“I just can't focus, Tipsy.”

 

I scratched at my head, frustrated by the lack of concentration. After Cocoa had left, my mind wouldn't stop wandering toward thoughts of her. If she was okay, if Aurora was treating her right, if I could ever bring myself to befriend Aurora, who's tormented me and tried to separate us on multiple occasions, for Cocoas sake. I was scratching at my head so much I had to remove the hair tie keeping my hair in a ponytail before I tore it out and threw it across the room in frustration. After finally giving up on the task at hand, I fell backward onto the pillow behind me that I took off the bed before sitting down to do some work, exhausted and fed up.

 

“What do you think she's doing right now?” I ask Tipsy, turning my head toward her up on the bed. Tipsy was the only one I could talk to right now, but I already had a feeling she wouldn't be much help. Emotions and feelings weren't on top of her list of things to focus on on a daily basis.

 

“I couldn't tell you, Miss Dadalian. I would guess that she is helping Miss Crystalere with whatever she was required of. That is why she left, isn't it?”

 

I shook my head, a smile slowly creeping right behind it. I expected no less, no matter how human I tried to make her it didn't mask the machine beneath.

 

“You know Tipsy, sometimes you're not very helpful.” Done conversing with Tipsy, I push myself up, grab a towel and head for the shower to try and let my mind unwind from the thoughts of Cocoa and the events from earlier today.

 

 

 

 

“Cocoa...” I murmur, looking back over my shoulder down the dark abyss of the basement stairs before heading toward the swinging doors to the kitchen. “Damn it, Random.”

 

When I reached the top however, I looked back over my shoulder one last time to see if Cocoa had followed me up the spiral staircase, but she was nowhere in sight. Not that much of a surprise, I did chew her out pretty harshly. She'd eventually leave though; she was too nice for her own good not to listen, harsh or not. Not that I don't appreciate her for all the help she gives me, but she tries too hard to get close to me. No one should be as close to me as she is... No one.

 

“Ah, Miss Crystalere, if you're done early could you-”

 

“Not now, Geoffrey,” I bark at him, bumping him out of my way as I continue down the hallway. I wasn't in the mood to speak to him or anyone else right now. I was too pissed off with the job given to me. Too pissed off that I wasn't getting any positive feedback, any congrats, any form of “thanks for the hard work”. And after all the failures I've suffered I thought enlisting Cocoa would allow me to have more time to work on it, but it's done nothing but aggravate me even more. And it's not her fault either. And that girls been bugging me ever since I met her at the junkyard...

 

I shook my head and headed toward the staircase leading to the second floor. It was just past the door to the living room with a deep, ocean blue carpet leading the way up. My hand brushed along the wooden banister as I took them two at a time, my thoughts going back to my old life. Before I came here, before I learned of Random, before I met Cocoa. I put the thought on hold as I rounded the corner to my bedroom, the only real place where I could get away from everything; where I could be cut off from the world.

 

After shutting the door behind me, I walked over to the bed and sat down, staring right back at the door, as if expecting Cocoa or Geoffrey to barge right in, see if I was really okay. Maybe I wanted one of them to come in here, ask me how I was doing, if I was feeling alright. And then that other part of me crept up, the part that doesn't want any sort of relationship with anyone. The part of me that loves seclusion, to be cut off from everyone around me and work to perfect what I love at all cost. To make up for what I couldn't do. At one point I was outgoing, but not after...

 

Footsteps just outside the door caught my attention and a small bubble of hope started swelling within my chest. But when they continued on past the door, it popped. As quickly as it'd come it had gone. I knew I shouldn't be getting my hopes up; nothing good ever comes of it.
Sighing, I put my hands behind my head, laid back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, the stress of everything starting to collapse back in on me as tears began to sting my eyes. When I'm around someone, I try to act tough and look like my life is in order, but behind a shut door I'm no better than anyone else. Who ever has their live in perfect order? Rubbing the back of my hand over my eyes, I turn over and grab a pillow, burying my face into it. At that moment, I felt so ashamed, like a loser who abandoned all their friends to focus on their goals. But I didn't have a choice; I never had a choice.

 

“Random, you're a damn lucky woman... You got to choose, you had freedom, you had support... I had nothing,” I mumbled before crying myself to sleep, the anvil of despair crushing my heart. But that's when the stress hit like the full force of a waterfall, and it got much, much worse.

 

 

 

 

I didn't know how the shower I went to take became a bath, but I wasn't complaining too much. I was sore all over from sitting around the house doing nothing for most of the day, so it was nice to dive in, let my muscles relax and unwind. Plus, I didn't want to be standing in the shower either; I just felt like being off my feat. But the second I slid in and leaned back against the tub, I began thinking about Cocoa again. I just couldn't get my mind off of how she was doing, or what Aurora could have her doing next.

 

“Cocoa, what do you see in her, or anyone for that matter that I just can't,” I whisper to myself, slowly dipping more of my body into the water, almost completely submerging myself.
Now that I think about, Cocoa's always had this “air” about her that you could say lets her befriend people fairly quickly. In a way it made me kind of jealous when I first woke up here.
When we first met, she immediately opened to me and even offered to hang out with me without knowing anything about me; name, address, how old I was. It was strange but in a way also comforting. This was also before she helped me get into Hitomi High, so she of course knew next to nothing about me. It was same for Aurora as well; she had just enrolled and already Cocoa was ecstatic to hang out with her after just one encounter. Maybe she felt responsible. I really didn't know, but with how well she talked to everyone else as much as me, it felt like they were trying to take her away from me. That she was talking to me only because it was in her character, her nature. Maybe I just didn't want to be alone anymore after I met her, not having any family and all.

 

“Argh!” I scream, frantically scratching my head. I didn't even know I did that when I was upset. Tipsy happens to stroll into the bathroom at this point, eying me like I'm some psychotic nut bolt to be thrown into a wall till my break ticks again. She did that from time to time, making me feel even worse than I did. Note to self, re-tweak her human understanding.

 

“Is it Cocoa again, Miss Dadalian?” she asks, leaping up onto the sink.

 

I just nod and return to soaking. There wasn't much to say that I didn't already voice to her, but there were also things I didn't want to bring up. Things I needed to figure out on my own. Other's I needed to pay attention to, that I had to apologize to. After entering a few button commands on the panel besides the tub, I sat back and let the machines do the rest as I tried to clear my head.

 

 

 

 

“Hi Ren, how are you today?”

 

A familiar voice catches my attention and I swing my head toward it, blonde hair brushing across my shoulders. It was my biology teacher from my old high school when I'd just started attending. This was her second year through and I've gotten to know her a little better. But back then I was closer to the teachers than I was the students, and because of this I was treated as an outcast or teacher's pet, getting laughed at by the guys and sneers from the girls. I hated it but couldn't do much to change it; no one really wanted to befriend me and the one friend I did have... I heave a sigh and try not to worry about; can't change the past.

 

“I'm okay, Mrs. Miller, just a little tired,” I told her, even though I couldn't understand why I was tired, or why I was back in my old school with my old blonde hair. Something about it all just felt off. Like I just jumped in a time machine and wound up in my old body in my old school, going through the motions as I did once upon a time.

 

“Not sleeping well?" she asks. "I told you before that you don't need to study so hard; you entered this school with straight A's and accomplishments I've only seen from a handful of individuals. You're a bright child Ren, but sleep is still important and you should...”

 

I started to tune her out halfway through; sometimes I swear they only appreciated me for my brain. It was like having a dog and only appreciating it for the ability to protect your home so you could go off and party or get drunk. It was sickening. Thankfully I didn't have to listen to long as the bell went off halfway through her lecture and the kids in the room stopped talking and took their seats.

 

The class went by rather quickly at least and everyone immediately headed to the lunch room afterwards. I followed suit and, after grabbing a tray and finding a seat, I found myself sitting alone. It didn't even bother me though; didn't even faze me. I was so used to being isolated it felt like walking into warm, welcoming open arms of a friend from times past. But before I could take my first bite, the most obnoxious person on the planet crept up behind me, taking me from an okay mood to below negative.

 

“Hey, R-e-n.”

 

I knew right away who was drawing out my name, carefully addressing each character like I was a 2-year-old. Ever since I enrolled here, she's signaled me out as her number one target and won't let it go. I don't know what it is I did to piss her off, but I wish she'd drop it. Perhaps it was because of my blonde hair, so she thought I was ditsy and didn't know up from down? I really couldn't understand her way of thinking.

 

“You know, eating alone isn't healthy for you,” she adds before grabbing my tray and tossing it to the nerd table, causing half of it to end up on them and the other half to scatter across the floor. It did make me mad, but I didn't give in and took it in stride; give an inch and they'll take a mile as my Dad would say. Too bad she was the complete opposite; she'll take miles without you giving her so much as a nanometer.

 

“Whoooops!” she exclaims sarcastically, spilling milk over the front of my shirt. “Guess you should learn to drink with a bib," she finishes before turning around and heading back to her own table. And even though I could keep my anger in check, I could always control my emotions, for some reason today...I snapped. That was the last straw; even I couldn't stay composed much longer than that. I got up so quickly from my seat it actually startled her when my chair fell over and skidded a feet from me. As I marched up to her I was finally ready and going to give her a piece of my mind when the scenery quickly changed.

I was now no longer in high school, nor were my clothes a mess from the milk. Somehow I was back in my old home with my mom and dad. It's been so long since I've seen them I had to do a double take to make sure they were my parents. But I could barely tell because they were silhouetted out in the kitchen while I stood in the dining room, making it hard to truly distinguish if they were or not. And yet I stood there, almost too scared to move; they expected as much as my teachers, if not more and never saw me for who I was. I couldn't talk to them like a normal child could, couldn't even approach them, especially not after... I shook my head and stood there, listening to them rant about how I should be in a college, not some rundown high school where I'm made into a #1 freak show.

 

“She's a natural-born genius,” my dad tells my mom, trying to convince her once again that I don't belong there. I'm almost sure they don't know I'm there or that I'm listening.

 

“I know dear,” my mom replies, calm and collected as always. She's where I get my calm composure form. “But we can't just send her to a college at her age; she still gets B's, although VERY rarely. If she's attending anything in college she needs straight A's, no less. We've gone over this before."

 

My dad just crosses his arms in reply before heading to the table to sit down, grabbing his cup of coffee off the counter on the way.

 

“I'm just saying the sooner the better,” he tells her after taking a long swig of coffee. “She's wasting her talents in that-that run down school.”

 

Exactly like my teachers... It made me sick to my stomach listening to this garbage. Even my own parents didn't look at me like a child, like their own flesh & blood. It was, “Ren's so smart she can do this” or “Ren's capable of this, why don't we put her here?” What about what was best for me? What I wanted? No one ever thought of me, no one even bothered trying. My heart was a block of ice sitting in my chest, no amount of love or warmth able to thaw it.

 

Then everything around me flashed again in a bright, white light, and before I knew it I was back to my normal self. Only difference was there was nothing normal about what I was staring at. It was what you'd call an “out of body” experience. It wasn't the most shocking thing to happen to me in my life, but it was freakin weirding me out nonetheless. She was a little shorter than I am now, had blonde hair that fell just past her shoulders, closer to the center of her back and was a little chubbier than I am now. Guess all that eating I didn't do made me thinner. She must not have known I was there as she was hastily packing a backpack with clothes, basic bathroom utilities and some machines I created a while ago and almost forgot about entirely.

"I miss those days," I whisper to myself, almost wishing I could go back to just doing what I loved.

 

“I hate this place,” the other me mumbles as she continues to pack. I could only sympathize with her; I hated living here. Hated being treated as something unimportant. “I'll leave and do what I want, however I want. And I'll do it by myself!” she fishes, slamming the truck simultaneously. I never knew how effective that looked till now.
“I'll show them,” she says before turning around and starts walking straight toward me. I don't have time to react or move aside before she passes right through me, like I'm no more than a mere ghost; intangible. I spin around to watch her disappear into the bathroom, not even once turning around. “This part I remember more than anything else,” I whisper, running my hand through my, short dyed hair.

 

Knowing it's going to take her a while, I take this time to glance around my old bedroom. It's just as small as I remember it, or I just got older and taller. I couldn't tell. The bed sat opposite the door with a small window just over it, overlooking the neighborhood. The bathroom door was just next to the bedroom door, allowing me to quickly go from a shower then out the door to school. Just to the right of my bed sat my bookshelf and dresser.  To left sat my desk, chair pushed slightly out and lamp left on. My laptop also lay open on the desk, the wallpaper of me winning the 7th grade science fair displayed, my best friend for as long as I could remember standing next to me. I walked over to it and unthinkingly brushed the back of my hand along it, a small trickle of tears passing over my cheeks. I reached up to wipe them away, knowing that at least one point in my life I was happy. The part where I didn't feel like an object to everyone around me, when I had someone I could call a friend. I then head over to the bed and sit down, staring at the backpack while occasionally looking at the bathroom door like I was waiting for some spectacular event to happen. But I knew what was going to happen before it did and continued to stare as a tight knot formed in my gut. Before long the shower began to start, and everything around me went dark.

 

This time I woke up standing just outside the mansion I'm currently living at in Hitomi, Straven, backpack swung over my shoulder. I looked down at my right hand and noticed I was holding a sheet of paper. That paper I held was the sheer reason I was here, the source of most of my hatred toward how everyone treated me. The reason I had to be number one above anything else. Friends, family, any sort of social life. It was the only way people would look at me the way they did at her. It was Random, a picture of her winning the Decade Invention Creation and being called number one genius, who rose through her life without doing so much of anything at all; it just came naturally to her. That science fair, that I had to work year after year to even make my parents look past the outer shell of who I was, and she made it look easy as riding a bike. She had millions see her for who she was at that time. She had friends, family and a life I've always wanted but was just out of my reach.
I crumpled the paper then and tossed it aside; there was no turning back. But within two steps toward the door, a gaping black hole opened beneath me. It happened so quickly I didn't have time to scream as it caught in my throat and the ground collapsed around me.

 

I don't remember what happened after that, but my eyes snapped open quickly as I fell out of bed, hitting the floor with a loud thunk.

 

“That hurt...” I mumble, rubbing my back as I try to stand, using the bed for leverage. “Damn it, Random. Even in my dreams you haunt me. Why couldn't you just stay unconscious in that forest.”

 

After getting my bearings, I hobble onto the bed and sit down, stretching my arms and legs, suddenly feeling stiff. Turning to look at the clock, I noticed only a few minutes had gone by. Surely Cocoa was gone by now and I could head to the junkyard. I wanted to see if I could locate that girl again.

 

“Aurora,” someone calls then knocks against the door, “you alright?" Without even having to second guess I knew who it was: Cocoa. That dimwitted girl... Heh, I couldn't even bring myself to call her anything else; to be honest I was relieved she hadn't left yet.

 

“I heard a loud noise as I was leaving and I wanted to make sure you were okay. Geoffrey showed me the way up here, if that's okay.”

 

“Yeah, I'm... fine...”

 

I struggled to get the last word out. Because I'm not fine. I'm not okay, I'm not peachy, I'm not anything sort of "fine". But I don't want her to know that, don't want to tell her any of that. She's the first person I've met since I've been here that values me as a person, not just some genius who's able to build them what they want or meet and exceed their expectation because you were a genius. I've never had anyone that close to me that's hasn't betrayed me in the end. I still didn't know if I could trust her completely, so my only option was to send her away, as much as my heart ached for a friend like the one I had before this life.

 

“I'm just fine Cocoa, knocked something over. You can go home, I'm good for the day,” I tell her, trying to sound more upbeat. My guess is it must have worked, because after a few seconds of silence she says “okay” and then footsteps begin to echo down the hallway, letting me know she was leaving. “Random,” I start mumbling, turning toward the window, “you are one lucky girl to have a friend like Cocoa.”

 

 

 

 

Rain still continued to splash against the window as I wrapped the towel around me and headed to the bedroom, not bother with the water dripping from my hair. I was finally able to stop worrying about Cocoa after finally relaxing and telling my other half to shut up. Aurora may be a jerk, but she wouldn't intentionally hurt Cocoa. But why did she hate me so much? What did I ever do to her? The questions been haunting me for a while now, but I really couldn't put my finger on it.

 

Sorting through the disaster that was my bedroom, I tried to think of a time or place where Aurora and I could have met, for however briefly it may have been. We were both intelligent, at the top of our classes last I recall. But this is the first time I've gone to school together with her, at least with what memory I could reach out and grasp within my mind before being shut out by iron walls, locking my deeper memories away. It was all still a cloudy fog, and took my focus more than once away from looking for a bra to wear.

 

“I can't figure it out, Tipsy. I know it's been bothering me for a while now, like I've seen Aurora somewhere before, but I just can't place the location or the time or even the date.”

 

After slipping into some undergarments I sat down in front of the machine I'd been working on since before Dizzy came here. She said it had something special about it, but I didn't quite understand it myself.

 

“Just what's so special about this?” I ask myself, looking it over and over for any hint of significance, remembering the words Dizzy had told me.

 

"Another day or two, and it would have overheated and began melting the circuits.”

 

Because I had overlooked something so significant as that I haven't been able to really approach this machine, afraid I'd break something else. Or worse... I didn't want to think about it. Right now it was clear it wasn't going to show me any connection to Aurora. I don't think it could even tell me my fortune. Putting it aside for now, I turn to get up and grab some clothes when I'm suddenly hit with a sharp, head-splitting headache.

 

"What's...going on?" I barely get out through muffled breaths. The strain of it is enough to force me back on my hands and knees, one hand reaching up to the centre of pain to try and alleviate it as sweat began to bead around my forehead and neck. It felt like my head was a piñata ready to burst at the next swing of a wooden bat. I was rooted in place, nothing I could say or do to stop it. Tipsy had moved over toward me, but the pain was so unbearable I couldn't understand a word she was saying; it was muffled and hazy.

 

"Make it...stop..." I tell her, in so much pain I was ready to faint.

 

Before long my body couldn't endure the pain and I slowly started falling in and out of consciousness. My body must have finally reached a limit, because I started seeing flashes of places and people I've never been to or met before; hallucinations maybe. Among them the thing that most stood out were projects, like a science fair. Before I could make sense of it though, the machine behind me started buzzing and humming, as if something or someone finally flipped it to the "on" position. And I know that's impossible unless Dizzy did something to it while I was at school, because I haven't finished constructing it, so there's no way it would turn on for any reason.

 

That's when the flashbacks started to become clearer, and I could make out the name of the fair the event was being held out: Decade Invention Creation. It was the once a decade event where the smartest kids from various schools were chosen to build something creative and innovative, and it happened to land on this year. I had forgotten about it until now. My parents were so elated when they heard about it too, that I was being chosen to participate. But why was I remembering this now?

 

"Damn it, Tipsy! It won't...stop..."

 

I couldn't care anymore about the event or not; the fact that I could remember something from my past made me happy. But the pain of it was too much, and I eventually collapsed, the memories slowly swirling around inside my head as I did.

 

"Well, well Random. For such an odd name, you've clearly come up with something revolutionary," the judge begins, clearly awed by what I've done. But why was she calling me "Random"? I didn't adapt that name till after I woke up in Hitomi.

 

But besides that it was amazing really. There were other booths set up with various kids and parents displaying their works and projects from the classic volcano to advanced animatronics, almost mimicking all human like actions, not just facial expressions or emotions. It was quite something to see. Even in this small building we borrowed each year, the tension wasn't really that high among the other students. It's as if they knew I'd win again this year and didn't even bother trying, despite the time and effort they must have put into their devices and machines. Yet the judges still centered around my project, like I'd just found out how to turn coal to diamonds in mass production or end world hunger, which I was on the verge of doing but still a long, long way off; I couldn't get the formula to cooperate.

 

I didn't pay much attention to them though as I cast my gaze around the booths, eying up everyone and their projects. While the judges were fascinated with my project, and while my parents kept them entertained without the need of my help, I was able to shrink away and do a little exploration of my own.

 

I usually hated coming to these things because I always got swarmed with questions and didn't really like being the center of attention. I preferred to show up, demonstrate and go home. I don't know why, but being part of a crowd wasn't my thing. But even as I walked up and down the narrow walkways, glancing over each students workmanship, there was one in particular that caught my attention, whether from its simplicity to what it did or to the person who made it I couldn't tell. I just felt drawn to it.

 

"Hi," I say, walking up to their table, my eyes going wide as I get a closer look at the diagrams and pictures on the display board. It was like watching poetry in motion at how cleverly it was displayed, how anyone, even without electrical engineering or computer knowledge could grasp what it's trying to portray. I was completely mesmerized by it.

 

"Um, are you, like, okay? You look like an idiot with that dump expression," the girl from the booth says, snapping me back to my senses. She had a slightly chubby figure, blonde hair just above the shoulders, went mostly down center of her upper back. She was about my height with eyes so piecing it made your skin crawl. "I know you're impressed with it; who wouldn't be? But it looks like your project," she points with her chin toward my booth and crosses her arms," seems to be the show stealer."

 

I didn't know quite how to reply to that. I didn't like to be some show off; I wasn't like that. I didn't think of myself as better than anyone else. But everyone else seemed to praise me like a god, and I wasn't comfortable with that. I was smart in my own regard, but I didn't flaunt it around.

 

"Yeah, sorry about that," I tell her, trying to put on my best smile while rubbing the back of my head. "Didn't mean to. I mean, your project looks way better than mine," I gesture toward her project, which looks like a flat, disc shape with an orb hovering above with spikes throughout, purple electricity jumping between them. "So, does it really do what it says it can?" I ask tentatively, hoping she doesn't think I'm trying to show her up. That if her project suddenly fails I've done my job.

 

"Of course it does," she snaps, a hint of anger surfacing. Did I do something to offend her already even though I just met her? Maybe she's always this angry, who knows. "Right now it generates only a small rain cloud with minor lightning, but I plan to build this as a full-scale version; this one isn't meant to scale. As an added effect, I've changed the rain to something that eats away at inanimate objects, slowly but surely. It was built as more of a defense to stop people who used guns or tanks, but I can still generate normal rain with it."

 

She then goes on to demonstrate it by flipping a few switches and going over to what appears to be a portable iPad. As she fiddled with it the electricity on the orb began to change color. I watched as they went from different shades of purple to blue then a dark grayish color, almost like the color of a cumulus cloud. An actual rain cloud then soon began to form about 5 feet above what appeared to be a safe haven from the rain, a place I didn't notice till now. It looked like a tent you'd find during a street fair to protect whatever was being sold from bad weather, kind of like this. But here it was probably placed to demonstrate what it was like from the inside the cloud without getting wet. I don't know how I possibly missed it before. After a few more seconds of swirling, lighting flashes began from within the cloud, followed by thunder, almost as loud as thunder booming from a far distance, as if miles away. Rain then begins to start pouring from the cloud as thunder continues in a rhythmic pattern to the lightning. After another minute though it suddenly stopped, the cloud and everything else disappearing with it.

 

"Damn it," the girl mumbles, probably not wanting me to hear her but I was close enough that I do. "As you can see," she starts, glancing my way, "it works." She then begins heading over to the device and inputs a code on the side of the flat disc part before taking out what appears to be a black, ash colored stone. But it soon catches on the wind and blows away in a mist before I could guess what it was.

 

"As you can see," she starts as she closes the panel, "it's not complete yet." She returns to her iPad-like-thing again without giving me another thought. And even though I feel like I'll never see her again, I still feel compelled to ask for her name, as she did go out of her way to demonstrate her device for me.

 

"My name's Random, by the way," I tell her, trying to get her attention. "What's yours?" I ask, trying to be polite as I can.

 

"It's Ren, and that's all you need to know," she snaps, showing no hint of kindness or signs of a friendship. But before I can prod her any further, the scene switches again to complete blackness, and a faint voice gets my attention, but it sounds far away from here, like tons of blankets are muffling it.

 

"Miss Dadalian," it calls to me. But I know right away who it was, as only one person calls me like that: Tipsy.

 

"Are you alright?" she continues as I struggle to focus on her voice, lost to the darkness. It was hard to tell where I was or see anything at all, like having the sun turned off. Complete and utter darkness surrounded my every thought; not a shred of light got to me. I tried to reply to Tipsy, but nothing escaped my throat; a nightmare turned real.

 

"Miss Dadalian, wake up!" Tipsy cries again. This time her voice pierces through the darkness, but only a little, but it's enough that I can guide myself out from my dark consciousness. But I almost wanted to fall back into the darkness though; that girl-what did she say her name was? Ren?-the negative emotion I felt in her voice brushed over me when I spoke to her, like there was something really pissing her off. It somehow got to me, pulling me toward the darkness, to just let it be over. But then I thought of Cocoa and I hung on. I kept pushing through the darkness, eventually reaching the light.

 

"Tipsy?" I whisper, slowly starting to sit up, realizing a blanket was draped over me. "What...happened?" I ask, head still foggy.

 

'You fell asleep, Miss Dadalian, from a painstakingly harmful headache. I scanned over your body as you collapsed; it was enough to cause you to black out. Your mind was still functioning however, and you were talking in your sleep about someone named "Ren".'

 

"Right..." I remember now. Ren. I don't know who she is or what she had to do with what just happened now, but I had to find out. If I remembered something from my past, I remembered it for a reason.

 

"Also, that machine lighted up and started flashing while you were out cold. It started to go silent as you began coming to."

 

After she finished I cast a glance toward it, sitting there lifeless, questioning if it's what induced the memories to resurface. If it was somehow trying to give me an important glance of something from my past to use now. And not just a moment before I cast the thought aside. But it's not too farfetched to believe it had happened; it did start acting strange right before I blacked out.

 

I snapped myself out of it; I didn't want to think about it right. Right now I wanted to get dressed, lay down and never get up. Thankfully, that wish wasn't far off. I don't know how long I was asleep, but the moon was high in the sky, shining radiantly through the window, indicating I could have my long-awaited sleep and maybe put most of this day behind me.