Chương 24: Chapter 23: Living in a Dream

The gentle, blue glow of the crystal began to fade the moment I let go of it, falling into Gav's outstretched hand.

"Incredible…it has to be some kind of wireless…something. I don't know for sure, but I think we can try it out safely."

"Are you sure you're ready?" Oliver asked me, worry laced in his voice.

"We don't have to do this tonight."

"I'm fine." My voice responded instinctively, trying to reassure him.

"Besides, it's my own memory, right? It's not like I haven't felt it before." Emily looked at me one last time, then reached for the flashlight.

"Lean back for me." I did so, looking at the light and taking a deep breath. Gav plugged the crystal into the box once again as I looked at the flashlight, waiting for it to be brought back to life.

"Tess, can you see a new file here?" Gav asked, going through the file system, knowing where he'd find a new file if one was created. I turned and looked at the box.

"Yeah, there!" I guided him to the most recent file put into the system.

"That's one we haven't seen before."

"Perfect, that's got to be it, then. Okay! I think we should be ready to go!" Nodding to me and then to Emily, Gav gave her the go ahead. Emily turned on the light, and once more, I was immediately in the white void. Taking a deep breath, I felt like I had a bit more control, now knowing exactly what to expect. After I closed my eyes and reopened them moments later, I found myself back in the basement. I was scared, upset, shaking as I ran from everyone there. I knew I'd hurt Oliver, but I had to get out of there.

I had to leave before I hurt anyone else. The crystal thudded against the stairs, right at my feet while I bolted from the house. I couldn't close my eyes. I didn't want to close my eyes. Every time I tried, I'd see his face, hear his words. He'd blame me, accuse me for everything. I knew the real John would never blame me, but it didn't stop me from feeling like it was real. All the time, I'd kept telling myself I didn't want any of that night to happen.

No amount of wishing could change what happened, but if I could, I would go back over and over again until I could save him. The stars shone brilliantly in the dark Colorado sky, giving me something to admire, to keep my focus away from that nightmare. Instead, I found myself thinking about my journey to Oliver's house, when I'd looked up at the stars every night. Just like then, I couldn't stop wondering where my home was, and why the others around me had sent me here. That crystal they'd given me…

it had to have answers on it. They had to have given it to me for a reason. Am I supposed to find them? Were there supposed to be others with me? After all, we knew there were others like me. Are they still alive? Did they get here around the same time I did, and do they know more than I do? I was just a baby when I arrived on Earth, so maybe someone older would know. Is the original owner of the crystal here, too? The sound of the squeaky front door made my ears twitch.

Even though I didn't bother to look to see who was coming, I heard the wheels from Oliver's wheelchair trudging through the hard, frozen ground. My eyes filled with tears again, thinking about what had happened… what I'd done. I didn't mean to hurt him. Throwing him was something I felt horrible… no, ashamed for doing.

"... hey…" Oliver said, drawing out the word, sounding as uncomfortable as I felt. Clearing his throat, he continued.

"Sorry I didn't turn that thing off as fast as I should have. I…didn't know anything was going wrong until it was too late." I turned onto my side, facing away from him. How could I even speak to him after what happened? Right now, it was best if I was just left alone.

"Gav says he thinks he knows what went wrong. He's looking into some ideas now and…Tess…can you look at me? Please?" Only to try and get him to leave me alone, I lifted my top half, turning to him. With my face soaked from tears and half-covered in snow, I know I must have looked terrible.

"Tess, it's okay. I'm fine, Emily's fine, we're okay… okay?" Oliver paused for a moment before he opened his arms for a hug. How could he possibly say something that selfless? I expected them to be terrified of me, or at least angry with me. Still, I wanted the pain in my hearts to go away more than anything else. It stung even worse than the night of the fire. I hopped into Oliver's chair, sitting in his lap as I hugged him tight. My face pressed into his shoulder as I cried, and cried… and cried.

It was only a few minutes, but it felt like hours as I simply let all that pain dissipate out of my body. I wanted it gone. Oliver held me for a few minutes as we sat in silence. The night was quiet, with only the sound of creaking trees in the light wind interrupting my sobs.

"... I saw…terrible things…" I spluttered out, quietly. Oliver squeezed me a little tighter, but didn't say anything. He made me feel safe. With him there, it didn't feel quite as terrifying to recall everything.

"... he…said it was my fault that he died." I admitted, leaning back from Oliver so I could see him properly.

"I…I know he would never say that to me, but…it felt real. It felt like he was right…he was right here." I didn't know what hurt more, those words…or feeling like he was so close to me after he'd been gone for what felt like so long. Oliver nodded, looking at the ground.

"I'm sorry you saw that. We were all so excited, I don't think any of us expected…any of that to happen. If you want to stop, we can stop. We don't ever have to do that again." Thinking about it for a moment, I shook my head, slowly but confidently.

"No, I want to keep going. I…" Gaze drifting to the stars, I looked at them curiously, then the planets, then my eyes settled on the vague, dim glow of the Milky Way Galaxy.

"I need to know." I finished, feeling Oliver looking up at the stars with me. As he answered, I could feel Oliver smile.

"... alright. Like I said, Gav has some stuff to go over with you. I think he knows what went wrong."

"They're not angry with me…right?" I asked. Oliver shook his head.

"No, if anything, Gav is more upset with himself. He'll explain why."

"And you?"

"No, no, I'm fine. You didn't mean to do it. You were startled. Besides…heh, I had no idea you were that strong!" His warm smile was reassuring, but I still felt bad about what happened.

"Thanks, but I'll, uh… try to never do that again." I said, giving him one more hug before I hopped off his lap. A bit more calm and confident, I headed back inside the house with Oliver, parting ways long enough for him to take the elevator. As I reached the bottom of the stairs, I found Emily and Gav, both intensely focused on the computer monitor. They had that familiar text on the screen, but this time, multiple files were spread across the various monitors.

Emily was going back and forth between a screen and a piece of paper in front of her, holding a calculator in her hand. Gav was scrolling through a different file. I approached, trying to see what they were inspecting, but I couldn't make any sense of it, myself.

"... is everything okay?" I tentatively asked. On instinct, Emily jumped, nearly falling back in her chair.

"Gah!" The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. I jumped back a bit, myself, not expecting such a visceral reaction.

"Sorry, sorry!"

"It's…ugh, sorry. It's okay, I was just really focused. Are you okay, Tess?" Emily asked, catching her breath as she turned to look at me.

"I'm…I'll be okay. I'm sorry I pushed you like that, I don't–" I started, but Emily shook her head.

"It's fine, we have way more important things to focus on." I blinked.

"Are you sure?" Gav turned, tapping his pencil to the table, a light scowl on his face.

"Hey…so, that was totally my fault. I want to be the first to say I take full responsibility for it." My head tilted a bit, an eyebrow raised.

"Sorry, but how was any of that your fault?"

"I, uh…" Gav tapped his fingers together, trying to think of how to tell me whatever he needed to tell me. Emily gave him a gentle slap on the shoulder.

"Mr. Genius over here forgot that he changed the timing of it and didn't think to change it back to what it was originally."

"I'm sorry! I was excited and…look, I'm putting together a checklist now, okay?" With a sigh, Emily shook her head.

"Oh, great…after we traumatize Tess, that's when you decide to put together a checklist. Super."

"Hey, you knew about those changes I made, too. I didn't hear you say anything about it." Gav pouted.

"I didn't know I had to hold your hand for everything. You might be putting all these things together, but I don't think you're organized enough to control this stuff. You've got to focus, keep a checklist of everything, and most importantly…"

"Blah, blah, blah, okay mom, I'm sorry I didn't do my homework, I'll be sure to run it all by you next time so you can be sure I've been a good little boy."

"Can we do it again?" I asked, just before Emily jumped in to respond to Gav's sarcasm.

"Don't give me that routine, you little shit. I swear, if you'd just focus more on what you're doing–""I want to do it again!" I yelled over them both, causing Emily and Gav to look at me, stunned.

"What?!" Both voices rang out simultaneously.

"You said you knew what was wrong, right?" I asked, shrugging.

"So, fix it. Then we'll do it again." They both looked at each other, then back to me. Clearly more certain than Emily, Gav spoke first.

"Alrighty! Sounds good! Here, let's get you set up…"

"No!" Emily stopped him.

"Gav, we…Gav, we literally just talked about this." She was shaking her head. I crossed my arms, looking at Emily.

"I can handle it, Emily. I promise."

"It's not that," she said, "we have something to show you first." Pulling a chair out and next to herself for me, I quickly sat next to Emily as she pointed at the screen.

"This here?" She said, indicating one of the text files.

"This was from you, when you grabbed the crystal. I don't think you saw it, but when you held it, it was glowing blue."

"It was glowing?" Only now did I realize the crystal was back in the box.

"I…no…I didn't notice that." Gav nodded.

"Right, it was glowing while you were holding it. We were able to read off it a bit, and it looks like you created a new file. It's strange, though…each block of code seems to start the same way as the one from before, but it diverges quite a bit from there before going back again in a cycle. Luckily, since the file was so small, I was able to see all of that. These larger files though, they're something else. Interestingly, the ending bit, tacked right on at the end? That's all the same, too."

"Tess…" Emily carefully looked at me.

"... I know this won't be easy, but… can you tell me exactly what you saw when you were in there?" I nodded. Keeping my composure wasn't easy, but I told her everything I saw, every detail I could remember. The different scenes with John, the horrible things I saw, the way the scenes played out and how they transitioned, how I was able to snap myself out of the memory… I told them everything. Emily listened intently, taking notes as I described the memories.

When I finished, she reclined a bit in her chair, mulling it over as she looked back and forth between the files on the screen.

"Okay…we overlooked a few important things here." She concluded, tapping her pencil. Gav threw his hands in the air, annoyed.

"Yeah, I get it! I forgot to change the timer! Jeez, can we please–""Shush, you! Not just that!" Emily scolded him.

"If we're right–and I think we are–these are all pointers to neurological pathways, right? Well, it wouldn't make sense for those pathways to be exactly the same from person to person. The brain is going to create its own paths. So, if we play someone else's memories through you by directly stimulating specific paths, you're going to have totally different memories and experiences in those places. I think that's why you were experiencing those random scenes.

We were pointing to locations that–for all intents and purposes–were random." Even though it mostly seemed logical, one thing didn't make sense.

"What about John?" I asked.

"Those weren't memories, he was talking to me. He's never said those things to me…so why was he different?"

"I think I know." Oliver answered, wheeling closer to us.

"Gav, you said all of these files have timestamps. You chose to play that file because it was the shortest, but did you see when it was recorded, compared to the others?"

"Oh, right! Yeah, that's what we were going over while you two were outside." Gav nodded.

"I didn't notice it before, but this was actually the second to last file on the whole thing. It has the second oldest timestamp. Going through them all, all of them seem to be pretty close together, except for the last one. It looks like it was recorded much later."

"How much later do you think?" Oliver asked.

"It's hard to say, but if I were to guess?" Mulling it over, Gav answered a moment later.

"Years, maybe decades. I was looking over the last file here and it has a completely different pattern to it." Oliver nodded.

"And what about the one Tess just made?"

"Also a completely different pattern, different from the first two." Having kept an ear on the conversation while looking over her notes, Emily gave them one more glance before turning to us.

"It sounds like the last one was from a different person, then. It's just like this newest one: a different person's memories will be mapped completely differently."

"So I think this is like…a diary of sorts?" Gav theorized.

"Maybe a collection of memories? But it goes blank for years, then someone else records something on it, and now it ends up in Tess's hands. How does that tell you what the last bit of data is, though?" Frowning, Oliver tried reasoning through an answer.

"Well…whoever this crystal belonged to, they made entries pretty regularly, and one day, they just stopped. When Tess experienced them, they were disturbing: horrifying thoughts, regrets, shame…blaming themselves for something and for bringing harm onto themselves. I think that last piece of data at the end of every string might be an emotion." Feeling something odd in the room, I turned to look at Emily, noticing her staring off into the distance. The color from her face had paled.

"Emily? Are…you okay?" I asked. Emily spoke softly, continuing Oliver's idea.

"The signals were activating memories, but injecting an emotion into them. Since it was running slower than it was supposed to be, it gave your mind time to fill in the gaps on its own. You saw random memories, but created a scenario that filled the same emotion the previous owner was feeling when they created this file. But…this was the last thought they'd had before their memories ended." She paused.

"I think these were the final thoughts of someone who was dying." Silence dropped into the room like a brick crashing through a skylight, the heavy weight settling around us. Even if I didn't know what everyone else thought about it, to me, it felt disturbing, feeling as if we were prying into one of the most personal parts of someone's life. Oliver must have thought the same, quietly saying what I was thinking.

"They wouldn't have given this crystal to Tess without a reason. I think we're supposed to find out what's on it." Everyone nodded in agreement, myself included. If these thoughts were meant to die with the previous owner, they'd never have given me the crystal in the first place.

"... I want to try something." Gav said.

"Tess, when you held the crystal, you created a new memory in it. That's a memory we don't want to revisit…but, what if you made a new one, right now? You threw the crystal down on the stairs as you ran up them. If you make a new one, would it start a new file? I have a feeling it might! It'll probably start where the last one left off. I can set the machine back to its original speed and we can try playing your own memory back to you." He paused, giving a reassuring nod.

"No concern over any mismatched neurological patterns or anything. It'll be you, playing back to you."

"Hm…" It sounded simple enough. I looked at Emily, wondering if she had any objections, but she seemed to agree. I nodded.

"Okay, yeah. Let's give it a shot. How do we start?" Gav pulled the crystal out of the box, holding it out to me.

"Last time, it started when you held it." I took it from him. Like he said, it started glowing blue as I softly squeezed it. Emily quickly checked her watch, then scribbled a note on her paper.

"Wait, why did the crystal never do this before now? I've had it for a while, but it's never done this."

"If I had to guess, it's because you never took the lid off." Gav reasoned.

"Oh, right…I always kept it as a necklace." Emily tapped the recliner.

"Here, why don't you hop up here before we get started?" I nodded, quickly getting comfortable in the chair, looking up at the light. Gav held out his hand for the crystal. I handed it to him and waited. Moments later, I was back in the white void, but it lasted only a few seconds before the world faded back to its normal shape. Oliver, Emily, and Gav were all looking at me excitedly.

"So?" Emily asked. I grinned.

"It worked. Between me throwing down the crystal and letting it go again, I experienced the whole thing, all of it. Everything we said, the emotions I felt, it was like I was reliving it entirely…it's…wow…" I looked at the crystal, still smiling.

"... it's unlike anything I've ever felt before."

"Fantastic!" Gav beamed.

"I'm going to have to look through all of this, but I've got some…ideas…"

"Gav…" Oliver said, warningly. This time, I recognized that tone Oliver had mentioned when Gav got an idea.

"Do you trust me?" He asked. Emily's response was immediate.

"No."