Replaceable Timelines: Book 1. [COMPLETED]

Chapter 12: memories

I begin to look around the room, it's mostly clean. There's a small hoard of cups that are sitting on the corner of my desk. Some dirty clothes are nestled between my hamper and the floor in the corner. It looks just like it always has. My Xbox sitting atop my dresser, my small dinky TV beside it.

Without sitting up, I remain laying down. My phone is still on the pillow beside me, let's check the time quickly.

I barely have any energy. I sluggishly grab my phone and check the time.

7:05 A.M. Today is the first of November, a Tuesday. It's really 2011. Then, what's real? Are my memories from the past two months real, or are my memories of four years of addiction real?

Am I going through some psychotic episode?

Fuck. Okay, first of all. I'm going to write down what that thing said. I don't care if it makes me seem crazy.

There were certain rules I had to follow...

My backpack is beside my door, it feels so far away and my ability to stand feels limited. I feel like a newborn deer standing for the first time, my legs feel jelly-like. As though I'm going to fall at any second.

I awkwardly wander to my bag and grab it and bring it to my bed. I retrieve my binder and weave through the bottom of my bag looking for a pen or pencil. There's a pencil that has been chewed down by a pencil sharpener to about half its normal length.

I start writing the rules. I don't know what that thing was. That... presence. It didn't make sense.

Okay... There will be a sensor, right? I can tell when someone is in range of me... A mark you can put on someone... what else was there, what are the rules to this? Fuck, that dream feels like it's escaping me. I've got to write this down.

1. I've got to eliminate other players.

2. You're allowed teams.

3. You can't be seen killing, by non-players.

4. You can't tell anyone about the game who is not a part of it.

5... what the fuck was 5 again.

5. If you run away, everyone will know your location.

I think that's everything.

This looks like the scribbles of a fucking psycho.

Why am I taking a dream so seriously? I'm probably fucking losing it. I look over the piece of paper again. And begin theorizing what that dream was all about.

Okay, first. The most likely thing that happened was that I had a very lucid dream. Second, I'm going through an episode of psychosis. Three, I'm having early on-set fucking, I don't know, Alzheimer's? God, it makes no sense. And fourth, which is very unlikely. But the fourth is that it was all real.

I scratch my head with the pencil in my hand, maybe just a way to feel something. To make sure I'm not still dreaming, I poked my scalp with the pencil. When I looked at my arm, I got goosebumps. I recall my arm being so scarred with track marks from years of drug abuse. And the scabbing that would occur and... fuck. Okay, just stop.

Let's just stop for a second. I'm getting ahead of myself. It said there would be a sensor, but there's nothing indicating that. So that must mean that I was just having a fucked up dream.

I leave my bag on my bed and lie down on my pillow. I feel so utterly exhausted.

So, if it is true, then what? I begin thinking of everything that's happened until now. All the nagging feeling I've had inside me. My disdain towards drugs and alcohol... Why I distanced myself from Austin and anything that could lead me down the same path... fuck.