Chapter 12: “Across Time, Rafaela”
Chapter 12: “Across Time, Rafaela”
(From the memoirs of Oliver Jones)
The evening at the Gifted Academy felt strangely quiet.
Ever since Rafaela had vanished together with the runaway Crystal Gate, the academy seemed to be wrapped in a sense of faded color.
A failed control experiment.
No—the teachers’ official explanation was that it had been a “temporary transfer error.”
But not a single student truly believed that.
Everyone had witnessed that moment from the garden of the Bird Estate.
They had seen Rafaela’s form swallowed as if consumed by light itself, erased in an instant.
—“Could it be… the past?”
Someone had whispered those words.
From that day on, Emile had developed the habit of looking up at the sky.
It was only much later that he realized what had bloomed in his heart was “impatience.”
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And then—she was on the shore in the year 2022.
The undeveloped coastal area near Saint Tosgorn.
Weathered reefs and a sandy beach. In a small cove where no one ever set foot, Rafaela awoke.
“…Ugh… where… am I…?”
Her uniform was torn, her hair wet with seawater and clinging to her forehead. The sleep gun was tucked into the pouch strapped around her waist.
Behind her half-open eyes was the blank absence of “the present.”
At her feet, a strange creature slithered past.
A two-headed snake.
And on its back, embedded into its scales, was a transmitter-like metallic device.
“…There you are. Knew it was the right call to implant a tracker.”
Responding to that voice, a middle-aged man appeared, sweeping aside a red trench coat, his chestnut hair whipping in the wind.
An archaeologist—Vermilion Jones.
“So this is where you’ve been, my snake. Didn’t expect you to find a girl first, though…”
He stepped closer to Rafaela, peering into her face.
“Young lady, wake up. …Looks like you’ve crossed through time. What’s your name?”
“…Rafaela. …Rafaela Bird.”
“I see. ‘Ras,’ huh? That’s a name I’ve heard in whispers. Interesting. My name is Vermilion Jones. I’m a descendant of the famous archaeologist, Indiana Jones.”
“Vermilion Jones… Oliver’s grandfather.”
And so her “new adventure” began there.
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To be continued in Chapter 13
