Sacramento: The City of Mystery

A Warp in Time

Everything seemed to be going down perfectly, but Justin kept monitoring everything that went on around him closely for discrepancies - Indeed, his instinct had never ever been wrong; not even for a minute. It was down to the final few moments of the year and the band had paused their live performance to deliver the traditional countdown into the New Year while everyone lit candles.

"Thirty, twenty nine, twenty eight..." the ecstatic crowd chorused, with a candle in one arm and had their fingers crossed on the other. There was just a euphoria of counting down into a fresh round of days - it was really evident here.

Justin's heart raced even quicker as the final ten seconds of the countdown approached. He searched with his eyes from left to right and then suddenly he began to hear a timer beep heatedly. It appeared he was the only one who heard it as the entire crowd still bounced in joy and expectation. Immediately, he took to his heels to find the exit as quick as he could; he bumped into one of two shoulders on the way, but without any apology. The frequency of the beeping hastened by the second and for the first time since the morning of his heroine's death, the ominosity had really gotten to him.

"Three, two, one..." The audience chorused before a long cheer followed. Justin was still finding his way to the exit when the long hysteria quickly switched to utter horrification. The swarming audience seemed to have been terrified by the sight of something unpleasant. As Justin turned his back to determine the source of terror, he beheld a full glowing moon which had a red ankh drawn at it's center. It shone brighter and brighter until it uncontrollable light burst and supposedly shut everyone's eyes. 

"That hell of a year might just have been there first part of a two parter" Justin thought to himself, despite just having lived roughly a minute of it. Justin staggered and fell just as the blinding light overcame him. 

Back in his bed and snugging his pillow, Justin found himself waking up to what was a bright and promising new morning right on the cusp of his bedsheets. As soon as he regained full consciousness, he began to check his body for scars, injuries, cuts or any abnormalities - his first guess was that he was being restored from a comma after a 'stampede' from the Avvins Concert.

"What the hell happened here?" Justin said, having got up to look through his louvre. Having endured what was one treacherous knick knack of a year, the sight of the neighborhood from his room looked so peaceful - children taking walks with their parents, holding balloons and fiddling with the snow while skipping joyfully, people purchasing ice cream cones without any questions to the vendor about it's price?

"Could this new year be the paradise?" Justin thought to himself, still a bit curious about all he had observed. Then suddenly it hit him! 

"Zoey, Dann!" he said, remembering his closest pals who had stuck with him for well over a decade, helping him endure his darkest hours. He picked up his phone and rung them instantly - before he did that he had seen the now customary 'Happy New Year' iMessages from both Zoey, Dann and a few more relatives.

"Hi Cee!" Justin began, immediately his call got connected.

Zoey and Justin had been in a relationship once upon a time, while they were still high school tweens a few years down memory lane, prior to their mutual friendship with Dann. Things just got a little complicated and so they had to take a huge stance - they were only little kids just hopping into teenhood then and so there wasn't too much they knew about such relationships. Years on from that occurrence, they've established an excellent friendship trilogy with Dann Downey - a brown haired teen with some very sassy tendencies.

"This is Zoey Hoppe. Valedictorian from Sacramento Hugh's class of 24. I'm not home right now. Please leave a message after the..." Zoey's automatic voicemail message played out instantly, and Justin didn't really have the patience to hear it through to the end.

"Wow, Valedictorian from SH23' huh. Way to make the rest of us look like total slackers, Zoey!" Justin said, shortly after hanging up. A few moments later, Justin readied his cell phone to try his luck at reaching Dann, but he was just halted by a loud knock on his door.

"Come on in! It's open" said Justin, with his face firmly fixed on his phone.

"Hi Justie! A happy new year to you my boy!" said the oncoming voice. Justie? No one ever called him that except his... and that voice it sounded so familiar, so popular in his head. Instantly, he looked up and his eyes couldn't believe!

"Mom!" he said, as he jumped out of bed to give his 'lost but now found' heroine a big big hug.

"Is it really you Mom?" Justin continued, as he just couldn't hold back the excitement and the adrenaline.

"Of course Justie..." middle aged Mrs. Huytema said between intermittent chuckles.

"Who do you think it was? Not me?" Mrs. Huytema jokingly asked.

"Whatever Mom, I'm just glad you're here!" 

"Oh my..." Mrs. Huytema said, knowing very well that her only son Justin wasn't one who hugged too often.

"Are you okay son? It sounds like the new year fever got you real good. How'd you enjoy the candle night at the Downey's with Dann and Zoey?" Mrs. Huytema asked stirring a strange reaction from Justin. He was at one hell of a concert last night with the Avvin's; what was his Mom going on about? Something strange was going on and he needed to get to the root of it.

"Son?" Mrs. Huytema further queried seeing her Justie was stuck in a sphere of thoughts.

"Uhm yeah, I mean it was fun. The candles, the lights, Dann and Zoey! Really epic night Mom" Justin replied, in order to ward off his mother's scrutiny.

"I'm glad you had fun. Let's hope 2025 matches the huge hype it's been receiving on the media" said Justin's Mom, before making her way out of the room. Her final statement did get him a bit bothered. '2025' was the year described by many as one of the worst mankind had ever experienced, and his Mom's statement could have implied that they were about to live it all over again.

"Perhaps she made a simple error. It can't be" Justin kept saying to himself, trying to wipe off the ominous thought that had trodded his mind. While he paced round the room with his stomach grumbling loudly, an idea suddenly hit him.

"That's it!" he says, as he runs to check his phone's network provided time and date; he couldn't believe it - 'Jan 1, 2025' it read right at the top of his screen.

This was turning out to be very mysterious! Could he have been dreaming, or lost in the great beyond of chronological thoughts? Justin slapped himself, punched himself and did everything necessary to try and cause himself pain to wake him up supposedly in reality, just in case he had dozed off or snapped, but no, he was still right here in this mystical timeline. He immediately remembered his mother who passed away on the 4th of February in 2025, after she had been diagnosed of blood cancer a month prior - his memories were still very much intact. 

"That's why she's still alive!" he said to himself, as he sunk to the floor with his back against the door.

"It's like I'm back in the past, and I remember exactly how everything went down! Wait a minute...I even remember that on New Year's morning we had..." he continued in soliloquy, only interrupted by a knock on the door from his Mom again. She'd come to tell him that breakfast was waiting for him down in the living room. 

"Justie! Breakfast's ready! Hurry up and get it before it gets cold alright?" said Justin's Mom.

"Okay Mom, but please tell me...does our breakfast happen to be waffles and syrup with bacon and hot chocolate?" Justin responded, trying to see if his suspicions were correct.

"Yes that's exactly it, but wait how'd you know that? Ouuhhh never mind, just do me a favour and wash up the dishes when you're done Justie" she said as she returned to the living room to watch out for any impressive New Year programming on television. Justin had become really tensed. He needed some answers and fast; he most certainly couldn't get them by sitting at home all day and waiting for them to hit him in the face; but first he needed to eat something - he was absolutely starving. Then he remembered he had skipped dinner on the night before hoping the Downey's would offer them something to eat following the lengthy candle night at their residence, but he thought wrong. Justin then concluded on heading out in his bike to go see Zoey and Dann to know if they were experiencing the same problem; if they were also stuck in the past from the Avvins Concert. He ran downstairs with the last ounce of energy he had to get breakfast; he felt he'd faint from exerting his mind with so many thoughts had he hesitated a moment further.

A while later, after he had quenched his hunger, Justin set out for the Hoppe's residence where he 'hoped' to find Zoey. Although, her voicemail messenger had clearly spelt out the fact that she wasn't home at the moment, he felt he was riding on thin luck now. He was forced to bare the short trip on foot after he recalled he had postponed the repair of his bike for so long in the final few weeks of the year 2024. The New Year temperatures were still really low and snow was spilled all over the sidewalks. Justin had planned to go to Zoey's without a coat in these low temperatures, but Mrs. Huytema would very much chew a scorpion than let that happen.

Justin arrived at Zoey's and knocked a few times before he got a response from someone inside telling him to hold on for a few moments. Zoey finally got to the door and she was surprised to see who had come visiting.

"Justin?" she said; he hadn't set foot at her residence for quite a while.

"Hi Cee! Happy New Year?" Justin said, finding the words hard to come by.

"Uhm Same to you Jus. Just tell me there's a special reason you're here"

"Well yeah, but Cee why'd your number say you weren't home when I called?"

"Sometimes, I set my phone number to say that when I'm watching a movie or doing my laundry or..."

"Cee! What year are we in?" Justin hastily interrupted; he wasn't under any form of pressure whatsoever, he just felt deep down that he had limited time to sort things out. Zoey hesitated a whole before answering - it appeared the wrinkle in time had caught her in it's stride as well.

"Come in" she said, before Justin made his way into the Hoppe's residence. Zoey might have had some answers, or perhaps clues that could help get them. A mystery was unfolding.