"Listen, time is running out!" the stranger said.
He had simply ignored her questions. But there was something else in his voice.
A note of urgency.
"You need to activate that medallion before it is too late! The fate of all the planets depends on that activation!" he spoke quickly.
Noel looked at him, confused.
"Activate the medallion? I thought when it shone brightly ...," Noel began but she was cut short almost immediately.
"That was simply using it to open the gates to signal the beginning of the end of the old one's reign and you then need to activate it to initiate a whole new reign, my princess! This must be hastily done before the Dark Lord arises!" he said almost frantically.
Although she still wanted to ask who the Old one was and where did he reign from or who the Dark Lord was, she sensed the urgency in his voice and asked what seemed the most relevant of all questions.
"But how do I activate it?"
"Find him!" he simply said.
"Who? Who am I to find?" she was perplexed.
The man looked at him as if she was a piece of trash. He stood up and knocked the chair over.
"Shhhh! My father would hear us!" she said and only stopped short of adding that she had never thought of bringing a man in her room, let alone coming in the middle of the night! The man assured her that nobody would hear them. He sounded so sure that Noel was dumbfounded. All along she had been holding her breath lest Ben would come over to check on her with all the commotion.
"Listen! You need to activate that medallion as soon as possible. Remember, don't fail us! Don't fail your kingdom and your King!"
"King? Who is my King! What kingdom!"
"Oh you fool! Sit here and I will explain everything to you!"
So the two sat side by side on the bed and the man started explaining everything to Noel. Although he spoke at a brisk speed she soon began to understand everything. She was shocked to learn that Rose and Ben were not her biological parents but that they still count as her parents because they were specially chosen to raise her.
Her parents were ancient royal from a time beyond who upon giving birth to her agreed to send her into the future for 'such a time as this!'
"A seer had foretold your parents that they would only get one child in their lifetime! But this child would be instrumental in saving the entire universe! The universe would reach a time when a powerful Dark Lord would arise and use both humans and creatures for his own selfish desires!
Such time has come!
The child would be the only heartbeat in the body of the one destined to save all the universe."
"As you know without the heart the body is dead, so without the child the destined ruler would not suffice!
"Because of the nature of the mission of this child the Dark Lord would spent his lifetime searching to kill this child. That is why the child was sent into the future - the time beyond- where the Dark Lord was barred from visiting!
"You my princess are that child and you have to find the one whom you are destined to be with for this mission!
"You have to help the eventual celestial ruler to rise!"
There was great silence when the man ended his explanations.
Noel took into her heart all that she was being told. The burden of her mission all over being so clear before her very eyes. She understood where she was and her role in this great mystery.
"Where am I to find this King? And how would I know it is him?" she asked at last.
"The one you should find is not a King, at least not now, but he is in your school, same class as you!
"Find him at once or else all of us will perish including your father the King!"
"Wait! Is my father still the king?" she asked and the man nodded.
A moment of silence passed then she asked again.
"How long have I been gone from...from our kingdom?" she could now tell that she actually belonged there.
"40 years, at least in our time!" he answered automatically.
Noel laughed, "I have just turned twenty years, how could I be twice my age?"
"You will get more understanding on this and all the answers to the questions you have once you activate the medallion!
"But be warned, this visit must be kept a secret and do not share it with anyone. I will come back soon when you have found him and guide the two of you into the path of unity," he instructed.
"When will you return?" she asked him.
"In the future! Any time. It could even be tomorrow night!"
She laughed. The man had a sense of humour.
"Is tomorrow the future you say?" she lightly scoffed.
"It depends with where you are!" The guest said before vanishing the same way he had come- through that mysterious box in her room. All the light on the box suddenly disappeared.
"What!" Noel was startled. The chain appeared suddenly around her neck. It had come from within her body!
"How is this possible?" she wondered. She closed her eyes and placed a hand on the chain. Then she silently mumbled a command.
"Get in!"
The chain disappeared again. She opened her eyes in utter disbelief. Without closing her eyes she just willed that the chain would resurface.
The chain appeared again!
**************
Grandpa!"
Frank shouted as he came to wake up his old grandfather. The old man was lying on his bed and looking tired. He merely turned his head to gaze at the panting grandson.
"Grandpa! The box!" he blurted out, gasping as he spoke. His heart was hammering loudly in his chest! When the old man heard about the box he sat up slowly. But he didn't say a word and continued looking at his grandson, Frank.
"The box! It glowed! It burst into great dazzling lights in the room just by its own. It was so, so incredible you could just see It!" Frank was over the moon as he explained.
He had in his room a brown suitcase like box with two strips of golden colour running around it. There were words imprinted in the two strips in dark red ink. But the language was not familiar to him. He had been given that box by his grandfather, the only relative he knew in his entire 22 years of life.
The old man had told him whenever he asked about his father and mother that he would come to know the day that box will lit up! Frank had wondered how will that absurd occurrence appear but had kept the box nevertheless. His old man was after all a strange man. He would sometimes hold the walls and mumble some incomprehensible things. At other times he would say something which had not occurred and it would happen later on that day exactly as he had said.
Now he had told Frank that one day the box would glow and he would know his role in the world. Finally it had happened.
"It is about time, my grandson!" he said and repeated.
"It is about time!"