Chapter 1: Time

              Mind racing, I stumbled to the piano where the book lay, closed my eyes, and opened to the cover. Peeking out from behind my eyelashes, I decided there was nothing terribly disconcerting about it. It was just a book…that glowed sometimes. Or so it appeared. A standard table of contents greeted me, and there were unsurprisingly twelve pieces in the book. None of the titles were translatable and they all seemed to be in the same language as the title on the cover, but when I turned the page over, it was only sheet music.

              The first piece, no composer mentioned, written in C minor, and only two pages long, looked very Brahms-like. The pages were worn, but with no markings, two staves, a bass and a treble. It was definitely written for piano. The music notes were handwritten, but great care was taken to ensure their legibility. The room grew eerily quiet, and the faint noise of the streets grew even quieter by the second, like I was drawn into a separate world. But the music was calling my name.

              It looked rather harmless, so I played the first chord. The piece was actually much easier than it originally looked. The measures were filled with eighth notes, but it fit so well under my fingers, it was almost entrancing to play. The melody sung out and a soft piano accompaniment hovered over the bass notes. It sounded so angsty and full of intense sadness, like being drenched in the rain as your lover walked away for the final time. I loved the chord progressions, and my musicality had been piqued. But as I neared the final measures, the room began to glow and a bright orb of pearlescent blue hovered over the piano, growing larger and larger, until it was the size of a basketball. I stared at it, willing my fingers to cease their action, but they continued. I was a puppet. I couldn’t stop. My adrenaline kicked in, yet no matter what I did to pull away, it was like I was inside an invisible box with soundproof walls.

              Inside the orb of blue, an hourglass began to spin, and as my fingers mechanically finished the song on their own, flashing intense swirls of colors swathed all the walls around me in deep hues of blues, reds, and yellows. An intense beam of light shot out from the orb, momentarily blinding me, and I collapsed on the ground, trying to protect myself from whatever might come next.

It had gone deathly quiet, but slowly the sounds of the city rushed into my ears, and the orb had diminished into nothingness. I stood up, my eyes readjusting to the lack of light. Rubbing them to spur the process on, I realized a boy stood in front of me. 

I stood in shock and he too, stared straight into my eyes, yet it felt like he was staring into my soul. Not daring to make a motion, we stood only two or three steps apart. I broke away from his gaze as my eyes swept over his person. He was extremely tall, lean and his jawline could slice a rock. His aura oozed intimidation, yet I stood my ground. Jet-black hair graced his tanned, gaunt face, hanging over his eyes- eyes that matched his hair, piercing as a spear. He wore an all black ensemble, that at first glanced looked like he could fit in on the street, but upon closer inspection, the clothes he wore gave off a slightly archaic flair.

He straightened up and continued to gaze at me with such intensity, that I began to surrender myself and back away from the study room. I didn’t even know what to do with myself, what to do with him, and more specifically what to tell my parents or even Sebastian. He took a step forward in my direction as I backed away from him.

  “Where are you going?” the male spoke in heavily accented English. His original tongue I couldn’t determine. I merely stared at him, and though I ordered my vocal chords to produce coherent noises, I could only let out a snort.

I felt the room swirling around me, and I tried to reach for the wall so I wouldn’t collapse on the floor. A concussion was the last thing I needed my first night in Germany. I knew I couldn’t handle the situation, and in the blink of an eye, my world go black. Except this time, no Mom, no Dad, or Cee would be there to catch me. I began to close my eyes, waiting for the impact, but it never came.

Instead, everything around me froze; the sounds around me vibrated at such a low frequency. I struggled to move, but found I could not. My eyes half closed, were able to make out the man in black charging towards me. He moved with such fluidity and dexterity that air trails gracefully formed behind him as he moved in perfect motion. Bit by bit, my eyes continued their journey to shuteye, and right before they closed completely, he caught me. It was the last thing I registered before going unconscious.

“Wake up” a male voice called out to me, and in my mind I pictured a blurry Sebastian standing over me with a glass of Orangensaft, but his voice sounded so distorted and far away. My fingers twitched, and I opened my eyes, scrunching to focus on my surroundings in the bleary light, when I realized Sebastian did not have jet-black hair, nor was he in Germany at the moment.

I sat up with a start, nearly passing out again from the blood rush. He had placed me on the couch in the living room. The boy stuck the cup in my palms, liquid sloshing over my hands, to which he threw a napkin at me and motioned that I clean my hands. I could only gaze at him completely wordless, gulping the juice down in efforts to assure myself it was not a dream.

“You were only out for about 15 minutes. Don’t worry.” His voice wasn’t terribly deep, but rich in quality, and I continued to stare at him, for he seemed to act completely normal. My jaw went slack as he placed the dinner I had started in front of me, and it laid exactly the way I envisioned it, like he could read my mind.

After several speechless moments, I stuffed my face with food while deciding on what questions to ask and gathered courage to speak. He watched in bewilderment, obviously not knowing what to do with himself. “Who are you?” I finally sputtered out.

“Tao. You summoned me.” he then stood before me, falling to his knees and bowing. After a minute, he resumed his stance, and motioned to the book on the piano. It lay closed on the bookstand, but the hourglass symbol was missing.

“I don’t understand.”

“Kris isn’t here to explain, so I’m going to do the best I can. People have always summoned him first, so I’m not really sure how you picked me, or how to go about this, but I guess just ask me questions, and we’ll start there.”

“Where are you from?” I set my food aside and looked him in the eye. He backed away, and I wasn’t sure who was more intimidated by whom in the moment.

“The book laying on your piano.” He answered in the most innocent voice I’d possibly ever heard. I resisted the temptation to roll my eyes.

“Okaaay, but like, where are you actually from?” He looked to be in deep thought as his eyebrows furrowed.

“Well, not here. I don’t really know where I am right now, to be honest. Except that this is Earth.” He glanced around the room, before striding to the window. “I mean, I was looking out the window while you were unconscious, but I have never seen some of these things before. So, if anything I should be asking you where you are from.”

“Well, how do you speak English then?” I asked him ignoring his question.

“What is English?” he asked me.

“The language you’re speaking right now.” We both looked so perplexed, and my mind struggled to wrap around the events so far. He paused to think some more.

“English like they speak in America and Britain?”

“Yes.”

“Well, we are meant to serve whoever summons us, therefore it only makes sense I can communicate with you.” He concluded and bowed his head before returning to his stance in front of me.

Silence ensued for a few moments while I continued to process everything. I had never heard of anything happening like this before, but someone had to have heard of something.

 “So, you come from another place? Planet? Time? World? Alternate universe?” I muttered towards him.

“Yes, actually! Something like that. I believe Kris once called it another, oh what’s the word, galaxy!” he suddenly lit up like a firefly.

“And Kris is?” I raised an eyebrow at him, and settled into the couch. Please don’t tell me there’s…

“His symbol is the dragon on the book!”

“So, there’s 12 of you, and you’re all…boys?” I internally groaned. Whoever left me this book better be sorry.

“Yes. The symbols correspond with our powers.” Now we were getting somewhere.

“And yours is time.” I concluded.

“That’s my specialty.” With the flick of a finger, the room went completely motionless, the sounds of city life becoming void in my ears. Yet the thud of my heart become ten times more apparent, and the sound of his breathing resounded all around me. Tao had frozen time all around us.

It lasted just enough for me to realize what I had gotten myself into, a few seconds later, he had returned time to its original state, and reality hit me in the face as I realized the depth of what just happened.

“So, what do you propose I do with you? And please, sit down.” I motioned to chair opposite me.

“Whatever you wish-” he paused and I realized he had no idea who I was or how to address me.

“Amelie. You can call me Amelie.” I kept my tone as even as possible, as I continued to read him.

“But I thought I should say ‘Miss’?” he asked, eyes open wide.

“Amelie is fine with me, Tao.” Then he smiled.

“Is that your name?”

“Yes, it is.”

“Am I allowed to use it?”

“Yes, Tao.” He looked overjoyed at this revelation.

“Can you please excuse me for a few moments?” He nodded and remained rooted to his seat on the couch.

I went to my room, closed the door behind me, locked it, and sat on my bed in utter disbelief. Rubbing my face with my pillow in attempt to check that this was indeed reality and not another one of my performance dreams. There was a boy in my living room, which I had apparently summoned by playing the piece of music in the book, which was left by an unknown person, who also left an apology note. Groaning, I threw my hands up in the air, falling back into the cascade of pillows behind me. To trust him would be taking a huge risk, but to not trust him…I couldn’t just stuff him back inside the book, and he acted like I was his master or something. He had no way to return, as I had brought him into this world.

              I’d never thought much about situations like this, but in retrospect, I could always read people well, and there wasn’t anything terribly frightening about him. He sounded sincere and honest, a little confused and lost, but to make him leave, a supernatural being like him might be in more danger than I was currently. A few more minutes had passed before I made my decision. He had to stay, and I had to get him back home, or find someone who could.

I returned to the living room, considerably more relaxed as my conscious had me convinced Tao was a giant puppy. Smiling at him, the tenseness in his shoulders visibly diminished some. I stood up to take my dishes back to the kitchen, where my phone lay on the counter still, and oh…thirty missed calls from Sebastian. As I went to check my messages, the phone rang once more, as Tao came rushing into the kitchen.

              He grabbed my phone and frantically placed it back on the counter. “That device kept making noise while you were unconscious but I didn’t know how to make it stop, so I accidentally pressed the green button and another boy’s voice came through, and I’m sorry, I didn’t know what to do so I pressed the different buttons on the screen until his voice stopped, but he demanded to know who answered.” The words came tumbling out of his mouth at lightning speed as tears welled up in his eyes and his head hung low. “Please forgive me, Amelie. I won’t do it again.”

              I sighed, as my phone lit up signaling Sebastian’s call once more. “Why didn’t I hear it earlier then?” I mused aloud.

              Tao hung his head even lower, “I froze the chronofield around it.” He whispered just loud enough for me to hear.

              “What does that even mean?” Raising my voice towards him, I immediately regret it when he flinched.

              “A chronofield, the time field around an object. I can manipulate it so only the objects in that area remain frozen in time.” He spoke in a hushed whisper and dropped to his knees, quivering. Not quite knowing what else to do with him, I semi-ignored him as Sebastian rang a 31st time. I pressed the Accept button.

              “Hey Cee!” I put on my most enthusiastic voice I could muster up and turned to my bedroom. Tao knew better to speak while I was on the phone, so I left the kitchen, assuming he’d go back to the living area.

              “You have 10 seconds to give me an explanation as to why a man answered your phone exactly 26 minutes ago, and it better be the best excuse you’ve ever had!” To say Sebastian sounded angry was an understatement.

              “I went to the office to ask for an extra converter plug, and left my phone at the desk. The man down there just brought it back up to me like 2 minutes ago.” I kept my voice as steady and even as possible.

              “Why did he keep it for 24 minutes then?” Sebastian was clearly not convinced.

              “Because I was in the shower, Cee.” I answered, a bit too hastily, and cringed.

              “You better not be lying.” He threatened.

              “I’m here safely, in my home, it’s nearly 2AM, and I’m pretty tired again, even though I napped. Can I call you tomorrow?” I put on my tired voice, and fake yawned.

              A sigh of resignation escaped his lips on the other end, “Fine, call me tomorrow. No more men answering the phone either. Or else I’ll tell dad and he’ll put up security cameras in your apartment.”

              “It’s a flat.”

              “Whatever. I thought you’d be too tired to argue, Em. Clearly you’re not as tired as you say.” His jocular mannerisms had returned and that was one bullet dodged.

              “Goodnight Sebastian.”

              “Gut Nacht, Em.”

              “Gute Nacht, Cee. Why do you always forget the e’s?”

              “Sorry, I didn’t have a private tutor.”

              “Well lucky you, you have me.”

              “So terribly lucky.” He chuckled.

              “That’ll be 1 Euro for every corrected word, you know my Paypal info.” I .

              “How about no?” He had no comeback.

              “That all you got? Well I guess I should let yo