Capítulo 22: Apocalypse
Alina entered her house and locked the door behind her.
SIGH!
She sighed and threw her bag on the couch.
"I want to take a bath, but I am too tired to do anything. And…" she rubbed her head and grunted, "This headache is killing me."
Alina was having a headache ever since she took a bath with Ziro, but she didn't want Ziro to worry about her, or ruin the mood, so she kept it to herself.
"Should I take a pill?" she questioned herself. "But Ziro said I should avoid taking meds for small things."
'When are mom and dad coming back?' she wondered.
She took out her phone and called her father. It rang for a while, but no one picked up the call.
"I will call mom." Alina called her mom, but she didn't answer the call either.
"What's going on? They have been away many times, but they always made sure to let me know."
RING!
After a while, Alina received a message from her mom.
[Your dad and I, we both will be away from home for a couple of days. Take care of Ziro and yourself. And I asked Salina to stay with you for a couple of days.]
Alina closed her eyes in pain, and her head ached again. Her head was hurting so bad that she couldn't even understand what she was reading.
"I think I need to take pills, or this headache will kill me."
Alina threw her phone on the side and plodded to the kitchen. She grabbed the medicine from the drawer and took a glass filled with water. But before she could take medicine or drink the water, the medicine and the glass slipped from her hand and shattered on the ground.
She suddenly felt dizzy and tried to grab the nearest object as support. She came into the living room and fell to the sofa.
____
Alina opened her eyes and found herself somewhere she never wanted to be.
She was in Ziro's room, but it was filled with blood and corpses. The house was broken, and everything was destroyed.
Alina remembered everything again and started screaming.
"No! No! Why?! Why is this all happening?!" She covered her ears and closed her eyes, thinking she would go back and everything would vanish.
A hand reached out and patted Alina's arm.
"It's okay. It's just a dream," a voice said.
Alina opened her eyes and saw a copy of herself patting her arm.
"Salina? What are you doing here?"
Salina was Alina's younger twin sister, and she was an identical copy of Alina. Even their voices and body structures were so similar that even their parents always had a hard time recognizing either of them.
"I am not Salina; I am you."
"What do you mean?" Alina asked with a confused look on her face.
"I am from the future."
"What are you talking about, Sally? Now is not the good time to—"
The other Alina snapped, and everything around them disappeared. They were now on the tower in the middle of the city. It was nighttime, but there was no one else nearby.
"How did you do that?" Alina asked with a puzzled look on her face.
"This is just a memory," she sighed and continued, "As I said, this is just a dream, and I am from the future."
"I don't understand. Why is all this happening?"
"Look, I know you are having a hard time, but I need you to calm down and listen to me carefully, okay? You can save all the questions for later."
Alina nodded.
"You must have felt like deja vu or something today, am I right?"
Alina nodded again.
"Those were my memories, and I was showing that to you."
Alina's face turned pale as soon as she heard that.
"You must have remembered everything now. Ziro's parents died, and then his house was attacked. Then he went missing and never came back. All of them were my memories, and I was showing you the future, so you can prevent that from happening."
"I don't understand. How is something like that possible?" Alina questioned.
"Let me finish," the other Alina clapped, and the scenery around them changed once again.
They were still on the tower in the middle of the city, but everything around them was destroyed.
"This is why I am here. To prevent all this."
Alina glanced around and couldn't help but muttered, "What happened here?"
"The city was destroyed. Not only this city but this country, this world. This entire planet will be destroyed in the future."
"How? And why are you here then? Go to the government or the officials."
"Ziro is related to all this. This happened because Ziro went missing that day. And I am here to prevent that from happening with your help," the other Alina asserted.
"I don't think I can—"
"Listen to me, Alina; I know exactly how you are feeling right now. But remember that pain and suffering. Remember those endless nights you spent just thinking about Ziro. Those all were my memories. You never went through all that pain, but you should be feeling the same right now. And believe me, the real thing hurts."
"This is… this is too much for me. And even if you ask me to do something, I can't do—"
"You are already doing it."
"What?" Alina furrowed her brows.
"There is only one thing you need to do to prevent all this, and that is to keep Ziro unaware of his parent's death."
"No, no, no," Alina shook her head violently and said, "I can't do that. There is only one thing Ziro hates in this world, and that is lying. And there is no way I am lying to him about—"
"I know that. I know that better than anyone that he hates liars. But Alina, you are not lying here. You are just keeping it a secret, and that too is to protect the world."
"I can't! If he finds out that I lied to him, he will leave me!" Alina yelled at the top of her lungs.
"Even if you don't lie, he will leave you anyway, for forever," the other Alina sobbed.
"You don't know. Maybe he will come back—"
"Are you seriously saying that to someone who is from the future? And even if he comes back, then what? The entire world is destroyed. What will you do then? Mom, dad, Salina, Sera, Nier, they are all dead. And you, Alina, you have a chance to save them, to save everyone in this world, even Ziro."
"He will find out the truth eventually."
"You just need to keep it a secret for three months."
"Why three months?"
"Because Daisy will come out of her coma after three months, and she is the most closet person to Ziro after his parents."
"Daisy? She is… Ziro's godmother, right?"
"Yeah," she nodded.
"But still, I can't keep this a secret for three months. That's a way too long, and Ziro would surely find that suspicious."
"Mom and dad are handling this case, so they have all the belongings of Ziro's parents. You just need to copy the e-sim card code of their phones and keep updating Ziro throughout the three months."
"No, no. It's too risky. I mean, Angelica is the…" After a brief pause, she continued, "Angelica was the Queen of this country. The news would be everywhere, and Ziro will know it."
"He won't," the other Alina asserted. "He won't know anything because the government kept it a secret from the world. No one knew about it. Even when Ziro went missing, nothing happened. Although, the world was unknown that Ziro is the prince. But the government gave up on looking for him after a few months."
"Still, you know how smart and sharp Ziro is. He will—"
The other Alina interrupted Alina and said, "I know, and that's why I came to you. If you tell him something, he would believe you without any questions."
Alina hugged herself and trembled in fear, "If he finds out, then he will hate me."
"What matters to you the most? Ziro hating you, or Ziro?" The other Alina looked into Alina's eyes and said, "To me, Ziro matters the most. I won't care if he hates me or leaves me. As long as he is there, as long as I can see him, I would be happy. What about you, Alina?"
"It's the same for me," Alina muttered.
"Now, ask me questions. I don't have much time left."
"What do you mean by you don't have much time left?"
"My world is destroyed, and so am I."
"But you are here!"
"This is just pre-recorded data I sent in the past. I could only send limited data— 256 kb. 250 kb are the memories, and the rest 6 kb is my data. So ask me questions before I disappear."
"How did you do all this? How did you come back in the past?" Alina questioned.
"First of all, I am not really in the past. Only the data. And I did all this with the help of Lily."
"Lily? But Ziro said Lily is broken right now. How did—"
"Don't you have other important questions to ask?"
Alina's eyes got teary, and she asked as her lips trembled, "Are you dead too?"
After a brief silence, the other Alina nodded, "Yeah."
"What if I mess up? What if Ziro gets to know everything from somewhere, and he goes missing again?"
"I don't know," she shrugged. "But I am sure you won't let that happen."
"I will try."
"Oh!" Other Alina exclaimed and said, "One more thing. Don't tell anyone about this, okay?"
"Why? Because it will change the future?" Alina wondered.
"There is no future, Alina. Everything is destroyed."
"Yeah, but if I manage to change everything, then you will come back to life, won't you?"
The other Alina slowly shook her head and looked at the destroyed world.
"That's not how it works. My world is destroyed, and it's never coming back. But I had an option to save yours, so I am here."
"So cruel."
"Cruel indeed."
"So, why can't I tell anyone about this?" Alina questioned.
"The future may not exist, but it depends on your current choices, your present. So the same thing can happen again, even after trying to prevent it."
"So all I have to do is keep his parent's death secret from him?"
"For three months, yes."
Alina forced her smile and said, "I am sorry you had to go through all that pain."
"There is no need to apologize. It's not even related to you. Just… just… good luck with everything, okay?"
"Thanks."
The other Alina's body slowly started fading.
"Oh, yeah! There is one more person who knows all about the future."
"Who?"
"Unfortunately, I can't tell you. But it's an ally, and sooner or later, you will meet that person."
Alina blankly started at the other Alina.
"Everything; all the events are the same. Nothing has changed. So that means, Ziro's house was supposed to be attacked at 12:01 PM, but that other person stopped the attack and changed everything."
"Then I hope I get to meet them soon."
The other Alina's body turned transparent, and it was about to fade away when she asked, "Hey, what do you think of the world you live in? Is it real?"
"What… do…" Alina stammered.
"If it was real, then sending memories back in the past or something related to time travel should be impossible."
The other Alina faded away as Alina yelled, "What do you—"
Alina woke up in the living room from her dream, yelling, "—Mean?!"
Alina stared at the ceiling for some seconds to process everything in her mind.
"Was all that real? Or just a crazy dream?" she wondered.
She stood up and went to the kitchen to drink water.
"At least my head doesn't ache now," she muttered and drank the water.
SIGH!
She sighed and went to the living room to grab her phone.
"It's 9:31 PM… the same time as in the dream. So my dream was real?"
Alina was unsure about her dream, and now that she had accepted the future memories of the other Alina, those memories were like a dream from the current Alina. For her, she had two memories of two different timelines, and each of them was different.
"There is one thing I can do to confirm it."
====
What would she do?
-- Regalo
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