"I guess you can say that this is the beginning." She paused looking to be deep in thought. "It's strange, back then I never noticed my parents faces in all these pictures."
I looked around the room and saw that the adults in the pictures always had the same indifferent look in every picture.
"The feeling of life back then was totally different from reality. My brother and I were very happy children we had nothing materialistic that we longed for. However, its evident from these pictures that the one thing we thought was a given was absent in our lives. The human mind is so interesting. To play tricks to this much extent."
She threw the frame out the window. I looked towards the window expecting a crash that never came. I turned back towards the young lady and she continued.
"As far as who I am I've already told you. I'm Kifu, my original name is irrelevant." My eyes narrowed, so this was her home whenever she was this age.
'Kifu' or Death was an ominous name as it is. If this was the time period I think it was, then this was the period during the last World War before the 'Reconstruction'.
A lot of history was lost during this period. Well, if the internet existed, which I'm sure that it did; it's more likely that a lot of history was intentionally deleted.
The cause for World War III has widely been searched for by scholars. What has been discovered by them, has not been released to the public.
It's been said that people that lived through it couldn't even give a cause. That's nuts to silence a whole generation in an age of free information. It's a blank page in history that has been widely accepted by now.
"Wow, you really do wear your emotions on your face. Guys like you die early and easily." Her smirk was back and she was giggling laughing at my obviously perplexed look. I then remembered what I was doing before I was transported to the past.
"How did you get me to go back in time with you? Are you the teacher that Queen Mariam mentioned?" She plopped herself on the couch and made herself comfortable.
"We haven't traveled anywhere; we're just in a spiritual bubble. This is just how it has manifested in your mind, in a way that's familiar to me. Look outside the window do you see anything outside like there should be?"
I walked over to the window and just saw an empty void of ethereal space. I got chills and walked back over to the young lady.
"You're controlling the space? If it's my mind, shouldn't it be something I recognize?"
"Will bends to the strong, remember that. This may be your mind, but my presence here makes it bow to me whether I want it to or not." I scoffed at her explanation.
"There's no way a child would dominate me, I've been trained by the best teachers in the world mentally and physically. I'm not that weak."
To this, she looked at me pitifully and sighed. The next second, I felt a wave of dread come over me. I felt the weight of thousands of screams before me. Images of death, war, and fire flooded my headed.
I was sweating profusely, if I moved another inch it felt like my head would be chopped off. I found myself wondering what type of hell I would have to endure to withstand this.
Then I felt relief. I bent over coughing up, chunks of dinner and blood. I looked up back at Kifu and understood that this was a woman that has done things I would see as unimaginable.
Her facial expression never changed from her pitying look.
"To your second question, it's strange that I would be your teacher. I'm sort of special, and I only manifest for a certain reason. A reason I don't think you'll be on board with." I sat down in front of the couch on the floor in a meditation posture gasping for air.
"Can I ask another question?" She shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly.
"Sure, my name may be Kifu but I'm not inherently evil or difficult. I'll answer any question honestly if I want to answer it." That's reassuring.
"Did you live through the 'Void Decade'?" She paused for a moment and stared at me without saying a word. We stood silently for almost thirty seconds.
"I'm sorry but I don't know what the void decade is." That confirms that she had to be born before it. She quizzical look on her face. A look that hungered for entertainment. It looked like I piqued her interest, so I continued.
"The time period of a little before the start of World War III and right before the 'Reconstruction' where the five empires were born." Her face instantly fell in disappointment and boredom.
"Yea, I was walking the earth as a regular person during that time. That's all I'll say at the moment because the story doesn't really interest me. I thought there was something that happened since then that was exciting. Well, I'm here now that's a good indication as any that things are about to get fun."
What does that mean? She's been cryptic ever since the first time we spoke. I'm starting to think I'm getting dragged into something I don't want to be apart of.
Is this Focus thing really worth it?
"I see you're starting to put two and two together and you're wondering if this will even be worth your time. I get it, I'm not one to waste my time on meaningless things either. This isn't the first time we met right? So, me teaching you anything only came after, which tells me we're going to be having these conversations regardless of if you willing to learn or not. I don't have to teach you anything. Something to keep in mind."
Her purpose is not to be my teacher but something else entirely. That makes me even more wary. At least I have a choice. If I'm going to be seeing her regardless I might as well get something out of it. What's the potential of this power I wonder.
"What's the potential of 'Focus'?" She gave me a look of confusion.
"If you have focus you can study and follow directions easier. Why do I feel like that isn't what you mean?" My face fell. She doesn't even know what I'm supposed to be learning. What am I even doing here.
"Before I came here Queen Mariam was trying to induce our innate ability called 'Focus'. I thought she succeeded by bringing me here but obviously I was wrong you have nothing to do with it."
She still had a look of confusion after seeing her think for a bit she waved her hand and a small screen appeared above my head. The events that happened previous to me entering this space.
Queen Mariam entered the screen while she had 'Focus' activated and understanding started to come to Kifu.
"Oh, so they started calling this 'Focus'….." She looked to be in deep thought as she watched the screen and see Queen Mariam control waves of power.
"To call it 'Focus' would be fitting, you need concentration to not disturb things around you. You can tell she has a mastery of control with it which is good because her potential overall output is low."
She started to mumble to herself observing the waves of pressure. Once the screen went blank she pulled her attention back to me.
"The 'Focus' as you call it wasn't called that when I was walking the earth. To be honest we didn't really have a name for it."
Her attention turned back to the screen as it seemed to turn back on.
"My presence here is starting to cause a ruckus. Time to pull you back." Ruckus? I looked up to see what was going on but she already closed the screen.
"Go back and think on things, I don't mind teaching you this 'Focus' but you're going to have to come see me on your own to do so. No outside forces should trigger you."
So, no help from the Queen and that also confirms that the teleportation device runs on focus and it helped me to meet her.
"If you decline my help that's fine, I'll be coming to meet you again for other matters very soon regardless." Before I could get out a response everything went dark.