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Born in an unknown time, born without a mother or a father. What am I really?
This is perhaps the question that she finds herself asking all the time. Or is every time? She does not know. For the concept of time is foreign to her being.
Born in an unknown time, born with the consciousness already given. She possesses the knowledge of what is yet to come. But little does she care nor have use for it.
For she is someone whose days does not flow like others do.
Her day would start exactly at 00:00. But the clock she follows does not have a definite flow. Sometimes a day would take minutes, or days, or even months. She does not know how or why it happens. But one thing is for sure: her day ends when her clock strikes 10:00.
Once the clock strikes 10:00, she would fall into a deep slumber, at any place, or any time of the day, leaving the body she occupies for that certain period and enter a space where the only thing she sees is a door. And yet, it is the only thing that she could not reach.
As she tries and tries to reach it every day. But as the door gets near her grasp, the clock strikes 00:00 and her day in another timeline starts again.
It was a tiring existence, really. She lives in lives of people who existed. Just existed like the people in their time. A baroness, forced to marry for economic gain. An overworked business woman, climbing up the corporate ladder. A slave, to be sold to the highest bidder. No particular story written. No one would really remember her. No one even know her name, not even her.
Which made her long for a connection. For someone to notice her, not as the life she lives for the day. But as her existence in this unknown world.
Someone to tell her who she is.
Until that one faithful day, he came.
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It was her 1005th day in this existence.
She was a dainty maiden attending the festive masquerade ball at some duke's mansion. There were dashing gentlemen asking her to dance, trying to vie for her attention. And yet no one picks her fancy.
If it was her usual day, she would have done a lot in her plate, dance with every gentleman who asks for her hand to dance, plant trees in the garden, plant ideas of a equal society to her court lady friends, everything she probably could in her power. Even if she cannot be remembered, she would still try to make her mark, which she would often find every now and then as she jumps into different consciousness.
And yet she felt unusually uninterested to do anything to mark this day's existence. To be frank, she rather feel at ease and eager for this day to end. It was not as if the day was nothing special, to be honest.
Rather, it was as if the day was the most special day she'd ever experience. And she just wanted to keep that to herself.
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She used the excuse to go to the powder room to escape her many suitors and walked out through the rose bushes, towards a pavilion she spotted when she first came in this consciousness. It was a secluded place. Perfect for someone like her who wanted to escape her reality. She did not see her clock just yet so she would not know if her time is yet to end.
As she reached the pavilion, she immediately got distracted by the unusual flora that grows around. They seem to be glimmering like stars.
"Huh, they are gems." she thought to herself, as she looked closer and find tear-drop shaped peridots glimmering in clusters. She gently lifted a cluster with her hand, only did she notice them forming an interesting form... something very familiar with her.
Then she realized in surprise what it reminds her of, which made her jump to her feet and have her hand cover her neck's right side. She turned around from the plant, as if fearfully hiding herself from what she has seen.
Only then, did she notice that she was not alone in the pavilion.
In front of her is a man, sitting on a stone table. He wears a black suit, embroidered with white and gold lace sprinkled with diamonds. He look quite expensive, dashingly princely even.
The man was staring at her with such intensity that bore down her soul. It was enough for her to be uttered completely speechless. Her mind fell into a stupor staring at his handsome face as well.
"You came", the man said, breaking the silence with his soothing voice. "I was told that you'd come today, Gie. But I didn't know the day wouldn't be that long."
Hearing what he called her broke the trance she was in. "What did you call me?" she asked.
"Gie" he repeated, "Your name, Gie"
"How did you know?" she inquired. But the man merely smiled.
"Who are you?" she asked, growing more and more curious of what he would reveal about her life.
"I am who you think I am." he vaguely replied. "But I believe that's not what you are most curious about."
"Yes." she replied. "I want to know who I am."
"Sad as it should be, I cannot tell you about you" the man laments, "for I am just as alike, a traveler of time, borrowing moments from existing people."
"And yet you knew about me being here." she said "how? why?"
"It has been written in our fate" he declared, as he unbutton his cuff to show her something on his arm.
Only then did she walk towards him to see what he wanted to show her. And what she saw made her shocked.
It was the same symbol she saw the gems form on the plants around them, the same symbol on her neck, the birth mark she did not know from where; a four leaf clover with symbols making up it's stem.
"G, 1005" the man read the symbols on his arm, "that's you. on your 1005th consciousness."
"How did you know it was me?" she asked curiously. "Your name isn't written in my mark."
"You wouldn't have seen this pavilion if it wasn't." he explained "For this pavilion is hidden in from the normal eyes."
The overflowing information made her dizzy that her legs weakened. A chair magically appeared behind her though, breaking her fall.
"Why am I seeing you now though?" she laments "why now?"
"Thus I can only answer with my speculation" he replied "For the chances that I'm here to be your key to that place in your mind."
"How could that happen though? Why would you hold the key to that door?" such sexist ideology for an independent woman like her, is absurd and unheard of. After all, she's spent her 1004 days being heard in an equal state. And she does her mark successfully, even if history doesn't record her name.
"It is not of inequality that is the answer" the man calmly replied. "For I'm here not just to get you to the door, but to also take what's mine."
He reached out his left hand towards her and touched the clover on her neck. True enough that his touch has materialized a metal key. something she did not know is inside her.
He urged her to touch his mark as well, to claim the key for her door, but she felt a shadow of fear of the unknown should she get in there. She closed her eyes.
And in that short time she wavered, a cuckoo sound sliced the air, signaling it's time, a change in consciousness will occur. Any second now...
But nothing is happening to her. She is still in her consciousness so she opened her eyes to see...
...that the man she hesitated to touch is slowly disappearing before her eyes.
"NO!" she shouted in alarm "Why are you leaving?"
The man smiled sadly, "I was able to find a sliver of hope that our situation might be able to end when we both get the key to the places in our hearts. This pavilion was a place I built so that I could wait for the right moment that you who holds the key, would appear. But the power is short fused and once one of us gets the key, the other must also get his. And yet the short moment of your hesitation, mistrust, has broken the power of this pavilion. Our time has just been paused the moment you came here. But now our time is flowing again. And it has come to the end of my day. I cannot do anything in my power now."
"But I still need to get the key to enter the door in my mind."
"You might not need it anymore" the man replied. "I'll wait for you and open from the other side" he promised.
And with that he vanished, along with the pavilion of her dreams.
She fell to the floor crying in despair, she looked around her desperately looking for the clock of her time. What time is to her now? Will she be able to see him again?
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She sits in a trance, not wanting to move from where she met him. The rain starts to fall and yet she barely moved an inch. Her maids rush across the garden towards her, bringing an umbrella to shelter her from the elements
"My Lady, you are soaking wet. Let us go inside and get you warm." they urge her to move. But she is being stubborn. Not wanting to move from where she is, waiting for her day to end so that she could finally meet him again.
"What time is it?" she asked them, "It's half past midnight, my lady" they replied. But it was not the time that she was longing to know. And yet no one will be able to tell her that.
She stood up and desperately tried to search for the clock that tells her her consciousness time. Around the gardens, inside the mansion, under the cellar. But no matter where she looked, she can no longer find it. It is no longer visible to her. She find herself looking a a mirror, where she find that her clover birth mark is no longer there, as if it never were when he took the key from her. She again fell to the floor in despair.
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Perhaps due to the physical toll of the elements and the emotional grief from her realization, she fainted. Her maids have carried her to her room in the mansion, attending to her as she gets delirious from her fevers. She can no longer count the days from her consciousness, as she knew that she can no longer leave this last life she has. She realized that she would no longer see the door and see him again.
And exactly 49 normal days have passed since she last saw him, her body succumbed from the physical malady that her despair has brought her. Upon that last moment did she feel the pain that her doubts has brought upon her. And on her last physical breath, she can no longer predict if she would be able to see him again. For she can no longer hear the sound of the cuckoo signaling the end of her day. She can no longer return to that space where she could reach the door and be with him again. She would end up in just nothingness - the oblivion of her regret.
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But in that moment that she left her physical body, she felt herself floating towards a familiar space. A space that is extremely dark and yet she see a glimmer of light from afar. She seems to have been brought to the corridor in her mind.
And in that dark hallway she walked towards that visible light. It was only when the end was at an arm's length did she realize that it was a door. Is it the door from her consciousness? Will she be able to open it now? Will the man she felt connected to be inside, waiting for her?
She reached out for the door handle, but she felt her hair stand up on her skin, making her fear. Should she open it?
"Open the door" she hears a voice whisper to her ear.
"Open the door to your oblivion."