Chapter 1 : Return to the Past
"Can you even hear what I'm saying, Zain!" a voice barked.
Zain groaned as he sat with his head thrown back on the sofa and a book resting on his face to cover it.
He moved his hands for a couple of seconds and finally found the remote to the television that played the role of giving him a background noise.
Zain then removed the book from his face and dropped it to the side.
His eyes scanned the room and as much as he did not show his true emotions, Zain was surprised beyond doubts that he was right where he sat.
For a few hours now, the young man has been trying to process what was going on with him.
A dream?
That was not possible.
This scene, right here, felt too real and weirdly enough, he remembered it like it was yesterday.
Hearing his name had startled it back to this reality and there was nothing he could do but rack his brain to truly understand what was in play here.
He remembered this setting—every member of his family was gathered, even his grandparents.
This day was peculiar in the sense that it was the first time they were all coming here since he moved to this place.
How could he not recall it?
"Zain Hargreaves!" the short elderly woman yelled again. "Isn't it you that I'm talking to?"
This woman was wizened, probably in her mid sixties. She was Zain's grandmother.
Zain groaned again, this time to the discontent of his grandmother.
"I can hear you, grandma," he answered casually, putting no spirit to his voice.
The old woman exhaled, her sagging cheeks twitching with anger at the younger Hargreaves.
Zain, on the other hand, was starting to get a hang of it.
'I didn't die,' he thought to himself. 'I've been reborn and better off, sent to the past. From what is going on right now, today is the day that…'
"Don't be an ungrateful brat," the old woman enforced, stamping her cane loudly on the floor, much to the surprise of the rest present.
Zain glanced at cane first and then shifted his eyes to her, not reacting but maintaining a cold gaze.
"This woman…" his grandmother began, pointing her cane to another woman, younger than her but still middle-aged.
"She took you in when your useless mother ran away and now, we are requesting a little favour from you and you can't do it? I'm not surprised, I always said that you are not a true Hargreaves."
'I knew it!' Zain snapped happily. 'It is that exact day.'
Zain recalled what today was and what happened as a chuckle escaped his lips. He couldn't believe that it ended the way it had done in his previous life.
These people had come here to ask him to release his house to his stepbrother, simply because the latter wanted to get married. Not only that, they wanted him to refurbish the place and hand over the keys just like that.
Zain started to laugh because this time around, he found it funny.
This was the kind of family madness that drove his mother away while he was still a little boy that made him not feel the embrace of the woman who gave birth to him.
Zain shifted his guess to his stepmother who immediately averted her, faking a smile for the others to see.
That woman. She was a witch and a perfect actor.
Zain exhaled, recalling how she could play the role of the perfect mother only when others are watching and turn into the worst witch of medieval fantasy when there were no eyes to monitor her.
Her initial fake smiles and facade of motherly care had deceived him when she newly entered the family, only showing her true colours letter on when the Hargreaves had acknowledged her and her son.
Why did they hate Zain and his mother so much?
Even he didn't know the answer.
All he could recall was that he has always been the black sheep of the Hargreaves family for as long as he can remember.
The Hargreaves treated him like garbage in his previous life.
They took everything that he could call his, even attempting to sacrifice him just so they could get to safety when the world was suddenly turned upside down.
Yes! That day was coming.
The day the world would be thrown into an unfathomable chaos. It was close.
The coming of the apocalypse was only fourteen days away and only Zain knew that.
This family that she had stupidly sacrificed everything for in the past, just because she wanted their affection—to feel the emptiness he had in his heart.
Yet, they tossed him away and abandoned when he was no longer of use to them, allowing him to fight for his life alone.
Zain felt like stabbing his past self straight into the heart and watching him bleed out.
He was boiling inside of him but refused to show it.
These people did not deserve anything good.
As he recalled, they had come here in their numbers and with gifts of food and drinks just to lobby for his favour.
When Zain refused, they became more and more aggressive, abusing him with their tongues like he was the devil himself.
He glanced at the table and saw the gifts they had brought for him.
Zain said nothing to his grandmother and simply stood from the sofa, heading straight to the centre table where everything was carefully placed.
He took a bottle of wine and glanced at it, taking his time to admire it before opening it up.
What happened next left the Hargreaves baffled.
"You fool! That's an expensive wine that you can't even afford!" his grandfather lashed out at him.
Zain turned to the old man and grinned. "I was under the impression that you all brought this for me. Oops! Was I wrong?"
Everyone was surprised, their eyes growing wide at Zain's newfound madness.
"It's for you, dear."
That voice. It was his stepmother.
Her voice ached his heart and to top it off, she was giving that evil smile of hers, but was immensely enraged inside of her at what Zain was doing.
Zain continued to pour the wine on the floor without regard for any of their opinions as he maintained his grin, coming off as a crazy person.
"Then… doesn't that mean that I can do whatever I want with it?" he asked, his eyes turning to a certain person in the group.
"Isn't that so, my dear stepbrother?"
******
Author's Note: This novel is entered for the 2025 July/August WPC contest. Do support the book to win if you enjoy it.
Thanks.
RB