Tears blur my vision. It was her. Really her, standing in front of me.
My Mum.
But she shouldn't be... She was confirmed dead two years ago. But...
"Sorry, sweetie," She looks at me with sympathy. "I'm not your Mum. In fact, I don't have a daughter!"
"What about Callie?"
She looks at me with a slight confusion.
"Calypso? Calypso and Taylor Evans?" I was surprised at how shaky my voice was.
"I'm sorry," She rubs my shoulder. Her soft touch sent a light shiver up my spine. "I'm not a Mum."
"But... What about Dad? Harvey Evans? Your married to him. Or were..."
She raises her eyebrows. "Harvey?"
"He's my Dad..." I trail off in confusion.
"I'm sorry," She shakes her head and slightly shifts her shoulders.
I wipe my eyes. She doesn't remember... Though, I don't know why she would anyway. She was dead.
A few moments of silence pass between us and I look at her bewildered expression
"Sorry," My voice is hardly more than a whisper. "You just looked like someone."
I reluctantly turn and walk away, bending my head down and shoving my hands deep into my pockets.
"Taylor! Wait!"
I snap my head up and see Jake riding towards me on a... kids bicycle?
"What are you doing here? And.." I stop and stare at the bike, raising my eyebrows.
"That doesn't matter... Have you seen my Mum? Hey," He looks at my tear streaked face. "You okay?"
"Fine," I hastily wipe my cheeks at that word. Mum. "No, sorry. And I have to go find my Dad, so..." I turn on my heels and walk away.
/ / /
Hours passed.
I still hadn't found Dad, and when I phoned him, his number supposedly 'wasn't connected'. I sat outside on the Bremin Police Station steps and buried my face in my hands.
Mum was alive, but Dad and Beau are missing and Callie isn't even born.
This wasn't happening.
Am I asleep? Dreaming a dream in my twisted mind? Or am I dead? Holy crap, I'm dead!
Wow.
I don't remember dying.
Death is weird...
"Taylor! Taylor!"
"What? I'm dead! Let me die!" I scream.
"Tay, snap out of it!" Someone clicks fingers in my face and elbows me sharply in the shoulder.
I reluctantly look up. Jake is sat beside me, his bike propped up on the steps and Andy and Sam stand towering above me.
"What happened to you?" Sam looks me in the face with concern.
"I'm... dead?" I stutter.
"Er, no," Jake pinches my arm, making me squeal in pain. "Definitely not dead."
I took a shaky breath.
"My Mum. She's alive, but doesn't remember me, my Dad is missing and my sister isn't even born?"
Sam and Jake raise their brows in confusion and help me up and we settle on a nearby bench.
Turns out, it wasn't just me.
"My theory is, while we were lost in the bush, our families experienced mass delusional hysteria," Andy explains.
"That makes no sense whatsoever," Jake grumbles.
"Delusions can take extreme forms," Andy backs himself up. "There was a village in China, where all the men thought their-" He pauses at points to his crotch. "Had shrivelled to nothing."
"Man..." Sam trails off.
"In our case, it's taking the form of collective amnesia," Andy puts a certain emphasis on the last two words. "Everyone who knows us has forgotten us."
"Well, what about my Mum?" I ask. "She's meant to be dead."
Andy gives me a sympathetic look.
"What about Felix?" Sam moves on.
"If it's happened to him, then that's at least proof that the five of us are somehow connected to this." Andy shrugs and then looks at a too-silent Jake.
"Come on, Jake," Andy begins. "You owe us that much."
He looks at me, then focuses back on Andy.
"Alright." He agrees with reluctance and sighs.
"Where do we find him?" I motion towards the town.
"Sleeping in a coffin somewhere?" Sam teases and winks in my direction.
"I know where he lives." Jake admits.
"Really?" Sam turns to look at Jake, his eyes wide.
"What? We used to egg his house after a footy win..." He trails off. "It's good luck."
I roll my eyes. "Come on."
/ / /
We walk through the back gate through to Felix's house.
"How's that theory holding up?" Jake shoves Andy to the side as we see Felix playing a round a chess with his brother, Oscar.
"Yeah, he doesn't exactly look like he's having a bad day." Sam looks over at Felix.
"Felix!" I walk over to him.
"Hey, guys." Felix waves us over.
"You're home?" Andy points to Oscar.
"Where else would I be?" Felix raises his shoulders and shakes his head.
"Uh, Felix?" I step towards him. "Is everything okay?"
"Yeah..." He trails off as Mrs. Ferne walks into the garden, carrying a plate of iced 'fairy' bread.
"I hope you like this- it's one of Oscar's favourites!" She sets the plate down on the garden table. "Friends of yours, Felix?" She looks at me and the other boys.
"Yeah, these are the guys that helped me back from the bush."
"Sounds like an adventure!" Mrs. Ferne smiles at us. Suddenly, she clutches her stomach and leans over, holding the side of the table for support.
"Mrs. Ferne, are you okay?" Me, Felix and Oscar rush to her side and I slowly rub her back.
"Oh, don't worry about me," She sneezes and tries to stand straight. "I'm fine." She smiles at us and me and Felix rejoin the group.
"Felix, will you stay for dinner?" Mrs. Ferne starts to climb the steps back to the house. Felix smiles and agrees as we stare at him in confusion.
"Great. It'll be nice for Oscar to have a new friend."
"Mum!" Oscar rolls his eyes, and pushes himself out of the garden chair to follow Mrs. Ferne back into the house.
I widen my eyes in shock. "He's walking." I whisper what everyone else was thinking.
"Yeah, and he shouldn't be." Andy murmurs back.
"Oscar, I'll be back in a minute!" Felix calls after his brother.
"Stay for dinner?! Like you don't actually live here?" Andy pulls Felix to the side.
"Of course I live here." Felix assures us.
"But your Mum called you a new friend." Jake furrows his brows in anger.
"They don't know who you are, do they?" I ask him, taking a piece of fairy bread off the plate.
"Felix!" Andy says with impatience.
Felix looks at the ground and slowly shakes his head. "I came home and it was like this... Oscar can walk, but my family can't remember me. It's weird, but my brother can walk!"
"Oscar and your Mum," He points to me. "Are definitely x-factors in my theory."
"What theory?" Felix looks at me for a split second and then focuses on Andy.
"Collective amnesia. Our families were so traumatised by us going missing, that they had a short circuit, but this doesn't fit at all!" Andy explains.
"You know what," Jake drops his fairy bread onto the grass. "None of this is helping me find my Mum, so I'm out of here."
"Jake-" Sam calls after him.
"I can't believe I let you brain-dead pack of losers into my head!" He grabs the bike and starts to wheel it down the drive.
"Brain-dead? Seriously?" Andy sounds offended by Jake's words.
"Where are you going?" Sam rips off another piece of bread.
"What do you think? What I should've been doing all this time!" He mounts and storms away.
Typical.
"Ellen!" Felix calls after his friend.
"What is she wearing?" Sam asks disgustedly. We walk over to Ellen, a vision in navy and polka-dot, and she looks Felix up and down.
"Figures this misfit would be one of your friends?" Ellen puts a hand on her hip and calls to Oscar, who had come up behind us.
"I hate you too." He waves a hand at her.
Felix sighs as she walks away. "Guys, I'm gonna..." He nods his head towards Oscar. "Maybe you should go."
"We should stick together." Andy warns him.
"Why?"
"Whatever's going on happened to all of us." I tell him.
"Yeah, and maybe it's because of us too." Andy finishes.
"Well, when you can figure it out, you know where to find me." He turns and walks away and we do the same, ambling aimlessly in the opposite direction.
Minutes later, Felix comes up alongside us.
/ / /
We sat atop of a skate ramp, watching as Sam rode around the skatepark on his board. Joining us, he sat beside me as Andy began to fiddle with his phone.
"We have power and network, but still nothing." He sighed defeatedly and I dangled one leg over the edge, the other tucked up against my chest and stomach.
"If I can just get my hands on a phone that works, I'll call-" Sam began, but Felix cut him off.
"Who?" He snapped and raised his shoulders.
"Well, someone has to remember us!"
Andy rubs his stomach hungrily.
"I don't think that fairy bread was enough."
"And it's only made me hungrier!" Sam frustrates. "Do you think we'll starve to death in our own town?"
"Like those stories you read in the papers..." Felix looks up at us. "About old people who starve to death and get half-eaten by their pets?"
"You just default to cheerful, don't you?" Andy says with disgust.
"There's an old apple tree out the back of the footy stand if you're desperate." I turn around and see Jake sat beside me.
"You alright?" Andy leans forward to look at Jake, and sees the disappointment on his face. "Did she remember you?"
Jake turned his gaze to the concrete floor and shook his head. "No." He spoke slowly, but that didn't mask the tears in his eyes.
"I'm sorry," I put my hand over his. He looked at me, but didn't brush it away. So I kept it there.
"Yeah, welcome to the club." Sam sighs.
"My Mum's got a whole new life. New job, new car, new hair, and she's married to Bates." Jake says bitterly.
"Mr. Bates?"
"What? Whoa!"
"And Felix's brother can walk. And..." Andy trails off and his eyes land on me.
"This is crazy," I bite my bottom lip thinking about my Mum, Dad and Callie. "It's not amnesia."
"So what's really going on?" Jake asks.
"I'll tell you what's going on," Sam begins to rant. "What's going on is I'm starving. We need to find something to eat, and somewhere to stay."
"I know this seems challenging, but the one thing that I've learned from watching Bear Grylls is-"
"No more, Andy,"
"Shut up, Andy!"
"Couldn't agree more."
We sit in silence for a few moments.
"I know somewhere we can go," Sam assures us.
/ / /
"My brothers and I played ball games here when we were kids," Sam leads us to a run-down wooden shack close to the forest and lifts the padlock. "It's open."
We walk inside. The only light comes from the thin grooves in the wood panels, but it provides just enough to see our new home. The space is dusty. Tarpaulin sheets hang on the walls and wooden crates and other scavenged items litter the dirt floor.
"It used to look a lot better," Sam assures us.
"It has potential," Andy runs his eyes over the space. "Every gang needs a hideout."
"We are not a gang," I glare an Andy.
"Technically we are if you consider-" Jake steps forward beside me and raises a brow. "Okay, not a gang."
"We can clear this space over hear to eat..." Sam's phone dies in his pocket. "Has anybody else got their phones?"
"Mines out of juice," Jake shows him the dark screen.
"Same," Felix says as he fiddles with an electric camping lamp in the corner. I pull my phone out and check the battery.
"Dead."
"I've got mine on power save mode." Andy shows us his working screen.
"Nice one," Jake punches him hard in the arm and Andy yelps in pain.
"You're such a jerk," I roll my eyes and ask Andy if he's okay.
"You know what would make this even worse," Felix hits the lamp.
"What?"
"If I wasn't here." He holds it up and smiles as it emits a warm glow.
"Good one Dracula."
/ / /
The sky grows dark and the wind whistles through the gappy walls of the shack. We sit in a circle on the floor around Felix's lamp and I rest my head on one of the wooden crates behind me.
"We've got shelter, now we just need a reliable source of food." Andy says.
Jake sits between me and Felix. "There are plenty more things in Bremin."
(Not Edited)