CHAPTER 9. A HARD SEPARATION.

12:00

As Zatanna read the note he had left for them, he was already close to the path he had to travel uphill to get to the place he wanted to go, the only place he remembered that wasn't destroyed by Comet Petropoulos. He was not alone, he was, again, in the passenger seat of Mr. Jay's car, who again agreed to take him.

All the way, he did not take his eyes off the road ahead. He was more than sure that this was the only place where he could get an answer, or see for the last time that girl he wanted to see so much. Unfortunately, the weather was not in his favor that day. Although the morning was perfectly sunny and clear, an hour before arriving at the place where Jay would have to leave him, the sky completely clouded over, and it was clear that it was going to rain. However, shortly after the sky clouded over, Jay stopped, opened the glove compartment of her car, took out a plastic container, and handed it to the boy he was taking up that mountain.

"I brought you this to eat, boy" Jay told him.

The boy opened the container, and saw that it was a breaded chicken breast with lettuce and rice on the side. He was so surprised by this that he turned to look at the man who was being very kind. He wondered why he had done it.

"That drawing you did of the town of Little Volos is very good work" Jay told him with a kind smile.

He ate without problem, silently thanking this man for having made him this food, since, being so focused on finding that girl, he had not even noticed that he had not eaten anything since the afternoon of the previous day.

Half an hour after finishing the food that Jay had brought him, the two reached the part where he had to go on foot, he had to go up the whole mountain as he remembered doing less than a month ago to get to that top, so he got out of the car and thanked Jay for driving him there and for the food.

He was walking for half an hour until drops began to fall, but in a matter of sixty seconds, the storm fell, so he had to speed up his pace. At least he had his jacket on, because most likely he would have frozen to death if he had followed that great path with only his shirt. He had to take a break, hiding in an opening between two rocks, tracing his course on the map he still had with his flashlight to see well, which he brought in the backpack that he had also brought with him. When the storm seemed to calm down, he put everything back in his backpack and was ready to leave, but not before glancing at the braided thread still on his wrist, reminding him that he had to keep going to the top.

"They converge and take shape. They tangle and twist. Sometimes they unravel and break, and come back together. That's a union, that's time" That was what he kept repeating from time to time as he kept going up with the storm, seeming to want to drag him down the slope.

He kept walking for less than two hours until he finally managed to reach the top of the mountain. Just as he remembered having seen that day, there were the two trees next to that big rock, surrounded by grass and the different rivers that served as a barrier or protection for the round center of that mountain.

"There it is" He said, tired, but surprised at the same time. "It wasn't a dream" He said again out loud. It was a comfort to know that it was never a hallucination, after the time he thought that while doing his research.

He very carefully went down the somewhat long descent that he had to travel. It was wet, so one misstep will make him fall, and he would most likely end up wetter than he already were. When he reached the bottom of the center of the mountain, he walked just as slowly, but not because he was in a hurry to get there, but because he was already tired after that big climb and the storm was already very light. He stopped for a moment before crossing the circular river around those trees.

"Forward, there is the afterlife, it is the underworld" He said to himself, remembering once more the words spoken by the blonde woman. He had also said this to gain strength, since now, either he would have to swim, or his body would be submerged enough, since, with the rain, the water had risen, so there was no rock on which he could jump and the river was long.

He had to quickly get his feet and shins into the water, but by the time he got halfway down, he was hip-deep. He was walking for about ten minutes, not wanting to fall and drown by pure accident. When he reached the opening in the rocks, he saw that part of the water had entered, but the altar on which the two bottles were, one that he had placed, and another that that nice girl had placed, were still there, totally immovable.

He walked over and turned on his flashlight to get a better look, then set his backpack aside.

"This is the fermented alcohol we brought" He said to himself as he shined his flashlight on the bottles. "This is the sister's" He said pointing the light at the small bottle. "This is mine" He said pointing the flashlight at the large bottle. He put the flashlight aside, but making sure it kept shining on him and picked up the bottle he had placed not long ago, in his memory. "This was before the comet. So every time she and I switched bodies, she would travel three years into the future and I would travel three years into the past. Our times were tangled somehow" He said this last while brushing off some of the moss that had stuck to his bottle.

He began to remove the thread that served to seal the ceramic bottle.

"This is the half of her" He said as he removed the cap, and then had to remove a cork, which luckily he didn't need a bottle opener for. Seeing that the alcohol was still in the bottle, he sat down with his legs in a circle and poured himself a small portion of that drink in the ceramic lid. He picked up his flashlight again and shined it on that small portion, hoping this was what would help him see that girl. "If it's true that time can unravel, then give me a chance" He said to himself before pouring that small amount of alcohol into his mouth.

He was waiting a whole minute for something to happen, being the longest minute of his life, but when nothing happened, he heaved an angry sigh and started to get up, but he tripped over his own foot and fell to the ground, but before he could touching the ground, he saw something shiny on the altar ceiling.

"A comet!" He screamed seeing that it was a comet that was divided into two parts, with two tails joined at one point, but the two rocks separated by a long distance. When he hit the ground, the two tails of space comets turned into a thin line, then turned into a very long red braided thread, like the one on the bracelet he was still wearing. The thread was going through water that had suddenly formed, water he fell into, but he wasn't drowning.

He seemed to be floating without a bottom to stop him, but, what he saw made him focus on that, and not on possibly floating forever. From the red thread, the tail of a comet was formed again, which was followed by a few more of the same color. That comet fell in a place where there was land, not water, but from what he could see, it seemed like it was just a droplet that had fallen into a pond, and as hard as it was to believe, that droplet seemed to cause an explosion of water, almost like a tsunami in a small lagoon.

From those drops, a bubble with a pink center came out, which was accompanied by other bubbles just like the first. Those bubbles were accompanied by the sound of a baby crying, and instantly, the image of the bubbles was replaced by a baby, possibly a newborn with black hair who was touching the hand of a woman with blonde hair, but with finer features than the other blonde he knew.

"Your name is going to be...Diana" The blonde woman said, looking fixedly, but very affectionately at the baby.

The image of that blonde woman with that baby was replaced in a second with that of the umbilical cord being quickly cut, which scared him a little, he thought that it would end up killing him or sinking him to the bottom forever.

Fortunately, it was not like that, and he saw the following image, which was the same blond woman, accompanied by the mayor Princeton, and by a girl presumably around 8 years old, together in their white and gold clothes, smiling, happy to life and holding hands. It was seen that they were very close. Then that image changed to those three people having fun in the open air, still holding hands.

"You are my two treasures" A man's voice said while those images passed.

Later, that image of happiness and togetherness changed to a much happier one. In this one, the blonde woman was sitting in a one-person chair, with Mayor Princeton behind her, his arms wrapped protectively around her neck, and the slightly older girl, embracing the huge belly of the blonde woman, not with a loving face, but a very attentive one.

"You're going to be an older sister" The blonde woman said while he was looking at that image.

The next images he witnessed were unexpected. There were very happy drawings, but the most colorful was one drawn in purple and with three faces drawn very simply, very surely of the younger sister, of the girl she wanted to see, and of the blonde woman, who said "Get well soon, Mom". And next to it was a vase with a white flower.

"I'm so sorry, my suns and stars" Said a female voice, in the next image, which showed her lying in a hospital bed, with sunlight illuminating her fine face, but with Mayor Princeton and their two daughters near her. He was with the expression of frustration and sadness, while the two daughters looked at her with some surprise, but there was not much sadness on their faces at that moment.

After that image, He saw a hand, holding a box with a white wrapper, and from that hand could be seen a silver engagement ring.

"Daddy, when is mommy coming home?" The voice of a little girl asked.

After that question, he could see a small wake, everyone wearing white clothes with the occasional gold trim, held on a sunny day that quickly turned cloudy.

The image that he now saw was one where Mayor Princeton was sitting, with his elbow resting on his knee, and with his head resting on his hand, with the expression of sadness that he did not have at the wake. Behind him, was the girl he wanted to see, accompanied by her younger sister, both of them looking sad and uncertain to see their father in that way.

"I couldn't save her" Said the voice of Mayor Princeton.

"You have to recover" Said the voice of someone who was familiar to him. He could see that it was true when the image changed to Aunt Antiope and Mayor Princeton arguing in the living room of the house, with the mayor's daughter watching and listening from the stairs, but not seen.

"I don't care about your family or their customs!" Shouted Mayor Princeton.

"You are the father of my nieces!" Aunt Antiope yelled now, reminding him of his role with the family he had accepted when he had daughters with that blonde woman.

"Hippolyta was the one I loved, not the Galanis!" Mayor Princeton yelled again.

"Get out!" Ordered Aunt Antiope, also shouting.

When she heard that last word from her aunt, the girl she had come to see sat down on the stairs and buried her face in her forearms. She had suffered a hard separation, and then another, and she even had to see him leave too, walking away from them, on a sunny day passing through a tree, accompanied by her little sister, this because it was the next image he saw.

The next image he saw was of Aunt Antiope, sitting in her living room with her two nieces, on another sunny day.

"Diana, Donna, from now on you will live with Aunt Antiope" Antiope said, since Mayor Princeton was nowhere to be seen.

Something strange about that passage that he saw was that the girl he wanted to see had the red thread tied to her wrist, and just like him, it was a very long one, and it even went through the roof, as if it wasn't there, but he could see it, it was attached to the thread he had.

This made him sigh, her family was in a bad situation that he never expected, because he was never interested in doing that, and he was fed up with being made fun of when he was in her body, similar to how everyone else they tried to provoke him because of his status.

But, the images hadn't finished, now he was looking at the note that he had written her the first day he had been in her body. The one that said: Who are you?

"Who I am? Who are you?" She asked. He recognized her by her voice. "How conceited you are. You don't even have a girlfriend" She kept saying. As he listened to this, he could see her, her hair in a typical braid and wearing her school uniform while writing the messages on her cheeks or on her hands when they swapped bodies. "It will be nice. They should already be together" She said now. When those two sentences were said, he was watching her, alone in her bedroom, and then fixing her braid before going to school when she realized she was crying. "Why am I…? Why?" She asked to herself, while still totally surprised to see that she was actually crying.

"I'm going to Gotham" She said, but the image now showed her outside her house accompanied by Donna, where she could see the town completely safe, before the Petropoulos comet crashed.

"What? Diana!" Donna said.

The images disappeared for a few moments and now he saw her back in her house, with Aunt Antiope, already at night, and judging by her face, her mood was broken.

"Aunt Antiope, would you do me a favor?" She asked.

Then, he only saw that her hair was being cut.

"Ah, yes, the comet" She was saying now, with the day already being in the sunset. Then he saw her dressing in her blue pants and her blue long-sleeved blouse. "Today it will be brighter than ever, right?" She asked.

"Diana, don't go there!" He told her, thinking he could intervene in some way to save her. "Diana, you have to get out of town before the comet impacts!" He tried to help once more, to no avail.

Instantly, he could see that girl, standing still in fear of what she was witnessing at that moment. She was there, watching how several fragments of the comet had become meteors and had fallen in other areas near the town. Then, she could see that the Petropoulos comet was above her, looking like a big giant rock, and that it was being moved by a giant boy that no one could see, with every intention of crushing her along with the unfortunate people.

"Diana, run!" He yelled again, trying to help. "Diana! Diana! DIANA!" He yelled again, but it was no use.

The last thing he could see was that girl's face, her eyes wide open, stunned to see the comet before it fell.

After that, everything went dark.