Chapter 156
The air changed first.
Warm.
Dry.
The scent of earth and leaves filled their senses.
When their vision stabilized, a vast blue sky stretched above them.
No more windowless room.
No more holographic light.
All that remained was a quiet expanse of date palm groves, with tall trunks rising upward and layered shadows of leaves falling across the ground.
Nirma stood still, observing her surroundings.
Arya glanced slightly to the left and right.
"Coordinates are accurate," he murmured.
In the distance, a line of simple settlements could be seen—earthen houses scattered sparsely.
The wind blew gently.
Carrying distant sounds.
The sound of life.
But also… something else.
Nirma narrowed her eyes.
"It hasn't happened yet," she said softly.
Arya nodded.
"We arrived a few days earlier."
Silence fell for a moment.
But it was not an empty silence.
It was a silence filled with possibility.
Because in this place… in the coming days… history would bleed.
And among the seemingly calm shadows of those palm trees—something might already be lurking.
Morning had not fully been born when the world settled back into place around them.
Yet the sun had already sent its herald—golden light slowly creeping from behind the barren northern hills, brushing the horizon with a shy gradient of orange.
Nirma felt the ground beneath her feet.
Warm despite not yet touched by direct sunlight, sandy yet firm, with traces of dry grass scattered like fine veins across the earth's surface.
She exhaled, letting the desert morning air fill her chest—dry, sharp, but honest.
Arya stood half a step behind her, his eyes already scanning the horizon with a vigilance that had become second nature.
"The watch," Nirma said briefly, without turning.
"Check our position."
Arya moved his wrist forward, his palm facing downward—shielding the device from the lingering darkness still clinging to the eastern sky.
A blue holographic glow appeared, but he quickly minimized it, compressing the digital interface to the size of his palm.
Dozens of seconds passed in silence, filled only with the whisper of wind carrying the scent of clay and dried palm fronds.
Arya's fingers moved swiftly across the faintly pulsing time-map, adjusting coordinates, matching them with star formations he had stored as anchor points.
"We arrived approximately five to seven days before the battle begins."
Arya finally spoke, his voice low, as if afraid of disturbing the morning itself.
He lowered his hand, the hologram fading, and now his eyes looked straight toward the north—toward a mountain that resembled the back of a giant lying in the distance.
"This is a date palm grove between Madinah and Uhud.
To our south… back there, about three or four kilometers, is the first settlement—Quba', judging by the settlement pattern and water routes."
Nirma followed his gaze, then lowered her eyes briefly, shifting the tip of her sandal across sand that was slowly changing color as the sun rose.
"From here," she said, her eyes sweeping across the neatly arranged palm trunks, their long shadows still stretching westward, "the Quraysh army will pass. From the northeast, along the slopes of Uhud, then turning into this valley."
Arya nodded, feeling the undeniable pull of geography that never lied.
This grove stood precisely along an unavoidable route—a position that made them realize they had not merely arrived near history, but were standing within the corridor through which chaos itself would pass.
No human voices could yet be heard.
Only the wind slipping between palm fronds, creating a slow rhythm like the deep breath of a world not yet fully awake.
Yet within that silence, Nirma sensed something else—a tension not yet born but already pulsing in the air, like static before a storm.
She turned to Arya, who had reopened his watch, this time with an even dimmer glow, barely visible except from certain angles.
"If that Abnormal is truly moving here," Arya whispered, his eyes fixed on the shifting data, "then it's already somewhere in this area. Or… it's about to arrive. Like us."
Nirma crossed her arms, her gaze fixed on a distant point—where the line of hills dipped and opened toward a city still asleep behind its earthen walls.
"Then we wait," she replied flatly.
But there was something in her voice that made Arya lift his head.
Not hesitation—but a cold, weightless readiness.
"We wait and see what form it chooses to take when it appears."
The sun had not fully risen from the eastern horizon when Nirma felt another change—this time closer.
Not in the air or the ground, but within her own body.
She looked down, watching how the clothes she had worn before the time jump had completely transformed.
A dark blue abaya now draped her form—loose yet neat, its hem brushing her ankles above thick leather sandals with simple straps.
A heavy khimar covered her chest, and from beneath its edges, strands of her hair—now a deep dark brown rather than the bluish-black sheen she had in Jakarta in 1950—fell briefly before she adjusted the folds of the fabric with practiced ease.
Beside her, Arya was also finishing his own adjustments.
A white izar wrapped below his knees, a loose sirwal beneath it allowing freedom of movement without altering his outward silhouette, and a rida draped over his left shoulder.
He brushed his thumb across a small device hidden at his waist—the remote controlling this entire transformation—then nodded to himself.
"Working," he muttered, lightly tapping his left wrist, which now showed nothing more than a simple leather bracelet concealing advanced technology within its weave.
Nirma glanced briefly at him, then at her own hand—the white bandage on her right hand deliberately left partially visible beneath her sleeve, a detail that, in Madinah at this time, would suggest a woman accustomed to tending the wounded.
"Good," she said softly.
"We look like we belong here."
The morning wind blew again, now carrying slightly warmer air—a sign that the sun was beginning to fully rise from behind Mount Uhud.
Nirma shifted her footing, feeling fine sand slip between her toes within her open sandals, while her eyes continued scanning the expanse of palm groves around them.
Through the gaps between the tall palm trunks, she could see thin trails of smoke rising from the south—likely from small kitchens in Quba', preparing breakfast.
Arya stood a few steps beside her, adjusting the drape of his robe so the rida would not interfere with his reach toward his waist—where, hidden beneath layers of cloth, a short blade rested unseen.
"These clothes… are clever," Arya said suddenly, his voice low, almost a murmur.
"The gray beneath my white robe—these trousers—will help if we need to move quickly. Or… hide."
Nirma let out a small exhale—not dismissive, but in agreement.
"We're not just observing Uhud," she replied, her eyes still fixed on the northern horizon.
"We'll also cross over to Golgotha. There, we'll need a different form."
To be continued…