HE READ MY MIND.
It occupied all of Ram's attention as he tried to calm his racing mind. But no matter how much he tired, he couldn't calm down.
Em reading his mind was something. She was an A.I. assistant, can record the events that had happened in his life and practically lives inside his mind. But someone else, a living being that existed in reality, in the real world, could read his mind?
If that were the case, then how could Ram ever think about anything? How could he ever keep secrets?
If he were to be able to read Ram's mind, then all he had to do was fill his mind with useless thoughts, in order to confuse him.
Ram was so panicked that he couldn't think of what useless thing to think about. After god knows how much time passed, he calmed down.
There was no way that he was able to read his mind.
It might be that they had myths or legends about the Harbinger of Doom and since The Previous Elder of Time's memories were transferred to Ram (that were locked for him for now), Ram was sure that name Harbinger of Doom was unlocked after Chandra, his fairy assistant, Sandhya and Em discussed about how his arrival had made matters worse for The Institute, in front of him.
Once Ram repeated this information to himself enough, he calmed down.
Ram realized that he was back in the cylindrical cell with bars all around it, and he was also able to see the person who claimed him to be the Harbinger of Doom.
He was an old elder, the one with the scar around his left eye.
Was he the nemesis of the previous Elder of Time?
Ram tried to remember the memory of the previous Elder of Time that he had accidentally unlocked after he met with Sandhya as she was consoled by Em, where the previous Elder of time was about to fall unconscious, his nemesis had removed the mask that he usually covered himself with.
It was still blurry.
Even though Ram knew he shouldn't act like the way he was about to do, he still decided to do it. He was on guard. He was going to treat everyone with a scar on their face as his nemesis.
Since he was now the current Elder of time, the responsibilities as well as grudges of the previous one would also have to be carried by him.
Steeling his mind, he glared at the person with scar on his face.
"Oh! I am so scared," the Scar Faced Elder said sarcastically. "Don't worry your secret is safe with me. No matter what anyone says to me, I will not reveal it till you are ready to do it by yourself."
Ram gulped. What secret was he talking about?
'Be wary of him'. Em said inside his head.
Ram sighed. She had been silent for so long that he thought she had been taken away from him or she had left him. Now that he could hear his voice, he was somehow relaxed. 'Em, how are you? Where have you gone? Are you afraid of me?' Ram asked.
Em was silent for a moment. 'I am scared of what your arrival meant. But that doesn't mean that I could do like the way I had done to you. After all, I am your assistant. Sorry for what had happened. Sorry for giving my recordings of you using your powers. Chandra's assistant asked me to do it. And I had been scared at that time. If only I had been vigilant, you wouldn't have been here.' Em said.
Ram sighed. Em was by his side. That was what mattered now.
'Do you know who he was?' Ram asked.
'Yes. It's a she, not he. She was the true Elder of Light, placing a proxy Elder at Faction of Hope to fool others. She had made herself look like an old man and went into the Faction of Realists.'
'That means he… she is an ally for Faction of Hope right?' Ram asked.
'No. she works for herself. She had way too many secrets for herself. Even the old man had been wary of her. It's best if you do the same. But for the time being, let's watch what she does.' Em said.
Ram agreed. But when he saw the Elder of Light smirk, he gritted his teeth. He glared at her, observed all about her to see if there is anything that Ram could use to counter her. He could see faint lines of white spars emitting all around the Elder of Light. Ram smirked. "Don't worry your secret is safe with me. No matter what anyone says to me, I will not reveal it till you are ready to do it by yourself," he said.
Elder of Light's scowled. "What secret do you know about me?" she asked.
"Do you want me to reveal it to all that is present here now?" he asked.
Elder of Light hesitated. "Fine. Let's meet alone after this meeting was over so that we could see what secret we knew about ourselves," she said. Then she turned to the seating area, and stared at the places where the Elders obscured amongst themselves.
"Since you respect your privacy, I am not going to reveal who you really are, my dear elders. But I am here to claim that the person here before us was a Harbinger of Doom. I am sent here by the Faction of Realists to delay your judgement until all the current elders meet and decide to pass a judgement on him. Of course, we will offer proofs to our claims that he is dangerous, that he is really the Harbinger of Doom. Till then, we have to keep him under observation at every moment," she said.
The elders that were obscured scoffed. "You have already arranged a meeting with him after this session. Did you also want us to monitor your meeting where you are going to reveal your secrets to each other?" the Powerful Female Elder asked.
"Of course not. That was private matter between us. After our meeting is over, I will hand him over to you so that you could monitor him closely. Meanwhile, we will prepare evidence for our claims," she said.
They went back and forth, it was so boring that Ram tuned them out.
Finally, when it was over, the Elder of Air said. "Fine. If that's the case, you could take him for your meeting. But under one condition. We place a device of ours inside of him. If he had any funny ideas or if you want to use him for yourselves, he would blow up, his existence erased from this world."