If I can start over: A new world

IX. You have to catch up. Part 1

I walked through the kitchen door and started the day, all over again. Now there were three personifications of me wandering the world, apart from the current one, which had appeared in the laundry.

"This time be more intuitive, child." I felt a little suspicious. Next time I save my tantrums and stay silent. "Think with your heart, not your brain."

"Actually," Francesca interjected. "If you want him to be more intuitive, he should think with the pituitary gland, which secretes hormones that cause fear by acting as a sensor to the outside world, and not with the heart, which only pumps blood, and well... that's its only function." I liked Francesca much more, definitely.

"Can you lock up the nerd again?" Vuk complained.

"I need someone to watch our backs, in case an ogre or another wild beast appears again," I replied, and felt the aforementioned smile.

"Okay..." the Ewok growled. "I guess you have a point."

I waited for my first self to come out the front door behind the group of five from the beginning.

"We can't use this door," I said. "We're in the small waiting room. They'd easily see us."

"Is there no other way out?"

I turned around and went through the laundry on the right side, where the entrance door was located, connected to the lobby, and the exit door, attached to a small garden that at that time was buried in snow.

"It's a trellis, kid, do you want me to take it down for you?" Vuk suggested.

"No, I think I know what to do..."

I approached the metal grating, sinking my footsteps into the depth of the marbled lake of snow around me. I ducked down to touch my ankles, and jumped, jumped so high I couldn't believe it had worked. I flew for a moment over the six-foot-high fence that surrounded the little white garden and fell onto the winding path that leads to buildings two.

"What the heck," Vuk growled. "You just flew, boy." I regained his empathy with the daring.

He climbed the fence with ease and dropped to my side. We returned to the lobby path, and we realized that we were still inside the building.

"What brings us out is the alarm," I said, surveying the possibilities. "But the alarm goes off in building one, because that's where I am, and not in five, where the wolf boy will go." I noticed a hint of a smile on Vuk. "So it must set off one of the two alarms, the south one on this door" and I pointed to the door on my right diagonal "or the north, on the other side of the building." I lowered my arm.

"I'll go north if you like," said Vuk. "Like a wolf, I am much faster than you."

"How will you open it? You don't have a key."

"Then hurry up, and let's both go." He raised both arms and dropped them, frustrated.

He threw himself to the ground writhing in pain as hair sprouted from all sides and gained feet in height, while I ran towards the south door in search of luck. I opened it, and made the signal to Vuk to come for me: the passage was empty.

He ran carrying me on the back; that, due to its grotesque height, it even seemed that it was riding a very hairy horse; to the other end of the building. Before arriving I dismounted Vuk and jumped onto the dry sidewalk, where there was no snow that could throw me to the ground. I opened the second door when I saw that the opposite one, on the other side of the corridor, was also opening. He was standing there, surprised by what he saw. He slammed the door shut and ran to his left, into the outer corridor of building one.

"Catch him," Francesca whispered to me.

"Vuk, go around the building," I ordered as I entered the hall.

I got through it as fast as I could, but before I reached the door, I could hear Vuk's measured breathing as he ran to the other side of the wall. I threw open the door and ran outside. Vuk hadn't caught our uninvited friend, but he had ripped his pants off with a claw before he jumped to the kitchen door and traveled Perun knows where.

"Is it just a piece of cloth?" I asked Vuk, as I approached, but he didn't answer because he was still in his wolf form.

"He won't answer you until he returns to being Vuk," Francesca explained.

"Ok... what is this?" Closer, I saw a kind of leather under the piece of the blue jeans. It was a wallet.

"At least you managed to snatch something from him. Well done, boy." I put my hand to his mane, but he growled at me, showing me his teeth. I laughed.

"Let's see... who you are."

The wallet was dark brown, soft leather, and folded several times. I opened it up like a little notebook and it didn't contain many important things inside: fifteen dollars, discount coupons, and Knuckle Heads cards; the local game center. No credit card or any identification.

"It doesn't have anything important," I told Francesca, as Vuk was still a wolf.

"Are you sure?" She asked me, with a sneering tone.

"Yes, there is no credit card or ID."

"Does that game card have a barcode on it?" Francesca asked.

"Yes... and I can ask in the same place where it was issued, for its registration date." I smiled, I felt Francesca smile too. Even Vuk smiled as he wagged his tail.

"I think it's time to go back. It's done, right?"

"You should check, just in case," Francesca advised me.

I moved forward and finished touring building one. I got to the south side, to the side of the lobby, and went through the door where I had tried my luck first. I went up to the second floor and went out to the west exterior corridor of the building, the one in front of mine, at five. I walked a couple of rooms to the girls' room.

"Hey, this guy talks more when he's stung, right?" Astrid said.

"Ha Ha, Yeah well, but it's interesting to hear it," Claudia commented.

I pried my ear off the door and looked at Vuk, who was back to himself, as he tied the furs to his body.

"Done, that's how I remember it."

"Very good boy. It's your first victory, and you have to celebrate it..." He raised his right hand with a fist in the air "we go to the nearest ballerina bar in town and..."

"No thanks," I smiled, amused. "I'd rather find out who this guy is." I showed him the card.

"You're a killjoy, did anybody tell you that before, boy?" Vuk growled.

"Yes, several times." I laughed, and we went together to the door of the corridor of the stairs, crossed it, and returned to the present, to the harsh truth that I had to endure.

"But that jump... boy, that jump was incredible. You have a great teacher." He took all the credit for himself. I had already gotten used to feeling Francesca's eyes turn with her witticisms.