If I can start over: A new world

V. Learn to hit. Part 2

Thursday the fourteenth of February. After the attack.

I closed the door to the cleaning room behind me. The darkness clouded my vision and locked me in darkness. A click on the ceiling turned on the light. I was no longer in building five, now I was in the men's room in the lobby. I looked around, confused by the journey I had just unconsciously made.

My eyes burned, my tongue stung, my eardrums buzzed. Little by little I was regaining my senses. I walked, still dizzy, riddled with ideas from everything that had happened, to the outside of the dressing table. I went out and took water from the drinking fountain located right in front of the door, and between the two bathrooms belonging to the lobby. I recognized the red emergency phone on the side of the ladies' room. The giant poster nailed to the wall behind me still featured ads for December. I turned around and read them to try to place myself on the current date. Then I remembered that it wasn't necessary, that Francesca was there.

"Where am I?" I asked for "Or when? Rather."

"You continue in Hiawatha," she replied. "The date is December twenty-second, two thousand and eighteen. You have just made your first jump."

"Twenty-two? Christmas hasn't even happened yet."

The room I was in was empty. To my right there were two warehouses, one was exclusively for cleaning and the other where blankets and sheets were kept for the rooms they rented.

Backing around the ladies' room was the entrance to the laundry room. In front of me and under the bulletin board, two benches rested together, which could accommodate at least eight people comfortably at the same time. Along and to the left of the benches, an erect and hard portal led to a small break room followed by the entrance and exit door of the lobby, depending on which part you were in. To my left, another frame started the entertainment room. In the background, I could hear the and of a small ball that in its rebound caused while two people in a tennis fight were.

I was guided by the noise and entered the living room. I saw Ramcés and Junior playing on the tennis table, laughing and whispering to each other. I turned my face, and at the back of the large room, crossing the many bureaus, the pool table, and the soccer hand, I found myself, sitting in one of the armchairs positioned on the left side of the front of the television that rested on the wall.

A pillow rested on my thighs, and on the pillow, a corner laptop to my left, and a sleepy young woman to my right. A hood concealed his face, and his glasses were pushed through the reverse arc his nose drew.

"What are we doing here?" I felt uncomfortable watching that scene.

"You wanted to go back to a time when you were happy," she answered. "Remember? You wanted to leave behind that image that you just saw."

"But why here? I have many other moments when I was happy. Why this?"

"If you wish us to withdraw, there are many doors you can use," Francesca warned me.

"How could I jump if I'm not even asleep?"

"Your astral body must have shed the physical at some point. A Geist only jumps between times when it rests. When you sleep you enter my dimension, and you can move freely just by thinking about it... or using a door if you panic."

"Stop giving me riddles and explain what you know directly, please," I begged her. "If I must walk through a door or sleep on the floor, just say so."

"Okay, whatever you like," she giggled.

I went back the way I had come. I sat on the bench to ponder what was happening. I entwined my fingers and mixed them between my hair. I commemorated what I just experienced a few moments ago. All on the ground, I saw them, all lifeless, I remembered them.

"So that's what I need to fix," I commented.

"Probably, but not definitive."

"I have another memory. Another one of those that get broken."

"Well... then you can't waste any more time. If you don't take care of them, they will continue to create different events, events that disconnect from your life and continue to erase your past, not allowing you to have a future."

"I know how those three memories end, but I don't understand how they can be connected."

"They are not. The rift is modifying some possible pasts, which destabilizes your present, which is only one. You are living on multiple lines at the same time. If you don't correct them, they won't be just three, and you'll be stuck in an endless loop."

"But my future... or my present, I don't really know how to refer to it anymore... it's what I just saw, right? The shooting, the g******e at the residence."

"Yes... sorry." I felt the distress in her voice.

"How do I know that shouldn't happen? What if that was destiny from the beginning?"

"You haven't tried yet and you're giving up… really?" His tone gradually increased as he blamed it on me. "Disasters can thus be avoided. It's not a natural tragedy that it's out of your hands, it's just a psycho who caught everyone off guard, and they only have you to prevent it."

"Yes, but ..."

"But nothing," she growled. "You have done it many times before. I've seen you solve very complicated cracks. This one doesn't look so hard to crack."

"What if the one you witnessed back then wasn't me?"

"There is only one Geist per person. If you wake up, that's the one for all lines. The awakening is unique, so it was you."

"Ok... I understand," I snorted, somewhat discouraged.

"I thought you'd guess like you always do," she growled again. "I don't want to see how you lie down just because of something you just saw and that… well… is strong to witness," I noticed suffocation in his voice.

Something was hiding from me, I was sure of it.

"Can I change something about here?"

"Sure you can, but you shouldn't if the memory is intact."

"What if I want to change the future? What if I want things to be different from how they are now? Without referring to the cracks... just my life."

"You can always go back and undo it. If you don't mind experimenting with what may happen, or what you may forget."

"What can I forget?"

"If you change something and you don't like the result, you will have to change what you replaced at the beginning. If you changed the place of glass, you will have to see how to put it back in place, in the same position with the mirror and at the same angle. If you forget something, the result varies."

"What if I don't touch anything? If I only talk to someone to change things."

"It's easier if you don't move objects around. If it's just a talk, and you don't like how it turns out later, then when you return, you will have to figure out how to avoid it, without you realizing it, without your other self noticing. You must be very cautious with this, or you may accidentally erase your existence."

"How could I see the future... in my dreams?" That question had been in my head since I met her.

"Sometimes I wondered the same thing... strangely, you have that ability without having awakened your geist" she confessed.

"On all the lines?"

"Yes, in all of them. You have an innate gift for oneiromancy, but I didn't discover it."

"Then I'm crazy by inheritance," she laughed at the occurrence.

"You are not crazy. Oh well.... maybe a little."

I stood up and stripped myself of my rest. I left the lobby and left behind that scene that distressed me. I entered the residence through the south door and went up to the third floor. I made my way through the dining room to my bedroom but passed by.

"What are you doing?" Francesca asked me. "Where are you going?"

I didn't pay attention to their claims. I got to her room without realizing my intentions very well. I unloaded my backpack and laid it on the gray carpet at my feet. I unzipped and pulled out my little notebook, gently tearing one of its pages from it. I took a pencil from the small pocket inside the suitcase and wrote a letter, a couple of lines that flowed quickly, without difficulty. I put it in and slid it under her door.

"Why did you do it?" She asked me again.

"Because I'm curious, like you. And I like to experiment."

"Do you realize that that simple letter is what may have caused the rift?" She warned.

"If it is, then let's hurry. That way I give my other self-time to get it out of the room as soon as possible."

"It's the smartest thing I've heard you say in a long time."

I returned the same way that I had taken and entered my room. Holger was absent, and Alvaro was already resting peacefully in his bed.

"What's next?" I whispered as I sat on Holger's bed. "How I choose to what I remember I go first?"

"Whoever is further away. That way you get closer to the present and you don't lose track of time so soon."

"You should have started there. I no longer even remember the date I was, the date I..." I looked at the ground, remembering what I had witnessed once more. The screams bounced off my thoughts and ate at my ideas. I feel like I've been there again.

"What?" I could hear the naivety in her tone.

"Pot," I replied a little groggy. "I feel heavy, somewhat sad, somewhat nervous. Anyone would think that this time-traveling would shock someone who does it in some way, but it doesn't make much of an impression on me, after all."

"It's because, like that first time, you're doing it wrong."