BETWEEN TWO LIFETIMES

Havi let out a long, weary sigh, his gaze fixed upon the stark whiteness of the emergency room ceiling.

The silence around him was profound, yet his mind was anything but. It churned relentlessly, playing and replaying Diana's words like a haunting melody.

"Lover… or perhaps your wife in a past life."

Absurd. And yet, why did those words burrow so deeply into him? Why did they unsettle something nameless within his soul?

The soft creak of the door interrupted his thoughts, drawing his attention. Expecting Diana, he turned but it was not her.

It was Nuriana.

She hesitated in the doorway, uncertainty flickering across her face before she finally stepped inside.

Havi's breath hitched, "Nuriana?"

His voice was barely above a whisper, as if speaking too loudly might shatter the fragile reality before him.

He stared at her, unblinking, as though unsure whether she was truly standing there or merely a figment of his restless thoughts.

"Am I disturbing you?" Her voice was hushed, nearly lost to the stillness of the room.

Havi shook his head, shifting slightly despite the lingering weakness in his limbs.

"No… I just wasn't expecting you."

She offered a faint smile, then pulled out a chair and sat beside his bed, "I hadn't planned to come," she admitted, "but I couldn't sleep. Something kept playing on my mind."

"What was it?"

For a moment, she hesitated. Then, taking a slow breath, she met his gaze directly.

"Havi… I need to ask you something."

He inclined his head slightly, "Go on."

"Do you believe in reincarnation?"

The question hung in the air between them, unsettling in its quiet intensity.

Havi did not answer at once. He merely observed her, as though searching for the meaning behind her words.

"Once, I would have said no," he admitted at last. "But now…"

Nuriana nodded as though she understood.

Havi narrowed his eyes slightly, "Why do you ask?"

She held his gaze, studying him as if trying to decipher an enigma, "Because I feel… there is something about you that I cannot explain. The way you look at me, the way you speak to me… it is as if we have met before."

He did not reply. He only watched her, feeling the weight of unspoken truths pressing in on them.

"Am I wrong?" she asked again, her voice softer now, trembling ever so slightly.

Havi swallowed hard, "I don't know," he murmured. "But I feel it too… as though I have known you before, somewhere beyond memory."

Nuriana exhaled slowly, lowering her gaze for a moment before lifting it once more.

"I used to believe life was a straight path," she said quietly. "We are born, we live, we die, and that is the end of it. But since meeting you… I have begun to doubt that."

Havi regarded her in silence.

"I remember nothing of a past life," he confessed, his voice calm yet distant. "But sometimes, there are… moments. Fleeting sensations that make no sense. Like the first time I saw you... I felt a déjà vu so strong it almost hurt."

Nuriana bit her lip, "I felt it too."

Their eyes met in the stillness.

"Nuriana," Havi murmured at last, "if I truly did know you in another life… who do you think I was to you?"

She did not respond immediately. Instead, she studied him, the weight of the question settling between them like mist upon a cold morning.

Then, at last, she spoke, "Perhaps… you were someone who wronged me."

A sharp pang coiled in Havi's chest, "Wronged you?"

He did not know why, but her words left him uneasy.

"A woman's intuition is an extraordinary thing," Havi thought to himself.

Nuriana's expression remained unreadable, "Perhaps."

Havi let out a slow, unsteady breath. Though he could not explain it, guilt a strange, inexplicable guilt, stirred within him.

"And if that is true…," he murmured, his voice barely more than a breath, "if I once hurt you… stole from you, perhaps?"

Nuriana did not flinch. She merely studied him before answering, "I don't know. But something inside me tells me… I should be cautious of you."

Havi felt a hollow ache in his chest.

Nuriana stood, her expression unreadable, her gaze resting on him as though searching for something she had yet to find.

"I only needed to be certain of something," she whispered. "Thank you for answering me."

She turned and walked towards the door.

But just before she left, Havi called out, almost unconsciously, "Nuriana."

She stopped, glancing back at him. He met her gaze, something deep and uncertain flickering in his eyes.

"If I truly did harm you once… I hope, in this life, I can atone for it. Just as you must for what you have done to me."

For a moment, she only looked at him, her eyes glistening with something he could not name.

Then, without another word, she turned and left, the door clicking shut behind her.

Havi remained motionless, his thoughts a tangled mess of uncertainty and something dangerously close to realisation.

The silence around him pressed in, broken only by the relentless ticking of the clock.

Time did not wait.

He stared blankly at the ceiling, yet beyond it, beyond the walls of this world he felt something shifting.

Something ancient and unseen, something reaching across the veil of the past into the fragile threads of the present.

"I did hurt you once," Havi thought to himself. "And without knowing it, you wronged me as well… by taking the lives of my parents. In my past life."

The night deepened, shadows lengthening as he lay there, trapped in his own mind.

Yet, deep within his heart, he knew, whether by fate or mere coincidence, every encounter in this world carried an unspoken purpose.