I took one last breath of the outside air and turned back to face Angel.

“Sorry,” I told her quietly and went back into the hood of the wagon, “I used to—”

“Well,” she interrupted me, not changing her expression, “are you not going to sit down?”

Then I understood: she knew I was going to say that, hence her indifferent tone. I sat down, opened mouth, then quickly closed it.

“Good choice,” Angel said, “I do not need you to ramble about what you did with your family here. Now we should get back to what is important.”

Yes, there was something a lot more important than my useless daydreaming. It turned out that those shooters who had come to visit our school were here. It seemed that they were also “time walkers” who were chasing after us. I had asked Angel why they wanted us dead, but she said she didn’t know. I couldn’t tell if she was lying or not.

She had also told us that they would catch up to us in an hour. That made sense since she did say she could “see” one hour into the future. Right now, we had been on the road for about half an hour, so the shooters had probably just gotten to the village.

Arthur had decided to join us, saying that he wanted to “protect the princess.” However, I had felt that he became a bit more suspicious of us after hearing that people were after us, and he did ask some odd questions.

“How do you know the exact time they’ll come?” he had asked. “You wouldn’t have told them, would you? Don’t tell me that they—”

“Yes,” Angel had said, “they are using forbidden techniques.”

“Wait, they’re using what?” I had cut in.

“People call it timeline cherrypicking. They are testing out each and every timeline to find one they see fit. You are almost guaranteed the perfect outcome as long as you keep trying, but it poses a risk in contaminating the time plane.”

I hadn’t fully gotten what she had told me, but it was enough to know that they were the bad guys. Now, all we needed was a plan to escape from them, and that was just what we were discussing before we came up to the river.

“Well, why can’t we use a time machine?” Arthur suggested from outside, “I have one hidden in the forest.”

“No,” Angel responded, “the enemy knows that is our only way to escape. They would get there before us.”

“Can’t you transport us to another time period?” I asked, “Like how we came here?”

“I spent all my energy on that,” she told me, then sighed and added, “accidentally.”

“Then we can—”

Arthur was cut off by Angel. And for the first time, I saw her frustrated.

“No. The backup one wouldn’t work. They’d get to any time machine before us. We can’t hide and wait. They’d know where we are and where we go. We can’t even fight them. They’re way more combat-experienced than we are.”

“Then—” I started.

Angel sighed, hiding her frustration again, and continued, “We will not have enough time to make a time machine. Not with the technology we have now.”

I slumped back on my bench. That was exactly what I was thinking. I couldn’t think of anything else. It seemed that the enemy knew all of our movements. We were trapped, and we only had thirty minutes to get out of this. And after those thirty minutes, no matter where we go, we would be captured by them.

“Then the only choice would be to surrender, right?” I asked, “Maybe they would let us live.”

But from Angel’s expression, I already knew what her answer to that was going to be.

“They will not show any mercy,” she said, “it will be worse than death.”

There was a long pause. It was long enough for me to notice that we had neared the river again. But this time I ignored it, not letting myself fall into dreams for a second time.

Angel sighed and looked down at the floor, avoiding eye contact.

“There is one thing that could work, though,” she told us, “and I would like to try it.” She looked back up at me. “And it would require your cooperation.”

“Then, what do I need to do?” I asked. I was surprised. Angel knew everything about this time travel stuff, and Arthur was way stronger than me. How could I do anything in a situation like this? But I hid my doubt and listened.

“Out of us three, you are the only person who is idle in the time-plane,” Angel told me in a hurry, “so you are full of energy. But what is interesting is you have an amazing capacity and super light. So if you are able to learn how to control your movements, and if we just give you a small push, we will be able to escape this time period.”

“Wait,” Arthur called to us in a worried tone, “isn’t that way too risky? Are you certain it would work? Even if he does have some sort of special condition, it doesn’t look like he’s had any special training. Plus, sight into the future is still riddled with uncertainties. I suggest we try another idea.”

“I am certain it will work,” Angel said firmly, “If you can suggest something better—and that will not happen—then we would definitely go for that.”

I was waiting impatiently for Angel to tell me to do something. I didn’t want to be pushed into another scene of guns firing and blood spilling. And as if she knew exactly what I was thinking, she turned back to me quickly and continued, without waiting for Arthur to respond.

“First, do you remember when you were bringing me to school?” Angel asked me, reaching out her hand, “This is going to feel somewhat similar.”

I nodded. I remembered that now. It had felt like we had gotten to school faster than I had expected. So I hadn’t been imagining things. Had it also been some time travel magic?

I put my hand on hers and immediately felt it. It was the smallest feeling, but large enough for me to notice it—barely.

“You are sensitive,” Angel told me, “try to find the source. I am just giving you a little push, and even though it does not come naturally to you, you should be able to find where it is coming from.”

I scrunched my face in concentration, but all I could feel was the wooden bench I was sitting on bumping me up constantly as the wagon hit the many small imperfections in the path. Then I suddenly felt it: the faint feeling of pressure on my head like I had swum just a bit deeper in a large pool of water. This feeling was fueled by a strange sense of unfamiliarity calling out to me and telling me that something was not right. I tried to investigate deeper, but the moment ended in less than a second when the wagon hit another small rock. I lifted my head and sighed. I would never be able to accomplish such a feat in a situation like this.

“It is not a physical force that I am applying to you,” Angel told me, “so try to close your eyes and ignore any physical sensation. A good trick would be to focus on your breath.”

I did as she said and turned my concentration to my breath, which was, understandably, shallow and quick. I took a deep breath, but that did nothing to lower my racing heart rate.

First, I felt it in my head again, but just like before, I couldn’t find where exactly my head hurt. I breathed again and blocked everything. All the noise faded to a monotonous hum, and the small bumps of the wagon became minuscule. The world slowly died out, and I felt like I was floating in an empty vacuum. My headache spread to my entire body, but now it didn’t hurt.

Suddenly I was pushed firmly to the side, and my eyes fluttered open.

“Try not to fall asleep like that! You need to concentrate. Anyway, we are out of time now. Our pursuers are going to catch up to us in ten minutes. There is going to be an area to the right soon where the forest is less dense.”

Angel stood up and walked closer to Arthur. “There will not be a path, so we will be stopping our wagon here to the left of the road and continue on the horses.”

I sat there, my heart starting to pound after being woken up from falling half asleep. And it was telling me one thing: this is where the action begins.