That night, the wind grew colder, and the forest turned darker than before. The hanging vines swayed like serpents, whispering as the wind brushed past.
Samreth kept feeling like someone—or something—was watching them. Every time he looked around, the shadows seemed to move closer.
"Hands up. Don't move," Sophea ordered suddenly.
They both froze. A faint sound echoed through the air—a murmur, like chanting carried by the wind. It made Samreth's skin crawl.
"What is that?" he whispered.
Sophea didn't answer. She crouched low and signaled him to follow. They crawled forward until they reached a clearing where an old wooden hut stood with its door wide open.
In the open space beyond, hundreds of candles burned in a perfect circle on the ground.
At the center sat a man dressed entirely in white, cross-legged before an ancient stone carving of a lotus blooming out of fire. His eyes were closed, his face calm, though candlelight flickered wildly across it.
Sophea bowed her head slightly. "Grandfather Sovann."
The old man opened his eyes. They were pale but not blind. He looked directly at Samreth before speaking.
"Sophea," he said softly, his voice like wind rippling over water. "You walk again between the world of the living and the dead."
"The dead still find me," she replied. "But this time, I brought someone with me."
She turned to Samreth.
"My grandson, you are the stranger who doesn't belong to this time."
Samreth hesitated. "How do you… how do you know that?"
The old man smiled faintly.
"I felt your arrival the moment you crossed through the storm—rain here, thunder there. And when the pocket watch stopped ticking."
Sophea glanced between them, sad smile on her face.
"You believe him?"
"Belief is unnecessary," said Grandfather Sovann as he slowly stood. "I've been waiting for him."
He stepped closer, his bare feet silent against the damp earth.
"Give me the object that brought you here."
Samreth hesitated, then reached into his bag and took out the pocket watch. Its lotus engraving shimmered faintly in the candlelight, glowing like something alive. Alongside it was his grandmother's journal.
The old man took the watch carefully, cradling it as though it were a sacred relic.
"This is not a watch," he murmured. "It is a vessel. A bridge. The New Lotus."
Samreth frowned. "What does that mean?"
"Long before the war—before the cities—our kings protected a knowledge of time that did not move in a straight line, but in a circle," said Grandfather Sovann. "It was said that when the world's sorrow grows too heavy, the lotus will bloom again, and one soul will be chosen to walk backward—so that they might heal what cannot be healed… or protect what cannot be saved."
He handed the watch back to Samreth.
"The lotus chose you."
Samreth stared at it, his heartbeat quickening.
"But… why me? I'm nobody. I was only searching for—"
"—for the past," Sovann interrupted gently. "Even in your world, you were searching for your me ,for this very time. Perhaps the past was searching for you in return."
Sophea folded her arms.
"If what you're saying is true, why send him here—now—when the country is tearing itself apart? Wouldn't it make more sense to send him to the Angkor era? Or the golden age?"
The old man looked toward the stone lotus.
"Because every wound in history begins in one moment. Changing the time does not change the wound—it only changes where it bleeds."
Samreth frowned. "Changing history? That's impossible."
Grandfather Sovann smiled sadly.
"You've already done it, child—when you saved her from the soldiers."
Sophea gasped. "What?"
"In the true timeline," Sovann said, turning to her, "you died that night near the ruined temple. But now you alive because of him."
Silence fell. Sophea stared at Samreth, disbelief flickering in her eyes.
"That can't be true," she whispered.
Samreth looked back at her. He hadn't saved her—he'd only run, terrified and confused. And yet…
The old man stepped closer, his voice low.
"Every act, no matter how small, shifts the current of the past. The two of you are now walking in a history that no longer belongs to anyone."
Outside, thunder roared through the forest, like the voice of time itself.
Sophea gripped her hands tightly. "If this is true… what happens now?"
The old man gazed at the gathering storm above them.
"The lotus will not bloom again until its purpose is fulfilled. Samreth must find the heart of the world's sorrow—and decide whether to heal it or let it burn."
Samreth's voice trembled. "And if I fail?"
Grandfather Sovann's eyes softened.
"Then the lotus will try again—but it will never choose you a second time."
The candles flickered wildly as wind swept through the clearing, snuffing them out one by one. The carved lotus glimmered faintly under a flash of lightning.
The old man turned back into the shadows of the lotus in to his room.
"Go now. The storm will follow you both. And remember this—love and destiny are on the same river… but one of them always drowns first."
The final flicker of the lotus swallowed his last words—and then he was gone.
Sophea turned to Samreth, her expression unreadable.
"He really wasn't human, was he?" she whispered.
Samreth replied softly, "Maybe not. But everything he said… felt real."
Thunder cracked again as they began to walk once more. Rain started to fall, cold and heavy. Samreth looked down at the pocket watch in his hand. The lotus symbol pulsed faintly with a soft crimson light—like the beating of a human heart.
And though he did not yet understand it, he knew this path ahead was no longer just about survival.
It was the rewriting of the new history.