The Clepsydra

Chapter 8

Will be sure to triple-check it again. Hope you enjoy it. From: M x :)

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I open my eyes to find myself sitting on a stone street leaning against a wall. I look down and notice that my appearance is similar to how it was in my first Crossover with my black hair and tanned skin. My arms and wrists are adorned with gold bands and bracelets while I'm wearing a simple red cotton dress.

I look around me and see houses made of stone and compacted clay with straw roofs and in the distant I can hear what sounds like cannon fire.

I'm in Tenochtitlan, the Aztec city. When I researched Cortés and Malinalli the webpage showed paintings done of the city's layout and depicted life inside the Aztec civilisation. It's actually a bit unnerving how accurate some of those pictures were.

I hear the sound of someone breathe in deeply next to me. I flick my head to the side and find an Aztec young man next to me with similar hair to mine but shorter. He's bare-chested, wearing something like a short tunic but it looks good, not so hideous that it makes you want to avert your eyes. There are decorated bands around his arms while a spear and shield lay at his side.

My legs feel wobbly and half-asleep, so my epic fail of running away turns more into me sliding on my butt backwards at the pace of a snail.

The guy opens his exceptionally dark brown eyes and gingerly gets to his feet. I try to slide away faster but don't get very far.

The man dusts himself off then runs over to me, putting a hand around both my arms and pulls me up off the ground. "Shhh Elena it's just me, Aidan. Wow, for your third Crossover you're doing very well. You're more advanced at this than most people are at this point, since you've crossed over already blended into your environment."

I wobble on my feet for a bit before gaining my balance, standing up straighter. "How come you knew it was me then?"

"The Clepsydra are able to see through the disguises if they're looking for it consciously as I did when I woke up. I knew you would be nearby so I purposefully did it. You can't because you're still getting used to doing this but if you looked closely you would be able to see through the façade. I was able to sense your aura like I did the other day."

I look up at his face and concentrate on SEEING him and not just looking. His face flickers for a moment, and his eyes return to their usual turquoise and gold before it flickers again and goes back to being the dark brown.

"You almost had it, it will get easier the more you do it." He walks back and picks up the shield and spear before rejoining me. "If you keep at it, it will only get better." He handled the spear and shield like he had been working with them his whole life. I would hate to be the one on the wrong end of that thing.

The sun is beating down on us, and I shuffle over to a thin sliver of shade from a nearby hut and Aidan joins me, wiping off a slight sheen of perspiration we are both starting to get.

"How are we doing this? How am I even here in like bodily form?"

"No one is actually able to explain it, but I think it has something to do with rips in the space-time continuum and the overlapping of loops. There's all these theories about there being a copy of yourself in parallel universes and something about quantum physics stating an object can be in two places at once. I honestly don't really care how it works, it's all too confusing to keep up with...all I care about is doing my duty and knowing my part in the bigger picture. Time isn't really running absolutely the same in both places, but usually they are similarly going hour for hour. There are the odd examples where people have spent a day or two in the past and woken up only to find they've been sleeping for barely 3 hours."