Chapter1:OneLifeForAnother
Jovan’s pov
Looking like I am in a trance. Because I fought a different reality as my lives replayed before me—the ones I’ve lived.
I found myself tied up in an uncompleted building.
“Help me!” I screamed countless times. But it seems there was no help coming. And I couldn’t help myself…I was just 10 years old.
As if in a movie, the scene skyrocketed to another moment of my life. Here, Elena, my wife and I were in the hospital.
“You would take care of her?Won’t you?” She asked me. And I gave her a positive response. I mean she was also going to be my child.
And in nanoseconds, everything happened so fast. Bringing me to the scene where Elena was dead, and how I clung on to our daughter, as I cried my eyes out.
Again the scene shifted to where I was dragging my daughter with some hoodlums. I fought with all my might, but they ended up taking her with them.
“Please God, don’t let this happen to me. You can’t take away my only source of happiness.” I prayed to God as I knelt on the roadside bowing my head.
As I repeated my prayers, I felt drops of water on my arms, causing me to wake up.
It was raining again. And my windows were open.
“It’s nothing serious,” I said to myself as I stood up to close the windows.
But no. It was. And it is... serious enough to make the tears from dreamland find its way into real life.
Because if it wasn’t…I wouldn’t be cleaning the tears I shed in my dream right now.
Maybe I am badly hurt.
Both dreamland.
And reality.
All the scenes I saw in my dreams had happened—but all in the past. Except one, and that dreads me the most. Because what if it happens? And it was the one about my daughter. I don’t want her to be taken away.
Not today.
Not tomorrow.
When I was 10 years old, I was kidnapped, and somehow, the police managed to find me. I could remember how my parents looked that day. With my mom who had no more tears left in her eyes.
And yeah, I had lost my wife to the wicked hands of death in the labor room. Thereby leaving my daughter and I to live with the pain.
No matter how much I try, there’s nothing that can replace a mother, especially for a girl child. And I know.
Even though she doesn’t really talk about it…I know she feels it. But I’m here for her. And would always be.
It’s been 15 years since her mother died. But I still have dreams of her— reoccurring.
***
The house was eerily quiet this morning. I strained my ear to see if I could hear any noise. But I didn’t.
Normally, Tena’s click-clack noise would have been heard while she went in and out preparing for school.
It used to be her routine —her little noise that wakes me up for the day.
But there wasn’t any this morning. And it is 6 o’clock in the morning. So I had to go check up on her.
And fast too. Just in case—
My fear found its way to my home—my daughter.
