CHAPTER 20

"Cindy?" Lia was flabbergasted and almost fell from the footstool which was still a bit weak. Queen Renoa supported her even more firmly.

"Cindy? Her name is Mysty," Queen Renoa whispered. "Do you know her?"

Silence, Lia was not sure what to say. But she felt that her new assistant was Cindy. "Looks like I got the wrong person, Mother." Because this was not certain, Lia still wanted to cover up her prediction. "I will start working now. So you can go back to rest. Thank you for helping me so far."

"Are you sure?" Queen Renoa watched Lia who flashed the image of Megalack repeatedly as if it was a very real holographic image.

"Yes," Lia nodded. "I am very confident."

Despite the reluctance of Queen Renoa to leave behind a cloud of smoke, amidst the maids who were busy cleaning the place.

Hesitating, Lia approached Mysty, who was currently bowing to her. Mysty's hair was a short bob, just like Cindy's. Even she also had bangs that covered her eyebrows, in the middle of her round face.

"Did I just see wrong?" Lia whispered, observing Mysty more closely. "Mysty?"

"Yes, Queen?"

'Even their voices are sounding the same,' Lia thought, sharpening her eyes on Mysty. Chairs and tables approached as if dragged by a very strong giant magnet, catching Lia's body, which was then gently falling on top of it. "Where do you come from?"

"I'm from the outback North, Queen," Mysty replied, sitting down in her chair to do some work. There were several potions and also a miniature of the territory she was observing, which she was studying.

"What made you apply for a job at Unirex? And what made you welcome here?"

Mysty lifted her head, blinking her small eyes. "I just thought that I should." Then she fell silent as if she was contemplating something. Her hand that was puffing smoke to move the giant iceberg miniature now stopped.

Lia looked up and realized something. "Are you thinking about something? Something you probably haven't told anyone before?"

"I… I was just wondering why you called me Cindy. Yet no one here has ever called me by that name before."

"No one here?" Lia narrowed her eyes. "Then has anyone ever called you by that name before?"

"I am not sure." Mysty was silent, then chose to shake her head. "I guess I was too tired because of some of the work I've been working on recently, so I'm making it up too much." She chuckled, nodded, then got to work again.

In the middle of that, she suddenly felt an itch in the area of ​​her left arm, accidentally showing a birthmark coiled like a bracelet.

Lia's eyes bulged, moving to open the cloth on Mysty's arm. "Where did you get that mark from? Did you paint it?"

"Oh, it's a birthmark, Queen. Of course, I got it since I was a kid."

"May I see it?"

Nervous, finally Mysty nodded. She drew closer to Lia and pointed her arm at Lia. At that time she had no idea what was going on.

"Do you know what these marks form?" Lia's eyes became tense, causing the puff of smoke around her to turn gloomy.

"I am not sure." Even though Mysty had to keep this a secret, didn't she have to be honest if the one who asked her was Queen Ethelia? "But I've seen something similar that came from Hexa. Looks like this is…. communication bracelet, which is bound to DNA, which has special rules for…"

Mysty widened her eyes as Lia pointed her hand at her birthmark. A stream of energy and light emerged from Lia's palm which instantly hit the birthmark, making it glow and then forming a complete bracelet. It happened so briefly that Mysty thought it was imagination.

"It turns out that you are Cindy," whispered Lia looking at Mysty. "Have you ever seen someone named Lia in your dreams? Is the person calling you Cindy a girl?"

"How did you know?" Mysty was taken aback and almost exploded by the miniature city in front of her. Even though it has technology like a hologram, its density is very mysterious.

'Of course, because I am one of your past,' Lia thought.

"But it's not just someone named Lia that I've met, Queen. Honestly, this makes me feel crazy. I keep asking myself if I am not normal?"

"What do you mean?"

"I saw someone named Lia who has a very similar face to you, only your aura is very different, and also your hair color, including your height. She looks shorter than you. I think it was just a strange dream. But then…"

"Then what?"

"Then I saw Lia with Prince Aerus." Mysty clenched her fists. "They left together and they never came back. I come from a remote area, which honestly doesn't care about interplanetary political issues. But after I was a teenager and studied in the city, I finally knew what the world was like, as well as knowing the identity of the man I once dreamed of."

"Then? What else do you know?"

"I'm not sure," Mysty muttered anxiously. "I just think this is too crazy."

"The madness is real." Lia looked straight at Mysty, answering the question she was sure had bothered her.

"What do you mean, Your Majesty?"

"You were Cindy in the past life, and I was Lia in the past life."

Mysty gasped but soon smiled amusedly. "Thank you for comforting me, Queen. But you don't have to say this just to cheer me up. I believe this is the perfect form of dreaming so that I can be more enthusiastic about working here."

Lia got up from the chair, and threw all the objects in her study, even drowning the shape of the towering Unirex palace. The sun changed drastically, and the wind suddenly became hot and stuffy.

From a distance appeared a chubby-faced girl with her best friend who was thin and unkempt. They ran to catch the bus because they wanted to go to the city cinema. Then they went to visit each other, to encourage one another.

"Is that the dream you saw?" Lia pointed at the two friends, who had faces like her and Mysty.

"Th-that's right! But how could…"

"Because that's how we were in the past," whispered Lia depressed. "Honestly I've been waiting for you for a long time, and honestly I feel sorry for you. Especially after knowing you died while still wearing this transparent bracelet." She pointed at Mysty's birthmark. "You must miss me, and so do I."

Mysty was silent, staring into the distance, where someone like her was crying because she had lost her best friend. She then grew old, with her very lively little family. But she always felt empty, always lonely. Until finally she was too weak to cry, too weak to keep the longing. Her body finally stiffened, along with the death that came.

"At that time I was already in Hexa, or maybe already dead," whispered Lia, looking down to hold back tears.

Mysty turned her head quickly, giving her a teary look.

"I didn't survive because of the wounds on my body. I died before you, Cin. So I apologize for not keeping you informed."

"Then does that mean…"

"Yes, all those dreams are true." Lia glanced at Mysty and found her shaking very violently. Reality is sometimes surprising and terrifying. "You already know that you are never crazy. What you've been through has happened in the past. So why are you still scared now?"

"Honestly, after I was able to study in the city and found out that Prince Aerus had a face very similar to the man in my dream, I did many ways to find out the situation in Hexa. I used to think that I came from there, and found some mysteries."

"Then?" Lia raised an eyebrow.

"Then I did. I snooped on Hexa and managed to install some surveillance tools on it. Some of them have entered and fused with the long-lived animals there, until then…"

"Until then?" asked Lia worriedly.

"Some of the tools don't work. So I decided to do some checking. And that's when I found out that… that Hexa was being attacked by a group of people."

Lia tensed, her lips trembling. "Wha… what do you mean? You must be just dreaming right?"

"Forgive me if I am being too presumptuous, Your Majesty." Mysty waved her hand and took out a bracelet-like device in the air. Then she put it on and went through several processes to unlock it. Then a shadow appeared in the air, a very real shadow, indicating that Hexa was being destroyed.

"What's this?" Lia narrowed her eyes, tried to focus, and zoom in on the screen.

"Hexa has destroyed?"

"Yes, Your Majesty." Mysty zoomed in on the screen after confirming the DNA. "And it's all because of the Qobra Clan."

***