The distance from home to school was not that far, only a ten-minute walk. Along the way I organized my mind, so I'm not hearing or seeing too much of the past of people wandering the street, until it sounded only like a very faint and distant television broadcast. I focused on my breathing like I was meditating, and then someone tapped my shoulder and said cheerfully, "Good morning, Puri!"
I turned my head and smiled. A sweet-looking girl with black curls in a shoulder-length ponytail jumped happily next to me, her round eyes shining.
"Good morning, Laras. How are you today?" I replied.
"Great! Oh, you know, today there will be a new student in our class! I heard he transferred from High Hills country!" Laras exclaimed cheerfully.
"Oh yeah? Then he's a foreigner?"
"Not really... I heard that he was born in Sand Sea. It's just that his family sent him abroad when he was young."
"I see," I stared at Laras and could see she was getting all the information she needed by listening to everything she wanted to hear.
Yes, Laras is one of the people I know who has a magical talent like me and my father. Her talent is to hear anything and anyone, without the limit of objects and distance.
It's just that, like me, Laras kept her talent a secret from everyone, fear of people thinking she was crazy. I was able to recognize her talent because of my abilities, but she didn't know I had the gift of seeing the past. Maybe that's not fair--after all, we've been best friends since childhood and we should be open with each other.
But I convinced myself that keeping this secret from everyone was the best way to live peacefully in this day.
However, I was a little surprised to see Laras discover that this new student was a relative of President Dirah Mahalini.
Hmm, why did the President's relative who had lived abroad for so long come back and attend our school? I remembered my father's message to stay away from this new student, and regretted not looking further into his past to dig up the information he had gotten. He must know the reason, and there must be a reason why he told me to stay away from this boy.
Is he a dangerous person? I suddenly felt confused and uneasy. But how could be dangerous?
The new student is the same age as me. And once I see him, I'll be able to find out all about his background and past. Maybe father has his own reasons, but I believe I can definitely handle whatever happens later well.
After all, my father didn't know I had a talent for seeing the past. This talent has protected me very well until now. At the very least, I was able to get away from any problems or troubled people in time.
Perhaps my father said that out of political sentimentality... despite working for the President, I know he doesn't like her much now. They have a complicated and unpleasant past, which I shouldn't know about either. If my father knew I knew about it, he would probably kill me.
My goosebumps instantly bristled, even though the air wasn't cold.
"It's so hot," Laras complained the weather as we set foot on the front lawn of the school. "Want to go to the cafeteria first to buy a cold drink? Class will still start in thirty minutes anyway."
"Yeah, let's go," I said while hiding my feelings.
Laras and I ordered iced orange juice and sat at one of the empty tables in cafeteria. Some students also ordered cold drinks or breakfast before starting class. Laras listened to everything while sipping her juice, seemingly enjoying what she could hear.
Laras had always been very curious, and was happy to be able to get information that not many people could get. I smiled a little when I saw Laras clamp her mouth shut while listening to the confession of the student next door who had just broken up with her boyfriend who was the school idol.
Not wanting to pay too much attention to petty gossip, I took my cell phone out of my bag, and started scrolling through the morning news sites.
There was nothing unusual about this morning's news. The increasing temperature of the Sand Sea country and the entire Bima, the drought, the rationing of water and food, people dying from disease or heat waves, these were all things that were very common in the Long Dry Season since a hundred years ago. Not being involved in a war or not being wiped out is something to be very thankful for in the last few centuries.
"Oh my, Puri! Don't drink that!"
Laras' exclamation startled me. She pointed at my glass of juice, and I was shocked to see a small, dead lizard floating in half of the orange juice.
"Geez, since when did a lizard fall down and die here?" I muttered in shock. "How could I not realize?"
I stared fixedly at the lizard carcass, and saw it fall over and die about five minutes ago. Thankfully, I didn't touch this glass for the last ten minutes, being too focused on reading the news.
"Puri... this is a bad omen," Laras whispered, a worried and frightened look on her face. "Something bad is going to happen. I don't know what it is... but you have to be careful, Puri."
"It's just a superstition, Laras," I said soothingly. "This lizard drowned in my juice because it was meant to. That's all."
"But..."
"Never mind. Let's go to class. Healing Science class starts in ten minutes."
I felt rather excited as I left the cafeteria for my next class, while Laras followed uneasily. The Healing Science class was one of my favorite classes, and the teacher, Doctor Kama Datu, was my favorite teacher.
I first met Doctor Kama many years ago when he came to examine and treat my mother's illness at our residence. I remember him as a tall and young man who wore a white coat, almost matching his pale skin. He was so handsome with his gaunt face, long black straight hair, and sometimes unshaven chin. His eyes always looked warm behind thin glasses and he always smiled at me. Whenever he came, I was always happy and believed he would heal my mother with his miraculous hands. He was like a hero to me.
Even though in the end he didn't succeed in curing my mother's illness, I was always impressed by his readiness to help my mother in critical or emergency situations. He always seemed to be there when people needed him. I looked into his past, and I knew that Doctor Kama had extraordinary magical talents.
He can move and relocate at lightning speed. Because of this, he can always be there in times of emergency and people need help. He has saved countless people, include me and my family. His high dedication by secretly utilizing magical abilities makes me admire and respect him even more.
However, my daydream about Doctor Kama was suddenly interrupted. As I crossed the hallway to the center building, I passed a handsome foreign boy with a tall, well-built body and dark brown curly hair. The wind blew for a moment, and his wet forest-like scent hit me. Unbidden, a flash of events suddenly entered my mind.
The curly-haired boy stood in front of me, in a time and place far away. He's older, his body was covered in deep wounds, his beautiful black eyes looked deeply into mine, and his voice echoed in my ears, feeling very intimate and trembling my heart.
"If I could be born again, even if it's a thousand years away, I promise I would find you, and I would fall in love with you again."
I stopped my steps and turned around. Laras almost bumped into me and screamed in surprise, but I paid no attention to her. My attention was only on the curly-haired boy, who was also frozen in place. His black eyes stared at me wide-eyed, his expression just as shaken as mine.
I saw his past without being able to prevent it. He left for school this morning from President Dirah's residence--so he was the new student. He had just returned to the capital of Sand Sea three days ago. He finished military education in High Hills four years ago. He had even been involved in a battle in a foreign land. He was proficient in sports, martial arts, and shooting. He could fly an airplane--one of his favorite things in life. He sometimes played the guitar and wrote a poem when he was alone at night.
Without reading the name tag on his uniform, I knew that his name was Arya Balawa.
But to my greatest surprise, I saw that he had a talent for reading the minds of others around him. He had lived and sustained himself with that unusual ability for years.
Then I saw a flash of the moment he was born from Dirah Mahalini's womb seventeen years ago in the middle of November...
"PURI, COME ON! WE'RE ALREADY LATE!" Laras screamed and pulled me away.
I was surprised and had no choice but to follow her, but before we turned the corner and Arya disappeared from my sight, I could see flashes of thousands of years ago, when he was fighting on the battlefield, and breathed his last on my lap...
I felt like the world had stopped spinning, and everything was suddenly unfamiliar. I didn't realize I was already sitting in the classroom, not when the handsome Doctor Kama walked in and greeted me. I froze and replayed Arya Balawa's past memories in my mind.
My reverie was broken when Doctor Kama said, "Come in, Arya, and introduce yourself properly to your new friends."
I looked up and Arya's eyes were fixed on me. I was like a frozen ice sculpture as he said flatly, "My name is Arya Balawa. You can call me Arya. It's nice to meet you."
"It's nice to meet you too, Arya," some of the girls exclaimed. Some of the boys scoffed. Doctor Kama told the whole class to calm down and invited Arya to sit in an empty chair in the back corner of the classroom, then asked us all to focus on the material he had prepared on the projector in front of us.
I couldn't listen to Doctor Kama's teachings throughout the class. I continued to freeze, for a moment my mind went blank, for a moment the memory of the piece of Arya's past that I saw in the hallway earlier came rushing back. I couldn't forget his voice, his words about his love for me. Something seemed to writhe and rise in my heart, like emotions and memories that finally resurfaced after being forgotten for so long.
My chest ached. And without realizing it, tears flooded my cheeks.
"Puri? Are you okay? Are you sick?" Doctor Kama was already standing next to me, his hand on my forehead and checking the pulse on my neck.
"Uh... did the orange juice this morning upset your stomach, Puri?" asked Laras nervously. "Doctor... should we take Puri to the school clinic?"
Doctor Kama nodded. "Yes, we should. Please get me a wheelchair."
I don't know what happened. The next thing I knew I was being taken to the school clinic and laid down on one of the treatment beds. Doctor Kama himself examined me. He injected something into my arm, and my consciousness completely faded away.
My eyes slowly opened as the school bell rang three times, signaling the last class of the day was over. I woke up and felt my head was so light. The clinic nurse came over to me and examined me carefully.
"How are you feeling, any better?"
"Uh... what happened to me?" I mumbled in a daze.
"You were shaken up and fainted," the nurse explained. "Did you just get some bad news? Or are you under stress? Doctor Kama has given you a sedative, but if you need counseling, I can schedule you to see a psychiatrist at a nearby hospital this afternoon..."
"No, no... I'll just go home, thank you," I said. "I guess I should get my stuff now..."
I walked unsteadily back to the deserted classroom. As I carried my backpack on my shoulders, I heard footsteps enter the classroom and a familiar voice said, "Are you well?"
Arya Balawa gazed at me sharply. Glimpses of his past flashed back in my mind, but I paid no attention to them. My attention was fully focused on his presence right now, this very second.
My breathing was suddenly labored.
"Are you okay? It looks like you're going to faint again. Should I call a doctor?" Arya approached me, his expression wary.
"No... no need," my throat constricts around the words. "I just want to go home..."
"Then I'll drive you," Arya said in a velvety smooth tone. "Your name is Puri Agung, right? Where is your home?"
"No... I'm going home alone..."
I tried to step quickly away from him, but I tripped over my feet. I almost kissed the floor, but Arya swiftly caught my body.
"Are you okay?"
I was in his arms, his face so close. My heart seemed to stop beating. The past quickly entered my mind, his voice echoing softly in my ears. An overwhelming sadness and longing rose up and ran through my heart, then I couldn't remember anything else.
***