STUCK IN TIME

(xxix) Book 2: Chapter 6- Lost in the past for seven years

Natalia's Pov

Ayana was 1 year old when I met those people who sent me here. They called themselves The Seekers, as they were seeking some ancient truths. I didn't know what they want back then, all I cared for was my family that's why I didn't refuse them. Before coming here I was not scared about anyone as much as I was scared for Ayana because she had my eyes and had a perfect vision too. She was extraordinarily intelligent for a one year old. And I was worried that if she has what I have then no one must be able to use her like The Seekers are now using me, or like Dr Aryan and dad made me a research subject all my life. I knew she must be protected so I told Zaroon about it and he took equal concern but was unable to understand the gravity of the situation because I couldn't tell him about the Seekers. Emir was just a boy, but he had been there when they demanded from me to do their business in order to save my family, so Emir understood it better.

I knew Emir could protect her better not only because he was there with me in that temple but also because Zaroon was travelling to other countries half the time, he had too much to take care for and Emir was always with Ayana. So I explain this well enough to him to never tell his dad know about the Seekers and to never let anyone find out about any-thing extra-ordinary about Ayana.

Now after entrusting Emir with this duty I was ready to carry on with my plan so I took the risk. When a risk is taken, it is known that there can be consequences. I took the risk because I had to discover what lies for me in the depths of my abilities. I could only find it if I exhausted them completely. If I utilized my abilities to the extent that they can be utilized. Chances were there that I will over exhaust myself and die. But as long as an iota of possibility was present which certified for a reward at the end of these struggles I was willing to take the risk. This time for myself not for some research that can benefit humanity, not for some curiosity of an old scientist but for my own self. So I experimented with myself during this travel, because experimentation is the only way by which I could find out. I failed multiple times, I almost died many times, each time was harder than the last one. But in the middle of that I discovered whatever could be discovered.

I was free. In every sense of the term. This was actual freedom. Freedom from your body, freedom from time. As I traversed the times in the bodies of people who lived them, I had no worries for their aging as they died I would chose to transcend further in the past. I had no worries for running short of time because time here was relative I could spend years here and there my body would have seen mere changes in days. I could learn a thousand things, a plenty languages, I could practice mysticism, I could learn about historical secrets, I could find out the truths that were buried deep in the past. I wanted to get lost here forever. So I did. Wanting to die at some place during my travels. At first I was keeping a record of time, then I stopped counting my years. And seemed like an epoch I was finally made to see the reason for which I was given this huge power.

I had forgotten one minor thing during all this time, Something I read in my English books when I was being taught languages by my mother as a mere ten year old girl. That was a line which defined my life therefrom ; With great power comes great responsibility.

The power of my mind was not given to me accidentally. Accidents don't happen. It was for a purpose and I was glad to have found a purpose. I had lived so many years for myself but during all of that I didn't know that I was being prepared for something of immense importance. And now I was ready for it.

I wake up this time without having to find my way back. It's like someone woke me up. I am conscious of my surroundings but my eyes don't open, It's like I just had a very long dream and I want to keep my eyes closed so that I can drift back to sleep without losing the link to this dream.

I open my eyes and it takes me a lot of time to register my surroundings and myself. I am once again in the confines of body and time. But I feel satisfied after few moments of acclimatizing. I get up and sit on this bed I had been lying. I remove the curtains and it is early morning. What a beautiful time to wake up from a deep sleep. I don't know where I am, I don't know this place, I don't know for how long I was gone, how many months have passed. I know nothing. Yet I don't panic. I am someone else now. A thousand year old maybe. An angel in human form maybe. But I continue to look at the beautiful morning without a care in the world. One thing had remained same throughout those travels and before them, the mornings. The nights are different, the evenings are different but there is something about the mornings that is always the same.

I find out in a matter of hours that I have been gone for Seven Years. My son and my husband come to see me and I find out that my daughter doesn't even know of her mother. Also that my younger sister has been taking care for my kids. I find out everything I had missed here by just the next day.

**

I spend the next three days with Zaroon alone. I learn that he brought this house for me only and came to visit me more or less everyday while I was in the so called coma. I am blessed to have found such a loving husband. I contemplate how to tell him that I am made for something else and to do what I have to do without endangering my family I will have to leave my family. I don't have the courage to tell him anything. He waited for me so long.

After a week he decides to take me home. He make plans on how to tell Ayana. While I keep breaking down from the inside.

I was sent here to complete a mission. I had gained the knowledge about spiritualism and I felt a spiritual connection drawing me to itself. I knew like an epiphany that where I will find the people who are same as I am and who are working on the same cause. The power that is above us all had prepared me for this task. Now, I couldn't turn my back just because of the love of my husband. I could not put everything aside and live a normal life again. Also I could not find the strength to leave him again.

He leaves for few hours for some official meeting and I break down. I cry and scream at the top of my lungs. I don't know what to choose now. On one side is my love and on the other is responsibility, a huge responsibility I know I can't run from. I know I will have to eventually leave even if I delay as long as I can. Even in this past week I had been feeling something from deep inside me propelling me to do what I have to do, to go and search for what I am send back in the present. But I had kept it sufficiently suppressed while in the arms of the man I love.

However now the moment he stepped outside I can't suppress it any longer. I scream, I cry, I break everything that I can see around. Zaroon had sent away the nurse, and the maid and the guard. The three people who used to be in this house for my care. This house is a small lavish cottage just in the neighborhood of our mansion, they hadn't taken me back home because Ayana thought Elena is her mother and Zaroon loved her too much to pop her happy bubble.

He will come back in few hours to take me home. To tell Ayana that her mother is back. I want to go, I want to meet her, see how much she has grown, or how much she looks like her mother and how much like her father. I want to hold my baby girl and tell her I missed her which is true. I missed my kids and my husband there. But I had given up the hope of ever seeing them again. But now hope is as strong and as true as this moment here and now. Yet I know that I can't seize it. If I met her and left soon she would be hurt. Let her believe that Elena is her mother. Let them assume that I am dead now. Let Zaroon give up hope of ever having me back. Let him forget me and move on and re marry. Fall in love again, with someone who can love him without fears, who can fulfil his responsibilities without having the burden of guarding ancient secrets.

So the decision has been made. Its best that I leave everyone behind, forever.