Chapter I
Alo's POV:
I woke up as a bright beam of sunlight fell on my face. It was already half past six in the morning, half an hour later than my usual wake up time. I jumped up out of bed as realization struck me. That dream again! Or should I say vision? At least that's what both of us think. My brain reeled with the stress from the dream. It was of the same theme again. My family and happily married life back in Middle Earth with the Elvenking of Eryn Galen. This has been going on for years now, since my childhood, years before I knew what Middle Earth was in the first place. Every time I was about to face some danger, these dreams or visions would offer me strong romantic and soothing feelings, and a promise of a new life somewhere I would never be able to go. A promise, but a false one that would give me respite from my usual nightmares. A dream whose underlying meaning would be that I'm about to acquire some illness, or face some danger. I shook my head and began readying myself to explain it to my best friend and sister figure, and now flatmate Amelia, or Amy in short. She was the only one who knew about my dreams, as she too had them, the same theme, just from a different perspective, about her married life with the Elrondion twin Elladan.
I quickly got dressed up in my normal dark-colored hoodie and jeans and emerged in the living room, ready to knock on Amy's door to wake her up. I was glad her normally insomniac and disrupted sleep patterns had changed to a more normal schedule ever since we moved to Ireland and became roommates to study our dream subjects at this university.
Amy came from the U.S. to study economics, and I came to study Forensics, after I completed my medical degree in India last year, my home country. Both of us had been online friends for years before that, since we were seventeen years old high-school students, eight long years ago. Bonding over our love for books, and Middle Earth. Especially over our scarily odd similarities in almost every personality trait, like Siamese twins. Which ended up with us planning to study at the same university in Ireland, after years of being best friends, taking an oath and never faltering in it.
I knocked loudly on her bedroom door to wake her up, earning the usual grumble of annoyance and a barely audible "goo' mornhing" before I went to our apartment door to retrieve the newspaper from the door handle and then to the kitchen to prepare some breakfast before we started our day. Normally the breakfast duties were mine, lunch from the university cafeteria and the dinner was Amy's duty. I dutifully poured some milk on the cereal and a few fruits I had prepared to go with it in two bowls for both of us, as our simple breakfast. I returned to the living room to read the newspaper on the couch and check the various notifications on my phone.
My short phone call to my parents hardly lasted a minute or two before I concentrated on the newspaper. Soon I find myself absentmindedly staring at the paper, thinking about my dream over and over again, trying to figure out the underlying warning of it. I knew danger was approaching, but how and when is yet to be determined.
My reverie was broken by someone clearing their throat. I looked up to see Amy staring at me thoughtfully with her breakfast in hand. I startled a bit. I hadn't noticed her movement at all, too lost in my own thoughts to register the noise of someone waking up.
"What are you thinking so deeply about Aloe? Won't you eat your breakfast?" She asked.
"Nothing." I replied awkwardly, "just- I'm not hungry." I replied a bit sheepishly, absently setting the newspaper down beside me and picked up my bowl from the table and started to eat without a word. The food felt bland and tasteless in my mouth and soon I shoved all the food down my throat and chugged a bottle of water after, feeling slightly nauseous in anticipation of the possible future events. I never had these dreams so frequently before. It has become an almost daily thing for me. I felt a strange foreboding feeling in my heart, I shrugged and sighed and looked at Amy in a light-hearted manner.
"What about you? Did you sleep well?" I asked, to ward off my own unease.
"I did." She answered after a few seconds of frowning at me, "What's the matter with you today? You seem to be upset about something... did your mother say something again?"
"No nothing. She didn't say anything... yet. It's just the dreams again." I replied after a moment of thought.
"You dreamed it again? How was it this time? What did you see?" She asked in surprise and excitement.
"It was as usual another family scene, romantic and calming. You know Amy? I think something will happen to me soon. I never had visions of my past life for 6 consecutive days ever before. It's almost like the dreams are calling me back to my life, a life I left back in there. Our past universe." I replied quietly, feeling strange butterflies in my stomach, obviously due to a sudden influx of serotonin in my blood. I was almost certain that this time I would face something fatal, and nothing like the non-fatal incidents of before; but I left the words hanging. She had no business panicking over a fate I cannot escape.
"SIX DAYS! SIX CONSECUTIVE DAYS and you're telling me this now?!" Amy was yelling at me now, "What the hell were you thinking this whole time while Aloe?! I thought we agreed never to hide anything from each other, however harsh or hurtful or scary it is!"
"I-uh...yeah, I mean, I didn't like to concern you about it. It's nothing new you know..." I scratched my head sheepishly, avoiding her eyes, trying to come up with a excuse but it came out like a lie of a two your old.
"You think I'd believe that? You seriously think I would gwanunig (twin)?" She looked at me with an unamused arched eyebrow.
"I-well, erm...no, I suppose not." I was at loss how to answer her.
"Tell me everything." Amy ordered coldly, "Now."
"Oh okay..." I then began recounting the main theme of the dreams. Each of them being extremely calming and gave me a sense of content which nothing in my life ever could. It was the only place where I belonged, and not in the midst of the boring classrooms, annoying students and abusive family members, but a life of freedom, love and content— something I never felt.
When I had finished, Amy sat before me, with a stony-cold expression that was very much unlike her. I glanced at my non-biological twin uneasily and asked;
"Do you believe me?"
"Of course I do now, even though I didn't at first. Your dreams have a certain element in them which successfully shows the truth of what you say." She looked at me with a concerned expression and stated, "you better be careful now sis. I hate to say this but I think you are in horrible danger this time."
I nodded thoughtfully and got up from the couch with finality in my tone, "Yes I know. It's mortal danger now. I still remember the road accident and the dreams haunting me before and after that. I'll try to be, but it's almost like a fate, you know. Something I won't be able to escape, I never could. But this time like the times before, I'm prepared to face it." She gave me a flat and disbelieving look.
Amy's POV:
Alok still hasn't returned home. She's late, and it's very much unlike her usual punctual habits. My day had been hectic as usual. Two of my professors handed me a ton of homework that seems like too much to handle. I sighed in silent frustration. I'll definitely have to pull an all-nighter tonight. Most days like this, Aloe would have been yelling at me in her usual stern tone if she found me pulling an all-nighter and would even resorted to helping me with my tasks forcefully. But tonight? I'm not so sure. She was clearly not her normal self today.
Ever since she told me of her dreams, I've been extremely worried for her. Each time she's had one of those dreams, they somehow work as premonitions, warning her of some impending danger. I have a similar kind of... day dreams, I guess you could say. They're like hers, but it never signifies anything except my ties back in Middle Earth. And they're only about one person, and The Sea.
I sighed deeply and leaned back in my chair, wishing we could somehow get to Middle Earth without any hassle and live our life there. Away from all the constant drama of a city life on earth. But how is that possible? Our presumptions are that, it was present in the previous universe, before ours, before the big bang, all those billions of years ago. Is it even possible to travel back in time to such a remote past? And if so, what would the consequences be? There couldn't be two of us, things might get dangerous that way. And if we changed things too much and our theory is correct, then who knows what might happen!
My train of thought broke unceremoniously by my friend's phone call. I quickly picked it up from the desk and answered it. Alok informed me of some unavoidable delay brought about by her family, her mother presumably, and she was trying to return as soon as possible.
"Don't hurry and get here at your own pace, I don't want you to have any accidents." I told her and ended the call.
Who would have known that was the last time I would ever talk with her here again?
Omniscient's POV:
"No, actually mom I'm tired of your constant dramas. If you were indeed ready to suicide or die you would not have threatened that to me and dad all your life. All of us know that's your elaborate drama which we are tired of! STOP victimizing yourself for no apparent all throughout your life! You have destroyed my life enough by now. Know that you don't control me; I'm controlled only by me, I and myself. So, stop it okay? It's useless to talk with you, just don't contact me anymore and let me stay wherever the heck I am in peace. Give me peace at least for the rest of my life, will you?!"
The raven-haired girl was close to tears of anger, fuming under her breath while she talked with her parents in her native tongue.
She increased her pace on the busy sidewalk out of extreme rage and stress, and she felt a migraine surging through her brain as tears welled up in her eyes. She mentally appreciated herself for keeping her cool even in that condition. She grabbed her earbuds from her ears and turned her phone off after calling her roommate, telling her of the unavoidable delay and put her phone back in her pocket as she went across the road to catch a bus back to their shared apartment, a short few kilometers away from her university.
It was only eight in the evening and excited screams of glee could already be heard from the adjacent clubs, as blaring music filled the busy city atmosphere outside. Alok adjusted her glasses and with a final lookout, started to cross the road along with a few other pedestrians, using the pedestrian crossing that was clearly marked in front of her.
The road was mostly empty with a few cars passing by, which were stopping as soon as they noticed them crossing the road. Alok was rubbing her temples, and chewing on her bubble gum subconsciously. When suddenly she saw a car approaching at great speed. The sergeant who was controlling the signals, started to indicate the car to stop but it didn't and before Alok knew. She saw the bright headlights fall on her face and she came to that cruel realization. Her time was up. She tightened her body and shielded her face within that fraction of seconds, squinting her eyes shut, before she felt a dull and powerful hit on her stomach which sent her flying into the air, and the next thing she knew was the frenzied screams and yells of people when she landed with a dull thud on the hard ground.
Finally when she managed to open her eyes a bit, with almost all her strength. She saw the road, red with a pool of her own dark-red blood on which she lied. Her head tilted sideways on the lap of the sergeant while the others held the driver hostage, and many others trying to assure her of her well-being. Her body from her neck and below was bloodied and mutilated, her limbs were numb, her ribs broken and the taste of the sharp tangy taste of iron was in her mouth. She could ascertain her damage vaguely with her rapidly shutting down brain. She was beyond medical help now and she knew that. She knew her time was up. The damage to her body was beyond repair.
She looked up at the sergeant for the last time, who was praying for her as a few others managed to get the driver out of the way and spoke in a voice, close to a whisper now;
"Sir, don't let them escape after what they did to me. Let them face the justice."
The sergeant brought his face down to her and tried to assure her;
"Don't worry, help will arrive soon. You will live, you'll be fine, don't panic young lady."
She could only manage a dry smile, "Sir, I'm a doctor."
She indicated towards the bag beside her, "I have a few things there, please give them to my roommate. The phone is in the pocket of my jeans."
The next moment she knew her head felt strangely empty, and sleepy. The last words she heard were people frantically trying to tell her she would be fine and urging her not to close her eyes, but she knew better.
The last image on her mind were of childhood memories back in India, when she roamed around their orchards freely in the arms of her father and grandfather. How she spent the afternoons reading in the quaint library back in her home, and a few other memories before eternal sleep overtook her senses, a darkness engulfing her vision. Numbing her senses, and finally she was at peace, away from all sorts of sorrow, anger, resentment, and despair in a land of eternal happiness.
Amy's POV:
I was sorting through the papers my professors had given me to work on, when I noticed something fell from one of them. I became curious and as I leaned down to pick it up, I noticed something about that yellowed paper, it looked to be about fifty years old, as I could infer from its yellowed pages and slightly tattered appearance.
I straightened it over my smooth desk and saw that it's actually a map.
My phone vibrated beside me again. I grumbled under my breath, must be one of the many annoying classmates of mine (mortals and Midgardians according to Aloe), and concentrated on the map.
After a few moments I realized something which almost sent me falling off my chair in excitement. This is a map of middle-earth. Almost as old as first the books themselves!
I forgot my surroundings in excitement as I tried to inspect the map carefully. It was way more detailed than all the maps of Middle-earth I had ever seen. The scale was also smaller. And it specifically concentrated more on the elvendoms. And there were the lands of Beleriand, Doriath, Numenor, crossing of Helcaraxë, and even the crescent shaped island continent of Valinor too, in the far east. All drawn with extreme accuracy. Alok will be overjoyed when she gets back.
I was inspecting the map when I noticed something incredibly wrong. Imladris— the last Homely House east of the Sea was shown, with the city drawn too, and the forests surrounding it. But it was all wrong. Rivendell was established ages after Valinor was removed from that world and thousands of years after all of Beleriand sank. You can't simply add Rivendell on a map with Beleriand! It just doesn't work!
Ever since Alok and I used to role-play all the time about us originating from Imladris; both of us being highly interested about elves and their lives, so much so that I had taken pains to learn Quenya and Sindarin, while she had learned Sindarin with great depth in our teens. While scanning over the map, my fingers almost unconsciously moved over to Imladris, and ran my fingers over it. Trying to figure it out.
It must have been made by some amateur who knew next to nothing.
My thoughts were interrupted by a swooshing sound in my room and I felt my hair blowing in the strong wind, almost like I was standing inside a vortex. And before I knew it, I was flying at the great force of the wind around the room, and suddenly I felt darkness engulf me as a strange sleepiness took over my senses. I fell into a strange sleep like stupor.