Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Memories

Chapter 6: Half-Truths

"This is a Time Gear." The phrase resonated over and over, like a creaky gate that oscillated between being open and closed.

"What the hell is a Time Gear? I didn't even get a chance to see what it was," I thought out loud.

"Sophia, here's your tea." My mother's voice sang its way up the stairs. Something smelled like peppermint as her shadow rounded the corner up the steps.

"Thanks, Mom," I said as I extended my hands for the mug. My senses were suddenly elated by the warm liquid flowing into me. The heat of the liquid contrasted nicely with the cool, minty flavor of the drink. After a few sips spaced apart by awkward moments of my mom staring at me in silence, the pressure in my head began to ease away.

My mother smiled as she watched my evolving expressions. "I'm guessing that hit the spot. Come downstairs when you're ready, we can tend to the Miltank and the Torchic together." She kissed my forehead before whisking out of my room again.

When she was out of sight, I laid back and stared up at the ceiling. My mind flashed with the blank images from my dream again as I looked up at the patchy surface above me. The mysterious man's voice still echoed in my ears. Fantasies of what the words meant danced in my mind as my eyes flitted around, following the cracks where different materials met to form the rough ceiling above me. I wasn't alive when the house was built, but it was easy to tell where the builders ran out of one resource and hastily switched to another.

Craving another sip of the warm and fulfilling liquid, I propped myself up on my elbows. I let the warmth crack my lips open and pour itself into my mouth. The flavor danced on my tongue as I drained the dregs from the white cup. I set the now empty mug down again as I leaned down for my bookbag. I dangled my body over the side of the bed to check a suspicion that was beginning to form in my mind.

Maybe a Time Gear was something that I read about one time in a book. I reached for the book I was getting ready to read before I had the dream. I had read the entirety of this book previously, and it was possible that this mysterious gear was something I've seen before. I thumbed through pages, letting my eyes scan the walls of text and diagrams for any mentions of a gear. My fingers slowed to a stop when the book's headlines began to discuss time.

60 seconds make 1 minute.

60 minutes make 1 hour.

24 hours make 1 day.

7 days make 1 week.

~52 weeks make 1 year. However, 365 days also make 1 year for a more precise estimation (366 days every 4 years).

I am writing this before my memories of time fade even more. This information was already hard enough to recall even though it was once considered common knowledge; even children used to know these fundamental facts.

In the past-what the ages of old are called in reference to time gone by-time flowed freely. We refer to this period as "The Before." This gives you the measurements we once used to count time. Some believe that there is a way to allow time to flow freely again. However, those tales are just follies to allow the weak-minded ways to cope with our current predicament. Once we landed here, there was no returning to what we once had.

No matter how many times I read it, it still baffled me. My mind tried to do all sorts of gymnastics to bend around what these foreign measurements meant. Seconds eluded me no matter how hard I tried to count them out. Other forbidden books had detailed out how to conduct their measurements, describing them like a heartbeat, but my fingers fumbled when I tried to tick and tock the seconds. When I tried to construct an hourglass using dust and old liquor bottles, the dust froze midair as it started falling from one glass to the other. Strange magic didn't want us as a people to understand time. I continued reading the remaining fragment on the page, concerned about what came next.