Chapter 18

The Request

Part 3A

I guess my wish came true this time because one of the new skills that I had been given or gifted was what I was in need of and was looking for at the moment since my desire was to listen and understand what they were talking about. Although the distance was not that far, they were talking in such a low voice that I couldn't hear them unless I was standing beside them, and I was not, but the only thing was how to activate the skill. Without thinking or knowing if it was within the description of the skills or not, because I didn't want to go once more and read the whole thing one more time, afraid that I may miss all the conversation between the two men, more than what I already missed, I just said the skill name, "Hayber Hearing "Then instantly, I shifted my gaze and attention to them.

The conversation was going on. I couldn't tell what they said to each other before, but I was hearing everything clearly, like I was standing next to them. My guard was talking now, and he was saying, "That is what happened so far, and I don't have any explanation of how it did happen." The middle-aged man was listening to him while shaking his head as an acknowledgement. "That is really strange, but everything can be explained if there is the appropriate time and clues." Then he stopped wondering and looked at me, which startled me because I was not expecting that.

They both looked at me for a few seconds while I was looking back at them while pretending that I was looking at both of them at the same time. The old man continued talking after that brief pause. “I believe I have an idea of what's going on, but I can't say for certain unless I go back to my library. No, I need to go back to my wife and kids. What do you know about this young boy, the newcomer? Is he also from another world?” At that time, all three of us looked, at the same time, at the young boy who was still standing behind me. The boy shrunk for a second, form our gaze towards him, but didn’t move from his place. “I have no idea, but I don’t think so” answered my guard. The middle-aged man looked at him and said, while his expression was changing, "Go and bring them both, we need to hurry; we will figure out everything as soon as I find my family safe”.

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Somewhere in a large rectangular room as large as a basketball stadium, there was a huge screen covering an entire wall from top to bottom. In the middle of it, there was a timer like a countdown or a timer with six digits suppurated by a dot 00.00.01; it was stuck with those digits now for almost seven days. Suddenly the last digit went up instead of going down like a normal countdown, and it became 00.00.02 with a clicking sound. Everyone in

the room stopped whatever they were doing and looked at the screen. No one said anything, and no one moved a single muscle. All eyes were looking at the screen, waiting and anticipating what was going to happen next.

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"It took a couple of weeks to move only one digit," someone whispered to the man beside him while still keeping his eyes locked on the timer that was covering almost all of the wall. The whole area was quiet; there was not even a single sound. Everyone's eyes were glued to the timer; they thought it was a countdown timer, but it went up instead of going down. No one knows what's going on, but everyone has an idea of what's going to happen when the timer starts.

Which means it began and will end at the same time as the beginning of calamity and the end of life as they know it, and all they can do is monitor the timer and nothing else. Why would they just monitor it if they can't do anything? That was a question they asked themselves a lot of times during the last couple of weeks, but no one gave them any answers.

At that moment everyone heard the click of the timer once more and it changed once more 00.00.03 no one took note of how long it took to increase once more by one digit but it was not more than one minute for sure, and the second click was the wake call for everybody and the whole are stared buzzing with voice everyone started talking at the same time, everyone saying whatever was in his or her mind, some were talking to themselves, some was talking to the one beside in front or behind them "Quiet...Quiet...Everyone Quiet" Everyone heard the loud voice and quieted down almost instantly, looking at the source of the voice, the man was yelling loudly while he was raising his hands and when he saw the everyone's silent and looking at him he with same tone said whiteout turning his voice down.

"It's time to start working and do our job. As you can see, it started, and we are running against time. Here, we don't know how much we have or how long it will take exactly to end, but now that we know that everything we have worked for all that time until now is about to happen and come true, can we prevent it? Can we stop it? The answer is no, but we can do our best and hope for the rest to come. But as it has been predicted, there is no reason for us to despair; we have to trust ourselves that we can do it. Now everyone, go back to work, stop talking about something you can't do anything about, and start working on the things that you can do something about right now, right here."

Without another word, everyone started moving and kept on doing whatever he or she was doing before the timer started.

In a secluded space not visible to anybody, at the same time they can see everything going around them in a 360-degree radius. More than ten men and women were sitting, each of them looking straight to the screen showing in the big hall, and the hundreds of people walking around the area had in front of each of them a small device projecting in front of him or her some data, video feeds, pictures, and a lot of different things; none of them was looking at the same thing or doing the same thing. There was only one old woman sitting separately from the rest of them, with the same device in front of her, but the difference was that she was talking to someone on a conference call. Though they were talking, no one was able to hear their conversation but themselves, even if they were standing beside her.Not just hear, even though no one else was able to see the man talking to her through the screen.

The woman apparently was listening to a report from the man talking to her while she was shaking her head as an acknowledgment. Then she asked, "How long will it take for the second phase to end?” The man answered, “The schedule for it is to take no more than two weeks." “How long do we have overall?” “Maximum twelfth weeks; it could be less or more by a week,” fear started to appear on the old woman's face for the first time. “We don’t have much time. Can you expedite the process much more?” “We already did the most we could do; we can't do anything more than that. I believe we can succeed this time." “I hope you are right”.