“Uncle Tony, wake up,” someone hisses into my ears. I let out a grumble and turn to the other side so the voice wouldn’t disturb my beauty sleep. When I turn, I realize that I’m sleeping on hard ground with my hands as a pillow. 

I open my eyes slowly to see bright green trees surrounding me. Then the peaceful sigh is replaced with a face.

“What is it?” I ask my niece who has a sly grin on her face. 

“Nothing. I’m hungry, let’s go and have breakfast.” She stands up and offers her hand. I accept.

“Lia, wake up!” I yell into her ears, making her jolt awake. She sits up, making our forehead connect. I wince and lean back so I can rub my throbbing forehead. 

“That hurts! Anthony, do not ever wake me up like that again!” Lia scolds me, also rubbing her forehead. 

Emma dances between us. “Let’s go have breakfast! Do Georgia’s Café exist in this time? Their coffee is to die for!”

Lia and I stare blankly at her. Emma laughs nervously while rubbing the back of her neck. “Oh, it’s not constructed until 2018… My bad.”

I sigh. “Never mind. I know a great place to have breakfast. Let’s get to my car first.”

Once again, Emma leads the way while Lia and I fall behind. The fingers of my right hand subconsciously reach for Lia’s left ones. She looks surprised. Fortunately, do not pull away from skin contact. Instead, her fingers interlock with mine.

I squeeze her hand lightly, which she squeezes back. 

“There it is,” Emma says when we finally reach where my car is parked. I slip into the driver’s seat while Lia sits next to me and Emma conquers the backseat.

“So where are we having for breakfast?” my sixteen-year-old niece asks me when I drive away from the Protected Forest of Tigris. 

I sigh, hoping that it’s not a good idea to have breakfast at a place I knew so well. “Fletcher’s Coffee House.”

“We’re going to meet Aunt Gabriella?” Emma asks with excitement, followed by a fist pump. Her statement shocks me. 

“You know Gabriella?” I ask back, looking at her through the mirror. 

“Of course!” she replies. “I grew up with you and your friends.”

“And one of my friends is Gabriella?” That’s kind of a stupid question. I am very aware, but who knows? Over the years I might lose contact with them.

“Don’t forget Uncle Chase and Aunt Charissa, Uncle Zack and Aunt Xenon, and finally Uncle Daniel and Aunt Penny,” Emma says, counting the number of people with her fingers.

“Xenon? Penny?” I repeat the unfamiliar names.

“Uncle Daniel married with Aunt Penny about five or six years ago. Aunt Penny owns a perfume company that is supported by the band, so that’s how they met.”

“So Daniel and Gabriella didn’t work out?” I ask with surprise. They’re a perfect couple and of course it’s surprising to know that they won’t turn out together.

Emma shoots me a dumbfounded look that I see through the mirror. I take a U-turn to reach a street of shops where one of the shops belongs to Gabriella’s family.

“They were together?” Emma asks me with surprise. 

“Yes, they are… I mean, were.”

“Oh wow.” Emma does not say anything for a while. “That’s a shocker. All this while, I thought Uncle Daniel and Aunt Gabriella just doesn’t like each other. They usually never talk to each other and they tend to stay away from each other. Now I know why.”

“What about Zack? I cannot believe he actually got married,” I say with a shake of my head. He’s never a guy who would settle down. Maybe he finally matures over the years.

“Aunt Xenon’s family was close to Uncle Zack’s. After so many years of not having a girlfriend, Uncle Zack’s mother set them up and they actually got along. They’re not married yet, but have been together for two years,” Emma tells me happily. “I can’t wait for them to get married. They are a very funny couple, always fighting all the time. However, you can see the love radiating off them.”

“Wow,” I say in wonder. It’s so difficult to imagine him with a girl. He’s such a playboy.

I turn to check on Lia who looks a little green. “Oh no,” I murmur when she jerks forward. Instantly, I pull over by the road and take out a plastic bad that is in the front compartment of the passenger seat. Lia vomits out just in time into the plastic bag. I draw invisible circles on her back as she vomits out the contents in her stomach. 

I should have paid more attention to her. 

“Are you okay?” I murmur when she leans back into the seat. 

“Give me a moment,” she says, taking a few deep breaths. “I’m sorry. I’m still not used to riding in the alien transportation – ”

“The car,” I interject. 

Lia rolls her eyes. “Right, the car. It isn’t my fault that there are no cars in 1468 and I was not used to this.”

“You have motion sickness,” I state. 

Lia’s eyes widen instantly and then push herself away from me, sticking closely to the edge of the seat. “Is it contagious? I don’t want to spread the virus to you.”

Emma and I look at each other before bursting into fits of laughter. Lia growls lowly in warning but we ignore her. 

“It is not contagious, I can assure you. It’s just a temporary sickness until you get used to riding in the car. Remember my first horse riding lessons?” I ask Lia. 

She breaks into a grin. “Yes! Before you could even take a step, you just fell and vomited. My, that was a hilarious sight.”

“Great to know my pain was your personal entertainment,” I say sarcastically. It was my first time riding a horse and it was horrible. Safe to say that I prefer driving a car than riding a horse. Horses are just too complicated for me.

Lia just laughs. The three of us quiet down, letting the music from the radio fill in the silence. Lia scrunches up her face when Coldplay’s Magic is played. 

“I don’t like this music. It’s so… weird,” Lia complains. 

“Classic Coldplay is the best!” Emma remarks, swooning to the music. “Uncle Tony, you used to give me your old CDs of Coldplay. There’s also Linkin Park, Royal Blood, The Neighbourhood, Arctic Monkeys…”

I look at Emma through the rear mirror. “What kind of music is popular in your time?”

“Techno, rap, pop, almost similar to your time,” Emma replies with a shrug of her shoulders. 

“Rap?” Lia asks me. 

I smirk and then tell my niece, “Emma, there is an Eminem CD is in the back.”

For the next five minutes, Lia has an annoyed look and Emma and I are rapping along with Eminem. Lia would occasionally mumble remarks about the strangeness of the future taste of music. 

“We’re here,” Emma says in excitement. I snap out of my deep thoughts and concentrate on finding a parking spot. It seems as if it is our lucky day since the parking spot in just opposite of the coffee house. 

Emma immediately jumps out of the car as I help Lia out of the car like a true gentleman. I notice many customers staring at us, mainly at me. Everyone here knows that I’m Jared Weinbach’s son. Some even take pictures of me with their phones. 

“Excuse me, Mr. Weinbach,” a small voice says, making me turn only to see a pre-teen girl with her two friends behind her. 

I resist the urge to sigh and ignore her. It is normal to be encountered by teenagers, but I find that the new present is far different from the original. If Rebellious Lads still exist, I would have drawn more attention than I do now. 

“Yes?”

“I’m wondering if she’s your girlfriend,” the girl asks, looking at Lia who is still holding my hands and then at Emma who is looking curious. 

“Uhh…”

“We do not ask that sort of questions to our customers, Evie,” Gabriella says sharply, grabbing the girl’s arm. “I apologize on her behalf, Mr. Weinbach.” 

I wince at how cold she sounds. Damn this complicated curse. I miss my best friend Gabriella who knows me almost all my life. Now, she only sees me as a cocky famous person from school. I really hope once this is all over, I can go back to my life once again with Rebellious Lads, my friends, my fans, Jen’s pregnancy problem and many more that I can’t think of. 

But what will happen to Emma? I can persuade Jared to get Jen to keep the baby, that way, I can save time from looking for her in the adoption system. What about Lia? Oh sweet Princess Lia. When we’re free from this curse, I can no longer visit her in the past. She’ll be stuck in 1468 whereas I’m in 2013. 

“Aunt Gabriella,” Emma says in awe, staring at my best friend who does not recognize me. Gabriella is wearing a dark blue apron with fancy fonts ‘Fletcher’s Coffee House’. 

Gabriella faces me with furrow eyebrows while I glare at my niece. She should be more careful about addressing people in different time! 

“Come on,” I hiss, grabbing Emma and head over to an empty table with three vacant seats. 

“She looks the same,” Emma remarks with her eyes trained on a certain Fletcher. 

I grunt. “I’m going to have some coffee. What about you, Lia?”

Lia scrunches her nose as she studies the menu carefully. “What is suitable for breakfast? Pancakes? Waffles? What are those?”

“Damn, Dredutery Cheesery Cake does not exist yet,” the sixteen-year-old moans sadly. 

I ignore the whiny kid from the future and tell Lia, “You want to try some waffles? They’re excellent!”

Gab acts as our waitress, serving food for us. I notice she keeps glaring at me which makes me move in my seat uncomfortably. She hates me. 

“So what do you think the other Anthony was talking about last night?” Lia asks me before putting a piece of waffle into her mouth gracefully with a fork. Emma does not pay attention to us since she’s busy stuffing crepe into her mouth like she hadn’t seen food for days. 

“I don’t know.” The black coffee stings my tongue. “Maybe there is another way to stop this.”

“How?” Lia asks hopefully. I know she doesn’t want to fight with whatever this beast is. Especially in her cursed form. 

“I don’t know.”

Emma sneezes loudly, startling both Lia and I. “Excuse me,” she says sheepishly. 

My vision turns black and white out of the blue. I look at Lia who smiles at Emma while Emma puts down her fork and picks up a napkin. 

“We should get out of here. Now,” I say urgently, putting a few notes on the table. 

“What? I have not finished eating!” my niece complains. 

I give her a glare. “I’m going to travel back now.”

Emma’s eyes widen along with Lia’s. They instantly do as I say, following me to an alley close by. Just when I feel like I’m about to disappear, I put my hands on Emma’s and Lia’s respective shoulders. It catches my breath when my eyes show nothing but darkness. 

“Oh good, you’re back,” Aria says in relief. 

I open my eyes to see her with a horse behind her. Lia is no longer wearing a blouse and t-shirt but a dress she previously worn before we travel to my time. Emma and I, though, are still wearing modern clothes. 

“Here,” Aria tells us, throwing a bunch of clothes from her bag. “I figure you needed these.”

“Thanks,” Emma and I murmur. I make my way behind a tree with a large trunk to conceal me while I put on my chainmail. 

“Everything is changing, Aria,” Emma informs the Kyrian. “The present is no longer the present, just like here in the past. I fear the future is going to change as well.”

“That’s bad,” Aria comments, rubbing her chin. “Really bad.”

“Why is that bad?” Lia asks. 

I step away from the tree. I know why Aria and Emma are worried about this. “Because Emma and I may not be born. The past here won’t change because this is where the Time Beast decides to linger and cause chaos. Emma and I may not exist.”

Aria nods in agreement. “I didn’t know how long you would be gone so I only brought one horse.”

“That’s alright, Aria,” I say, bowing my head. “I can walk.”

“I’ll accompany Anthony,” Lia chimes in. 

I give her a look of disbelief. Lia is a princess who is going to play a major role in history and she might get herself killed just so she accompanies me. I shake my head. 

“You’re going to ride with Aria to Elopura.”

“No.”

“Lia, you’re Elopura’s only hope so do everyone a favour by getting yourself strapped on that horse.”

“Just because I’m royalty doesn’t mean I must receive special attention especially during times of war. Elopura is not that far anyway.”

Lia and I glare at each other, wanting each other to back down. Emma clears her throat loudly, gaining both of our attention. 

“I think Aria and I will use the horse. We need to prepare some potions so by the time you reach Elopura, we will be ready,” Emma compromise. She doesn’t hesitate to jump on the horse behind Aria.

“Ready for what?” Lia and I ask.

“To travel to 1635,” Aria replies, leading the horse away from us.