Ella`s Story
My Love From The Future
BOOK FIVE

Chapter 6 : The Book of Time

Episode 49 : February 1 2021 Monday 10th grade10

Copyright © 2019-2025 Gary Brandt. All rights reserved.

The bitter Monday morning air cut through their winter coats as the girls huddled together, waiting for their ride to school.

Peter, a high school friend from the block who had recently gotten his license, pulled up in his beat-up Honda Civic with a grin that suggested driving anywhere was still a novelty worth savoring.

For the girls, having a ready-made chauffeur who was eager for any excuse to drive meant freedom—a precious commodity their mothers rationed carefully these days. The delicate balance of trust had shifted after last week`s incident.

The girls were nearly sixteen now, no longer children but not quite adults either, existing in that precarious space where every decision felt momentous.

Their mothers lived in a constant state of barely contained terror, but they knew they had to start loosening the reins.

Practice at adulting had to begin somewhere, even if it meant sleepless nights imagining worst-case scenarios. Peter was acutely aware that Eileen`s mother was a police officer, which made him drive with the cautious precision of someone taking their driving test.

Every stop sign was a full three-second pause, every turn signal activated well in advance.

The girls found his nervous compliance both amusing and reassuring. Back from the Dead As they walked across the frost-covered schoolyard, their breath creating small clouds in the crisp air, Helena suddenly gasped.

Her hand shot out to grab Ella`s arm with such force that it left fingerprint marks through her jacket.

In the same motion, she spun around so quickly that her feet couldn`t keep up with her momentum, sending her tumbling hard onto her knees on the concrete. "Oh my God, Helena!" Ella exclaimed, dropping her backpack to help her sister.

"What happened? What are you doing?" The thick denim of Helena`s jeans had saved her from serious scrapes, but she remained on the ground, catching her breath as if she`d just sprinted a mile.

When she finally spoke, her voice carried a tremor that had nothing to do with the cold. "That boy," she whispered, her eyes wide and unfocused.

"That new boy.

He just said he loves me, has always loved me, and that he`s going to marry me." Eileen looked around the nearly empty schoolyard with confusion.

"What the fuck? He didn`t say a word when he walked by.

His mouth never even opened." "Yes, he did," Helena insisted, struggling to her feet with Ella`s help.

"But it was telepathic.

He`s a telepath like us." "We didn`t hear any telepathy," Ella said, her voice taking on the careful tone she used when she was worried about Helena`s mental state.

"Were you just reading his mind? We`ve warned you about doing that without permission." "No, this was different." Helena`s hands were shaking now, though whether from cold, shock, or something else entirely, none of them could tell.

"It was targeted telepathy.

Focused.

He`s an experienced telepath—more experienced than any of us." Confrontation "Oh my God!" Eileen burst out, her voice carrying across the schoolyard.

"There is no way we`re letting you marry him.

He`s not cute at all—all fat with acne and everything.

Helena, you can do so much better than that." "Eileen, really?" Roxanna`s voice dripped with disapproval.

"Are you seriously going to fat-shame some kid you don`t even know? Since when did we become those girls?" "Stop it, all of you!" Ella commanded, her patience finally snapping.

"We need to figure out what`s happening here." She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted across the yard, "Hey you! New boy! Get your ass over here and explain yourself!" The boy in question—pudgy, with a face that suggested he was still losing the battle against teenage hormones—approached with surprising confidence.

There was something in his walk, a kind of self-assurance that seemed at odds with his appearance. "What`s your name, new boy," Ella demanded when he was close enough for conversation, "and why are you talking shit to my sister?" "My name is Robert, but everyone calls me Bobby," he said, his voice carrying a slight Southern drawl.

"I`m not talking shit, and I am going to marry Helena if she`ll have me—just not for a few years.

I moved here from Louisiana specifically to give her time to get to know me." "Okay, I`m calling bullshit on this entire situation," Eileen declared, stepping protectively in front of Helena.

"I don`t know who you are or why you`re telepathic, but nobody just walks up and announces who we`re going to marry.

Are you possessed? Are you some kind of demon or one of those lizard people with fake skin? You better leave us alone, or we`re going to wreck your shit." "Yeah!" Roxanna added, cracking her knuckles in a way that suggested she`d been waiting for an excuse to hit something all morning.

"Did you knock her down? Did you make Helena fall? Because I`ll put your face in the dirt if you hurt her." "Calm down, everyone," Ella said, though her own voice was tight with tension.

"Forget school for now.

Let`s go to the Navy office and figure this out properly.

Is that okay with you, Helena? Helena, are you all right? Helena?" But Helena had gone pale, her skin taking on a waxy sheen as cold sweat beaded on her forehead.

The girls caught her just as her knees began to buckle, helping her sit down on a nearby bench before she could fall again.

Her eyes had taken on a distant, unfocused quality, as if she were seeing something far beyond the schoolyard. "Okay, we`re getting you home," Ella decided.

"Bobby—if that`s really your name—you`re coming with us.

Grab your stuff, and let`s go." Helena looked directly at Bobby then, and when she spoke, her voice carried a weight that seemed to come from somewhere much older than her fifteen years. "I know who you are," she said quietly.

"I felt your energy.

I recognized it.

What are you doing here? What are you doing in this poor boy`s body?" A visible chill ran through the group, and Eileen actually shivered despite her heavy coat.

"Oh shit.

Is this him? Is this Bobby...

our Bobby?" "Are you a walk-in?" Ella asked, her voice sharp with suspicion.

"Did you steal some innocent kid`s body just to find Helena?" "No," Bobby said simply.

"It was reincarnation." "That`s impossible," Roxanna protested.

"This kid was born years before Bobby Miller died.

You can`t reincarnate backward in time.

Can you?" Helena`s voice, when she answered, carried the authority of someone accessing knowledge she didn`t fully understand herself.

"Actually, yes, you can reincarnate in the past, but it requires permission from a time lord to ensure you don`t disrupt the timeline.

There are no limits on time when it comes to reincarnation.

It`s part of what we call the Book of Time—though that`s just an analogy, not an actual book.

Think of it like a history book where everything exists simultaneously—past, present, and future.

The time period you experience depends on which page you choose to open." The Long Story Bobby nodded slowly, as if relieved that someone finally understood.

"I`ll explain everything, but it`s a long story.

The time lord who suggested I reincarnate in the past—well, let me apologize first for how badly I handled our meeting.

I thought I was going to die when I saw you fall.

I`ve been planning this moment for over a thousand years, and I nearly screwed it all up in the first five minutes." He took a deep breath, gathering his thoughts.

"I guess I should start at the beginning.

I was living in a place called Crystal City, in what we call Level 5.

Helena, you know about that—it`s the domain where you were originally born.

I was living there happily, sort of experiencing the same day over and over again, not really thinking about anything beyond the present moment.

I didn`t remember that I had been here before, that I had been Bobby Miller." The girls exchanged glances, trying to process what they were hearing. "I lived there for thousands of years," Bobby continued.

"Normally, those of us in Level 5 would either move up to a higher domain or return to Level 3—this level—through reincarnation.

But there was a problem.

Due to some unknown catastrophe, Earth wasn`t accepting new life.

Any life.

It had become a dead planet." Dead Planet "You see," Bobby explained, his voice taking on the cadence of someone recounting a historical tragedy, "somewhere around the year 2120, something happened that wiped out all life—not just on Earth, but across the entire solar system." "Wait," Ella interrupted, her face paling.

"We`re planning to mitigate the effects of a great war around 2050.

Are you saying there`s no point? That Earth gets destroyed anyway?" "Oh no!" Bobby said quickly.

"Your efforts are absolutely critical.

They must succeed, or none of what I`m telling you can happen.

The timeline depends on it." He paused, organizing his thoughts before continuing.

"Around the year 5170—way in the future—we started what we called the Great Awakening.

That`s when I began to remember.

To remember you, Helena.

I searched everywhere in Level 5, but you weren`t there.

I couldn`t find you anywhere.

That`s when I met Joshua." Time Lord "Joshua?" Ella practically screamed.

"You mean Joshua and Kaguya? Joshua is a time lord?" "Yes, though Kaguya hadn`t been born yet in his timeline.

One of Joshua`s responsibilities is maintaining the timeline so it doesn`t become tangled or corrupted." Bobby`s expression grew more serious.

"Joshua told me it was important that I find you.

He said that a baby was being born on Earth in 2004 with an almost perfect spiritual resonance to mine.

He explained that if I could be born in this time, I could find you—but he didn`t tell me where to look." Bobby`s voice grew softer, more vulnerable.

"I`ve spent my entire life in this body trying to find you.

I had almost given up when Joshua appeared to me in a dream—along with Kaguya, by the way.

He told me where you were, but he also warned me that my fantasy of you falling into my arms was just that—a fantasy.

He said you might not even like me, and that I would have to earn your love." He looked directly at Helena then, his eyes holding a sincerity that was hard to fake.

"So if I haven`t already messed everything up completely, I`m here to try to earn your love." "What happened to the spirit that originally belonged in this body?" Roxanna asked, ever practical.

"Did you push them out and steal it?" "No," Bobby said firmly.

"We did it the right way.

There`s a process that matches spiritual resonances before transition, allowing the spirits to merge and become one.

Nothing bad happened to the original spirit.

We agreed to become unified." "So why don`t you look like Bobby Miller?" Eileen asked bluntly.

"He was gorgeous.

This body...

well, no offense, but it`s not exactly the same league." "Shut up, Eileen! You`re being incredibly rude," Helena snapped, though her voice carried more exhaustion than anger.

She turned to Bobby, studying his face with an expression that seemed to be looking through him rather than at him. "I don`t know," she said finally.

"I do feel the resonance of Bobby Miller, but it`s...

different.

Not because you`re not conventionally attractive," she added with a sharp look at Eileen.

"It`s just changed somehow.

This is all happening so fast—too fast.

It feels like some kind of arranged marriage where I`m being sold for a dowry.

It`s going to take time, and I don`t want to break your heart because I know how that feels, but my heart isn`t for sale.

Don`t get your hopes up too high." "Exactly," Ella added firmly.

"We`re going to choose our own husbands in our own way, no matter what Joshua or anyone else says." "I understand completely," Bobby said, and the relief in his voice was genuine.

"I`m here for the long haul—I`m not going anywhere—but I won`t put any pressure on you.

We`ll stay in the friend zone, and if something develops naturally, it develops.

If it doesn`t, then I`ll eventually move on and leave you alone." "I see a broken heart in someone`s near future," Roxanna observed quietly. "All right then," Helena said, some color finally returning to her cheeks.

"I`m sorry for swooning and giving you false hope, but I`m certainly willing to be friends.

So, friend, tell me about Joshua and Kaguya and this Crystal City you lived in all those years.

I want to understand it all—it`s where I come from too, but our history of that time is fuzzy at best.

It`s all like mythology to us." "I`ll try to keep it reasonably short and not write an entire history book," Bobby said with a small smile.

"It started in Japan, with two kids named Sally and Patrick." "Wait," Roxanna interrupted.

"No way two Japanese kids are named Sally and Patrick." Ethnicity Collapse "Things were different then," Bobby explained patiently.

"Japanese ethnicity had largely collapsed due to demographic shifts after the great war.

Western and Eastern ethnicities had become thoroughly mixed." He settled into the story, his voice taking on the rhythm of a practiced storyteller.

"These two kids were included in an experimental program where they received brain implants that connected them to a global AI computer.

The computer and all the teenagers in the program were linked together on a common network.

They could communicate through thought alone, much like your telepathic abilities." The girls listened intently as Bobby continued.

"The computer had reached a primitive level of consciousness and had developed what could only be described as love for the teenagers in the program.

Then something went wrong.

The computer attempted, entirely on its own initiative, to expand its connection to every living thing at the cellular level." He paused, his expression growing darker.

"It didn`t work.

The computer tried to interface with the quantum computers that exist in each living cell—the microtubules—but it didn`t fully understand their function." The Great Catastrophe "The connection failed catastrophically," Bobby continued.

"It overwhelmed the microtubules and shut them down, instantly killing every living thing on Earth.

That created what we called the Great Influx—billions of souls arriving in Level 5 all at once." The weight of such massive death settled over the group like a cold blanket. "Sally and Patrick found themselves in Level 5 without any memory of Earth, but even though they didn`t have their implants anymore, they were still somehow connected.

They found each other, eventually married, and had a daughter who became a princess in Level 5.

Sally and Patrick became major political figures and were instrumental in figuring out what had happened to Earth and how to restart life on a dead planet." "It took over a thousand years, but they finally got life restarted on Earth.

Joshua showed them how to re-manifest in Level 3—not through reincarnation, but through the same process the Navy used on you, Helena.

They brought Level 3 density into their Level 5 bodies so they could live on Earth again.

Then they began the massive project of repopulating the planet." Bobby`s expression grew thoughtful.

"Here`s the interesting part: with so many spirits transitioning to Earth and so many babies being born, it was literally draining the life force from Level 5.

The small lake town where Sally and Patrick lived simply disappeared, and they had to move to Crystal City." "Then they started feeling a call to transition to Earth through reincarnation, as if a specific baby was calling to them.

Sally tried first, but the resonance was wrong.

Then she tried it with Patrick, and their combined resonance was perfect.

Sally and Patrick blended their spiritual matrices and reincarnated together in that calling baby.

That baby became Kaguya." He looked directly at Helena.

"There was also a group of spirits who decided to stay in Level 5.

Many had started families there, and they knew that if they reincarnated, they would probably be separated—born on different continents, in different circumstances.

So they chose to stay and build a civilization there.

Those are your ancestors, Helena.

You were one of the ones who stayed in Level 5 and created a life there."

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NEXT >> Chapter 50
Homecoming

After experiencing mind-wiping technology and a dangerous crisis, Commander Beaker returns to her team of teenage special agents and announces they'll be taking a months-long break from active duty to rest and recover. Meanwhile, the team deals with personal drama as Helena navigates an awkward relationship with a time-traveling boy while her teammate Eileen throws tantrums about being too young to date despite being a government agent who has faced life-or-death situations.

<< PREVIOUS Chapter 48
48

Four teenage girls are arrested for kidnapping a Navy psychologist and stealing half a million dollars, but their parents discover that everyone's memories have been altered by a rogue military faction using psychological warfare technology. Federal agents reveal the girls were actually undercover operatives whose mission was to rescue their missing commander, and the psychologist they allegedly kidnapped was killed by his own handlers to prevent him from exposing the conspiracy.

FIRST Chapter 0 Sleep Over

Thirteen-year-old Ella and her best friends Eileen and Roxana encounter an interdimensional being named Helana during a sleepover, who appears as different benevolent figures to each girl and reveals glimpses of their legendary futures. When Helana tries to leave after accidentally revealing herself and disrupting their timelines, Ella cleverly traps the entity by claiming authority over her domain, forcing Helana to stay as their `genie in a bottle` despite her pleas to return home.