2. Imminent Time

"Am I still dreaming?" She swiftly slapped her face out of curiosity. "Ow!" she exclaimed, feeling the throbbing pain on her cheek.

As she was still left flabbergasted with the sudden turn of events, the door slammed open.

"Congratulations, Zia Scott. You've won an eternity with our high school heartthrob, Edward Bartlett. Woo-hooo." A six feet tall woman with nordic white hair shouted listlessly in monotone as she popped a party cracker, leaving the floor messy with the blown confetti.

"G-gray." Zia's eyes quivered. How was she going to explain? More importantly, the situation itself was the very definition of confusion.

"Hey, kid, who are you? Why are you here? Where's Zia?" Gray looked around the room and even the bathroom, then she turned back to the little girl on the floor. "Hey, kid, you're not supposed to play with this dress. This dress is very important to my friend, 'kay? Go play somewhere else." She tried to take off the dress however, Zia tightly clutched it. "Kid." The expression on Gray's face was turning salty.

"Gray, listen," Zia uttered, staring into her eyes.

Gray's right eyebrow rose. "You know me? But, no, kid, you listen. Take off this dress now before I'll be seeing your mother in court for smacking you." She then used a bit of force to take the dress off of her. "Now, scram off," she said as she hung the dress back on the closet's door.

Zia stood up and paced towards the door. But instead of going out, she closed the door and locked it. "Gray, listen."

Gray looked at her with hands on her waist. "What do you want, kid? I'm busy."

Before proceeding, Zia took a deep breath. "Listen, you might not believe it but I'm Zia Scott. It's me."

Gray scoffed. "Well, hello, little Zia. Now if you'll excuse me I have urgent business with the adult Zia." She approached her and unlocked the door behind her and opened it. "So unless you grow a few years older, I don't need you. Go."

Zia palmed her face. "I forgot this woman has a bitter attitude towards kids," she thought to herself. "What do I do?"

"Go." Gray's voice went louder this time.

Feeling a sense of resolution, Zia slammed the door shut behind her while glaring into Gray's almost translucent gray eyes. "If you don't believe me, I can tell you secrets that only the two of us know."

Gray glared at her for a second, then she retreated and sat on the bed with her legs crossed. "You must be very lonely, kid. Alright, I'll play along with you for five minutes."

"Okay." Zia sighed. "First, back when we were kids, we were playing pretend with Rose, then you got so into your role that you pushed her off the stairs and she had to spend a week in the hospital."

Gray rolled her eyes. "Everyone in the neighborhood knew that. That's why nobody else played with me except for Zia."

"Okay then. In elementary you punched Chad in the face for saying he likes you because you're cute. And you don't like being called cute."

"A lot of other classmates saw that too, not particularly a secret--"

"Your first kiss was a girl!" Zia shouted, feeling frustrated.

Gray crossed her arms. "Good guess, kid," she sneered.

"Back in seventh grade! It was a girl in ninth grade! You had a crush on her. You dragged her inside the empty computer lab and kissed her. You even told me how you liked that she kept pushing you away but eventually gave in. You were practically sexually harassing her."

Gray's eyes dilated. "What the--how can Zia tell a kid that? I thought she's good at keeping secrets?" Her face contorted in anger.

Zia roughly rubbed her face. "Because it is me! I am Zia! We've been best friends with Edward ever since we were kids. I know everything about you. I can even write your autobiography myself."

"Your five minutes is up, kid." Gray stood up with fusing anger. "That woman owes me a punch now."

"No! Look!" Zia pointed at her face. "Look at me! Don't I look familiar? Blue eyes? Blonde wavy hair? Zia has them, right?"

Gray crouched down in front of her. "So do millions of other girls outside, kid." Then she got up and walked towards the door.

"We've been best friends for over two decades. I can't believe you don't recognize me, you closeted lesbian. You're even accusing me of spilling your secrets when I helped keep your secret relationships hidden from your parents." Zia's hands formed a fist, her eyes drooping from sadness.

Already at the door, Gray halted and turned to her. "What are you talking about?"

Zia turned around and met her eyes. "The girls you dated. Helen, Aidyn, Kristen, Kass, Ella, Nieve, Scarlet, Naomi, Annie, Ingrid, Lisa, Olivia, Rachel, Dianne and Sasha."

Gray's brows furrowed. "How do you know those names? I only told Zia about them."

"Your first kiss was with Aidyn. She was also your first love. Your longest relationship was with Kristen, two years. The shortest was with Ingrid, one week. Your last love was Sasha. You were planning on coming out on your second anniversary, but she died. That's why you've never dated anyone for five years now."

Gray looked at her. "Are you really Zia? This is impossible. Why are you suddenly a kid?"

The frustration in Zia's face returned. "I don't know too! I just woke up and realized I turned into a little girl."

Gray sat on the bed with her fingers rubbing on her chin. "Wait, I've seen similar situations in novels. You know, when the main character was about to die but suddenly goes back in time to when they were still a baby to prevent their deaths in the future."

"But I am not dying, more like, I am about to experience the greatest chapter of my life. And I didn't turn back in time, only my body did. The wedding is still today and my twenty-eight years old groom-to-be will stand at the altar waiting for his five-year-old bride in five hours." Zia grabbed on to her hair while walking back and forth.

Gray scowled at her. "Girl, stop moving, you're making me dizzy." She lightly massaged her temples. "And I still can't process the fact that I'm having a serious conversation with a kid. My inner self wants to kick you."

Zia sat on the bed beside her. "So what do we do? I can't possibly walk up the aisle looking like this."

Gray scanned her from head to toe. "Is this a curse? Did you perhaps kick a kid yesterday?"

Zia scoffed. "That would be you."

Gray glared at her, then plummeted down on the bed. "Maybe this is just a dream? I mean, this is just ridiculous."

"But I slapped myself earlier and it hurt."

"Feeling pain doesn't guarantee that you're not dreaming. There's lucid dreaming, you know. Everything is possible inside a dream." Gray pulled on her loose shirt that made her tiny body lie down beside her. "Now sleep."

Clutching on the hope that she would escape this nightmare, she closed her eyes and forced herself into a state of slumber.

***

"...a...ia...Zia...ZIA...ZIA!"

Zia woke up to the violent shaking on her shoulders. "...what?"

"You are still not back!" Gray shouted in panic.

"...what back?" Zia's eyes were still half opened.

"Your body! Look!" Gray raised Zia's tiny hand before her eyes.

Zia abruptly sat up. "What? Then it was not a dream after all?! Oh no, what do we do?!"

"I don't know!" Gray went hysterical, contributing her turn to pace back and forth.

Zia covered her ears from Gray's shouting. "Girl, calm down. We still have time."

"We don't! We slept for four hours! We only have less than an hour now!"

"What?!"

RING RINNGGG RING RINNGGG RING RINNGGG RING RINNGGG RING RINNGGG

The two of them froze as the ringing sound enveloped the room.

"It's your phone." Gray looked at her with a shocked expression.

Zia crawled on the other side of the bed and reached for the phone on the nightstand. "It's...mom," she said, looking at the screen.

"What do we do?"

"You answer it." Zia tossed the phone to Gray, which she barely caught with both hands.

"Why me?!"

"Because of my voice!"

Gray stared at the vibrating phone and the word 'Mom' on it. "Okay." She took a deep breath then picked up. "Hello?"

"Hello? Is this Gray? Where's Zia, sweetie?" It was an old woman's voice, probably in her forties.

Gray glanced at Zia on the bed.

Trying-on-the-dress, Zia mouthed, gesturing her hands down and up to her chest as if she's currently wearing the dress.

"S-she's preparing right now, Theresa." Gray pinched her thigh to stop herself from stuttering. "I just finished doing her makeup. She's trying on the dress now."

"Oh, alright, sweetie. The wedding car is on its way. You're not supposed to ride with her but you're helping her prepare so you can just get in the car with her."

"Okay, roger that, ma'am," Gray tried to sound enthused. " We're almost done. We'll be there in a jiffy."

When the other line hung up the call, Gray dropped to her knees. "Seriously, what do we do?"

"Wait, I feel--" Zia paused, groping her body. "I feel weird, I think, I think I might be turning back now."

Gray jolted up in surprise. "Really? What do you feel?"

Zia continued to grope her body with uncertainty in her eyes. "I feel a bit dizzy and weak...and uncomfortable."

The gray hues in Gray's eyes gleamed. "You might be turning back now!"

***

As the band started to perform, the wide door of the church opened and bridesmaids paced slowly down the aisle. However, the wedding car was still nowhere to be seen.

Then, the ring bearer trudged along the red carpet in his little steps. And right when the flower girl was entering, the wedding car screeched to a halt in front of the door. As the little girl spreaded petals on the carpet, the song was reaching the chorus. When the door reopened for the bride's entrance, a fresh breeze blew past the door that momentarily interrupted their eyes followed by the sunlight reflected on the tiled floor.

Edward Bartlett whispered underneath his breath, "There she is."