One Last Riddle

Prolouge: The Beginning of The End

it is time!

In celebration of completing the edit for RITU I thought I'd publish the prologue and once WR is complete I shall get this story right on it's feet.

for now tho, enjoy!

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~~23rd April 2091~~

-Roy's POV-

I opened my eyes to the warm ray of the sun shining through the curtains, who needs an alarm when nature comes knocking on the door threatening to burn you alive if you dared stayed in bed, or this case the window.

After rubbing my eyes and stretching out, I took my phone out the drawer for the time, oh, of course, it's out of battery, we're almost in the 22nd century, and still, nobody has worked out the solution to fix a first world problem.

"Father?" A familiar female voice called from the other side of the door and politely knocked a couple of times, "are you awake?"

"Yup," I responded, "do you have the time on you by any chance?"

The door suddenly opened up, a woman with chocolate brown hair and a small section of hair in teal blue, Stephanie, one of my daughters stood just outside my room with the new addition to the family in her arms, "well, mother, Aunt Stella and grandpa will be here in 20 minutes, does that help?"

"Shoot!" I quickly got out of bed and grabbed my suit out of the closet.

"We'll wait downstairs for you," she and little Matthew headed downstairs, while I rushed around to get ready.

For yet another christening, I swear it feels like yesterday since the last grandchild was christened, well, two years to be accurate. If it weren't for my girls' mother being a Christian, maybe we wouldn't have so many of these things. I guess that's what pushed us away in the first place....

"Dad! Come on!" Another daughter called, "there'll be here any minute!"

"Coming!" I shouted, picking up my favourite tie before walking down the stairs.

I sometimes wonder why Stella still bothers to come along. Surely she must get tired of travelling all the way from Terzzara just to see another nibling get covered in water for 2 minutes. It's all the same.

Inside the living space were the girls, Stephanie, Lyra and Beth. My three sons-in-law. Beth's kid, Lyra's three children, and little Matthew, Stephanie's first child, and secretly I hope it's the last grandchild, grandkids are lovely and all, but I can already imagine how many times my will has to be split with the people in my life as it is.

Beth walked up to me, scoffing and giggling, "weren't you going to figure out how to do this?"

I nervously chuckled, "it might have slipped my mind, my memory isn't as good as it used to be, you know?"

*ding donggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggg*

"I'll get that," Lyra left the room, must be the rest of the family. Meanwhile, Beth took the tie out of my hands and wrapped it around my neck, tying it into an excellent old Windsor knot.

"There you go, now that's a complete image."

"Thank you, Beth," I smiled, giving a quick hug. "No problem dad."

Unfortunately, this happy mood around us would not last and about to take a 180 real fast...

When Lyra returned with my ex-wife and Stella, who was in a lot of tears, everybody in the room, especially myself, raised a lot of concerns.