Across Time and Space

PROLOGUE Luna

PROLOGUE

Luna

Time is an audacious thief. It is never timid or gentle with its power.

It can be your friend when you want time to pass; wishing for the painful or embarrassing moments to be brief.

Or it can be your enemy and speed up when you most want it to stretch; pulling the rug from under your feet.

But on this day, I wish for the impossible – for it to be my frenemy.

A soft yet prominent voice calling my name pulls me away from the conversation I was having in the midst of the loud pub.

The voice pierces through the chattering of the crowd beside me.

My brain is playing tricks on me – being tipsy from a few drinks and not yet used to the change in the weather – because there isn’t a chance that I just heard this voice.

Of course, I know whose voice it is; it is the sound that made up my most cherished and painful memories from my twenties.

The voice that, from the first time I heard it, stayed with me.

Even after I never heard it again from proximity, even when I was miles apart, years apart from the origin of the voice.

I go back to the sentence that I had drifted away from.

A few minutes go by and a hand falls on my shoulder, the same voice calling my name again.

This time, my body turns out of its volition.

His touch is seared onto my skin; the memories rush back in full force.

My eyes meet his and roam across his face, landing on his birthmarks and the crescent smile lines, to confirm that it’s him.

Everyone else is muted and blurry and only he is in focus.

My body is shivering; my heartbeat racing and my palms are covered in a layer of sweat.

My legs weaken beneath me, and my entire vision is blurring rapidly – I am going to faint.

I let my body take me with it, and I fall to the ground.

My eyes close automatically, but right before I hit the ground with a thud his arms wrap around my waist and soften my fall.

‘Luna, please wake up.’ Are the last words I hear before my consciousness slips and my thoughts travel back to seven years ago.