Chapter 24
“This way,” Father urges me, opening a trap-door I had not noticed till this moment.
I let myself slip inside. When my Father closes the door darkness is almost complete and yet, somewhere at a distance, I perceive a presence and a flickering flame.
For an instant I hold my breath, stiffening against the rough walls of the tunnel. Should I trust this presence?
“Iris?” I hear.
I attempt to find a link between the sound of this voice and a familiar face.
“Iris?” the voice calls out again, and I realize that who is calling out my name is Matt, one of the two volunteers.
“Matt, what are you doing here?” I ask surprised.
I wonder how we all ended up in the same point in time and space. Isn’t the machine supposed to move people along different domains of time and space?
Matt seems to sense my unspoken question, because he tells me, “Our stories are intertwined, that’s why we’re meeting here.”
“Are you alone?” I want to know.
“Wilhelm is with me,” he replies.
The flame flickers with increased intensity as Matt and Wilhelm approach me.
“But…but did you know this?” I mumble.
“This? You mean the fact that our spatial and temporal domains have common regions?” Wilhelm asks, speaking for the first time.
“Yes,” I reply.
“I didn’t know for sure, but I suspected it,” he tells me.
“Why?” I inquire.
“Because you picked us to do this journey. Deep down you were the one who knew,” he observes.
I try to ponder his words, but too much has been happening for me to think straight.
“So where do we go from here?” I wonder out loud, not really expecting an answer.
“Follow us, the journey is about to begin,” they tell me.