Wicked Secrets

Chapter 9

Reliving this memory was incredibly bittersweet. Especially with this old geezer with her that appeared out of thin air and explained to her that she time travelled to the past was incredibly bizarre.

How weird could this even get?

Plenty more, where this night was moving out.

The past Corine and Volta stopped at an old framed photo, vintage looking of a knight holding a sword of greatness. He pressed the head of the knight and...

Bam!

The photo flipped upward, allowing the small hole behind it to expand and finally leaving a stairway down below.

Volta got a lantern and led the the way downward. Everyone else followed to the beyond of the infinite stairs. Seeing it felt like swallowing a bitter pill for the, now ghost, Corine.

It all felt wrong, reliving this. Just wrong. She looked at the old man for an answer but he remained tight lipped and extremely expressionless.

Why was this happening?

Finally reaching the bottom of the stairs was an old dusty door, cobwebs on the side. Volta opened it.

Inside was a kind of training room, with a few wooden dummies on the ground and some in the air. There were deep cuts on most of them all over. There were a few bulls eyes  and some swords hanging on the walls. Very pristine but ancient.

"Now, show me some skills," instructed Volta.

The old Corine took out the sword, did a somersault and did a double slice on an air dummy, almost cutting it to pieces.

"How's that?!" old Corine asked.

Volta applauded and said "More!"

The old Corine just nodded and continued their training. Knife throwing on the bulls eyes, trying to slice the dummies, even sword fighting with Volta.

"Wasn't it a nice memory?" the old man asked.

"Why show me this?" Corine asked in turn.

"But isn't this the memory you dearly loved?" asked the old man.

"It was," Corine answered, emphasising the 'was'. Nothing but bad memories, but looking back at it, was it?

It still brought a smile to her face whenever she thought about it. The expression on her face spoke volumes and gave the old geezer a knowing smile.

"How do you know?" Corine spat.

The old man didn't answer but just pointed to Volta and the old Corine, who had finished their training session.

"Same time, tomorrow?" Volta asked.

"Definitely, thank you, Volta!" Corine said so gratefully.

Volta just smiled and they left the place, chatting.

While the real Corine turned to the old geezer and asked "What is the meaning of this?!"

The old geezer just smiled and somehow vanished. What just happened? Now, the place dissipated too and awe was once again in the meeting room.

But which meeting room? She scanned her surroundings and saw herself with Volta. But this time, which timeline was it?

She felt the floor spinning. This was quite dizzying and when she fell to the floor, she felt an old wrinkled hand on her shoulder.

It was the old geezer. Unsmiling but the same demeanour. Once Corine steadied herself, the old man immediately let go.

She could not explain the attitude of the old man. Right now, to more pressing matters.