom and dad. When she turns to me and Nikkita, her eyes are glassy but flashes with fire. She walks over and stands between us with her arms resting around our shoulders. “Isn’t this great?” Natalya asks. I glance over at her as she is staring at the wall in front of us. “What’s the matter Natalya? What are you looking at?” I ask.

“I think there’s a door in the wall.” Natalya answers frowning. “But it looks almost hidden, you can’t really see it.”

“Oh that is just an empty closet.” Nikkita answers. “We hardly ever use it.” Natalya nods distracted.

“Hey Natalya what’s wrong?” I ask.

“What? Nothing.” Natalya answers. Even though I want to know why she is acting so weird I don’t press for more. Natalya walks up to the door and statistically moves her hands down the right side of the door looking for a handle. By the look on Natalya’s face she didn’t find one. “Huh, that’s weird, there doesn’t seem to be a handle.” Natalya exclaims.

“Seriously? There has to be a handle. Well unless it fell off.” Nikkita answers. Natalya turns back and knocks three times. “What are you doing? Get away from there!” Alden yells. Before anyone can answer him the door swings open with a crash as it hits the wall. As if Natalya is possess she walks into the closet and keeps going, like the closet is bigger than it should be. I step forward and I see that it’s a hallway instead of a broom closet. “Nikkita I thought that was a closet!” I say.

            “But it is! At least that’s what Alden told me!” Nikkita says defensively. We all turn to Alden, but for Natalya, she keeps walking down the hall as if she can’t hear us. I step around them and follow Natalya. Without looking behind me I can sense rather than see that Nikkita, Natalya's parents, my mom and Alden follow behind me. Suddenly Natalya in front of me stops in her tracks like something is blocking her way. "Hey there is another door here and I don't think there is a handle here either." Natalya explains.

"I can help you with that." Alden speaks up at the end. Alden squeezes past everyone and before opening the door he turns around and takes a deep breath. "Before I open this door there is something you guys need to know. When Nikkita went to Earth it was no accident."

"Alden what are you talking about?" Nikkita ask confuse.

"Can I explain? Don't worry I know what's going on. Nikkita this may be hard to believe but I wasn't really born on Earth. These aren't my real parents and my "grandpa" was really my guardian. My parents are dead because Aaron killed them, "last year". I've been having flashbacks that my guardian has been blocking until he died." Natalya starts. "Hmm, it’s kind of hard to explain. I'm really a princess from here. But two hundred years later from now." From the look on Natalya's face she is having a hard time explaining.

             And by the look of Nikkita's face I can tell that Nikkita isn't following Natalya either. “I’m confused if you lived two hundred years ago how can you be alive?” I ask.

“I’m still alive because when my guardian took me to Earth to protect me from Aaron, we went back two hundred years ago on earth. So if my guardian took me to Earth two hundred years later then he did I wouldn’t have meet you two. See Aaron is from Areom’s future like me. Aaron traveled back in time after I escape to this time to stop my parents from becoming King and Queen by becoming King now. That’s his plan, to become King of Areom and then the rest of the worlds!” Natalya exclaims getting worked up. “If we don’t hurry it will be too late to stop him!”

            “Don’t worry Natalya, we will stop Aaron!” I say smoothly. Natalya shakes her head and looks over her shoulder to the door. “Now that that’s taken care of what is behind this door Alden?”

            “In there? It’s nothing just a room.” Alden says. Alden eyes dart to the ground and back to Natalya’s face in a blink of the eye so quick I thought I imagined it. But by the look on Natalya’s face she saw it too. “Well if nothing is behind it you wouldn’t mind if I took a quick peek?” Natalya says sweetly. Alden’s eyes dart everywhere but won’t meet anyone’s eyes. “Alden just let her look. Its fine there isn’t anything in there right?” Nikkita begs. “You haven’t done anything wrong have you?” Alden shakes his head, but I can tell that he is hiding something. Alden steps aside and lets Natalya have a try with the door. Natalya knocks on the door and steps in. Before I can follow Natalya through she comes back out, furious. “How can you do this? It isn’t right! I thought you were better than this!” Natalya screams.

“Wow Natalya calm down it can’t be that bad!” I try to reason with her. Natalya shakes her head and points through the door too angry to speak. I walk past her to see what has her so worked up. Natalya is right, this, this is... I can’t believe what Alden has! Against the opposite wall young boy maybe about my; 16 is chained to the wall. By the ragged look of the boy I can say that he has been there for about a week. “What is this all about Alden?” Natalya shrieks.

“It isn’t what it seems!” Alden shoots back. “If you just let me explain, I’m sure that you’ll understand!”

“Nothing you say will justify this!” Natalya yells.

“Natalya, shush. Let Alden explain!” Nikkita urges. “There must be a reasonable explanation to why Alden did this.”  Natalya shakes her head but keeps silent.

“Ok so I was setting up the machine that would take Nikkita to different worlds when I heard someone in the tunnels. I panicked, so I changed the dial so that it would send Nikkita to Earth. A minute before the machine would be ready to send Nikkita to Earth, someone pushed open the doors. I pushed Nikkita into the beam, and there was a flash of light and a faint humming, then Nikkita was gone. The person in the tunnel had a sword to my throat.” Alden stops out of breath. “I managed to disarm him and knocked him out. At once I knew that the young boy was working for Aaron. On his left shoulder blade is a serpent tattoo. It’s black and kind of small and everyone in Aaron’s army has it in the same spot. I’m keeping him here like this because Aaron can somehow control people’s mind. If I keep him here long enough he’ll break free from Aaron. It’s working because I got him to tell me his name.” Alden finishes breathlessly.

“Well what’s his name, Alden?” I ask.

“It’s Percy.” A raspy voice says behind me. I spin around to see that the boy or Percy is looking at us. “You must let me go! I need to be home before dark or my parents will be so mad!” Percy begs.

“See what I mean? But keeping him here like this will help make him better!”

“Ok Alden. But still this isn’t right.” Natalya grumbles.