Amidst the crowd stood the Oracle Yasmin on a podium, receiving applause and cheers. But then suddenly, she seemed troubled, but despite every fiber of her body and her expression revealing that something was not right, the crowd continued to cheer. The crowd had heard what they wanted to hear and everything else will sort itself out. No one was really paying attention to her condition, except for Quincy, the temple guardians who were close to her for her protection and a few others.
"YASMIN!" Quincy called out to the Oracle. "YASMIN! Do you know who I am?"
"No," a stranger called out from the crowd. A woman's voice, but not the Oracle's.
"Are you bothering my wife?" a second voice chimed in, this time male, and with the proud tone of a rooster defending his hens.
"YASMIN!" Quincy called out again to the Oracle. This time louder. "YASMIN! We need to talk! PLEASE!"
"I'm scared, honey bear," whimpered the same female voice from before, and as if it were planned, she started to cry, and the voices and cheers of the crowd subsided.
"WAIT A MINUTE, BUDDY!" the "rooster" fumed. "YOU'RE MAKING MY WIFE CRY? I'LL SHOW YOU WHAT HAPPENS TO PEOPLE LIKE YOU!"
From the crowd stepped out a muscular man who walked determinedly towards Quincy, who was still calling Yasmin's name.
The man whose wife was crying clenched his teeth tightly and came as fast as his legs could carry him, stomping closer to Quincy to teach him a lesson. He then turned back when he noticed that Quincy was a little bit (about three heads) taller and also wider-built than he was.
"YASMIN!"
Finally, the Oracle paid attention. She threw Quincy a bewildered look, opened her mouth to say something, but then changed her mind and only briefly raised her left hand. Then the guardians escorted her away.
Just as he was about to follow the guardians, a voice hissed next to him: "Shh. I wouldn't do that if I were you. I told you before that it's just superstitious nonsense."
It was the old man from before his vision who first told him that the Oracle was there.
"What?" Quincy exclaimed in surprise. Followed by the old man's response: "You're not the first time here, it seems."
He scratched his beard.
"Because just now you had never seen the oracle before and now you know her name, even though no one ever said it, or was that a lie?"
This was followed by an intense, critical look with a raised eyebrow.
Quincy did not like this at all, he felt trapped by it, because could he say that he was actually in this TIME before? Would the old man believe him? But wait... where did the old man know the oracle from?
"But..." Quincy began, showing obvious distrust in the tone he gave the old man. "...how can it be that you know the name of the oracle? And where do you know that I mean the oracle?"
A deep laughter echoed in his ears. "Oh? You mean the oracle's name is Yasmin? I didn't know that." The man's tone suddenly became serious. "I can only tell you one thing: the oracle is not named Yasmin, this is the oracle Wendeline."
"No, I'm sure she's named Yasmin. I spoke to her." Quincy insisted.
"Oh, and when was that supposed to be? You didn't even know the oracle?"
He had nothing to say about that.
The old man continued speaking: "But the fact that you are so sure that she is Yasmin is in itself a thing. Because my dear friend, may she rest in peace, was an oracle and she was named Yasmin. But she died at the hands of villains!"
The old man practically roared the last sentence and his eyes filled with tears of anger.
Quincy took a few steps back.
"I remember you! You've been staring into space all this time, as if you wouldn't be aware of the world! And Yasmin had probably tried to manipulate time with her last strength. But you come here at the time and look just as you always did and I..."
The anger in the speaker's voice gradually turned into a sob.
"I found myself as the young man I was in the past. Yasmin and I loved each other..."
Now he couldn't help but ask the old man: "What is your name, if I may ask?"
"I am Adán."
"Adán? You and Yasmin took care of me for 5 weeks after she spoke the prophecy... How can it be that Yasmin is not the oracle of now? Am I in the fu..."
"My theory is," the old man interrupted. "That Yasmin's play with time caused her existence to be erased from the flow of time. But that's just a theory, because I can't explain otherwise why she is not here, but instead the other oracle is there and why the oracle there looks like Yasmin."
Tears flowed down the man's face.
"Can you imagine what it's like to wait for decades to see someone again only to find out that they never existed, but they should have?"
No, this wasn't something that Quincy ever had to experience.