November 3,
It was a bright Monday morning and Jayce was having a great time. He was in the hallway, walking towards his lecture when Samantha called him from behind…
"Jayce, hey,"
"Oh, hey Samantha good morning." He greeted her.
"Morning Jayce"
"So, how are you feeling now?" Jayce asked as they started walking towards the lecture hall.
"Better than before."
"Great"
"Hey, thanks for the other day,"
"I don't follow?"
"For being there for me…" said Samantha.
"Oh, You don't have to say thank you for that, I mean what are friends for?"
"So we're friends now?"
"Aren't we?"
"I suppose we are." She replied, "how was your weekend, Mr Clark?"
"Ah, the usual, nothing special. Finished the assignment though,"
"Already? Don't we have like a week for that?"
"I had a lot of time to kill, plus I don't really have any friends to hang out with… so yeah, already."
"What about Mark? I thought you guys were friends."
"Well, yeah but you know Mark, he usually keeps to himself and we had a disagreement the last time we spoke."
"Mr Clark, would you like to share something with us?" Ms Johnson asked him.
"No, Professor Johnson."
"Then be quiet or talk outside." She raised her voice.
"I'll be quiet, professor."
"You shouldn't be talking during the lectures Mr Clark," Samantha taunted him after the lecture.
"Yeah… yeah..." Jayce said with a grin.
"Save me a seat at lunch? My 5th is vacant today." She told him and started walking out.
"Sure." He said from behind.
After a few hours, Jayce was coming out of his English lecture when he saw Mark walking across the corridor. "Hey, Mark!" He called him.
"Oh, hey Jayce." Mark waved.
"Long time no see," Jayce said.
"Yeah… I took some time off to figure out about our little experiment."
"Oh, right." Their last conversation had slipped his mind.
"You were right, I need more data, a bigger sample size." Mark said, "I checked everything else out."
"So I'm good?" Jayce asked.
"How would I know that? But your aura is probably normal. We'll know more when I get more... data."
"Great." Jayce sighed. "Hey, you wanna join me and Samantha for lunch in 5th?" He asked.
"No, I need to attend my lecture in 5th or I might get in trouble."
"Next time then."
"Yeah, sure," Mark said.
Two weeks later, on November 21, Jayce called Mark in the evening,
"Hey," Jayce said.
"Hi, Jayce. What's up?" Mark replied.
"Nothing, I just wanted to confirm that you're coming to the camping trip this Saturday."
"Oh, no, I won't be going there."
"Why?"
"Jayce, you're asking me why I don't want to go to the woods with a bunch of random people…" Mark said.
"Right… but come on it'll be fun… you, me and Samantha,"
"Nah, you two have fun. I'll just stay and work on my project here."
" Well, there's gonna be a lot of people there. You can try out your aura device there."
"Hmm… Jayce, send me the time at which we'll leave the campus."
"On it. See you at the campus tomorrow." Jayce said.
The next morning at campus,
Jayce saw Mark and waved at him, "Mark!"
Mark waved back and said, "Hey,"
"I thought I was gonna be late," Mark said.
"I may have texted you an earlier time."
"You…" Mark stopped, "well I guess, thank you?"
"You're welcome."
"Jayce! Mark!" Samantha called them from inside the bus.
"Hi.", "Hey." They replied.
"Let's get inside," Jayce said.
When Jayce got on the bus he saw Kevin sitting with Samantha and he noticed that Samantha was looking away from Kevin and she seemed agitated.
"Hey, Mark," Jayce said. "I need a favour."
"Huh, yeah?"
"I'm gonna go and tell Kevin that you wanna talk with him."
"Why?"
"Just go with it."
"Ok but, what do I talk about?" Mark asked.
"You're smart, figure something out," Jayce said as he started walking towards Kevin.
He walked up to Kevin, put his hand on Kevin's shoulder and said, "Hey Kevin, Mark wants to talk to you."
Kevin was startled and said, "About what?"
Jayce said, "I don't know, you should go and ask him. It seemed important." Jayce scowled at him, increasing the pressure on his shoulder.
"I… I'll be back Samantha," Kevin said as he went to Mark.
Jayce sat in his place and said, "You're welcome," looking forward.
Samantha turned her face to him and said, "Mark didn't call him," in amazement.
"Mhm."
"I didn't ask for it." She smiled.
She looked behind at Mark and said, "Thank you," in an inaudible voice.
"Again, you're welcome," Jayce said. The bus started moving as everyone was settled in,
"Anyway, why was he here?" He asked.
"He's been begging me to take him back, but I know it's all just a lie and besides, I don't really like him. I never did." She told him.
"Why were you with him in the first place then?"
"I don't know… he kept asking me out until I said yes because… well, I thought why not. Of course, back then I didn't know he was a bully and when I found out about him I thought maybe I could change him but you know how that ended." She explained.
"Well, happens to the best of us," Jayce said.
"Enough about me, what about you? Any girlfriend or crush or boyfriend?" She asked him.
"Ugh… well one ex-girlfriend." He answered.
"Huh… interesting." She mumbled.
"What?"
"Well, I mean… it's hard to believe that a guy like you would have just one… ex."
"Why's that so hard to believe?"
"Umm… I don't know. You're just good."
"Well, to be honest, I never caught any real feelings for anyone," Jayce said.
Both kept on talking while Mark got busy on his phone. After about 3 and a half hours of journey, they reached the camping site. It was the Tuolumne meadows campground.
Once everyone got out of the bus, the professors gathered them around and told them the usual dos and don'ts and after that, they started setting up their camps. By the time they were done setting things up, it was already evening, the Sun was about to set any time now and so they lit the campfires. The entire batch was divided into 4 groups with 8 students in each. Mark and Samantha were put into group B and Jayce was in group C.
At dinner everyone sat with their respective groups as they had to strategize their next move for the upcoming activities the next day.
The next morning Jayce went to Mark's tent and saw him with his laptop.
"Dude, you brought your laptop here?"
"Mhm."
"Why?"
"Well, I needed it for my research," Mark went on to say, "I tested my entire group last night."
"And they let you do that?"
"Yeah… they just didn't know they were being tested," Mark mumbled.
"What?" Jayce laughed.
"By the way Jayce, your records are still off the charts," Mark told him.
Jayce became silent for a moment. "Don't worry it was just 7 new entries. We still have 25 new test subjects." Mark broke the silence.
"Please don't say it like that,"
"What?"
"Don't call us test subjects."
"Oh that, yeah I know. People don't like to be called test subjects. Learned it the hard way." Mark's stomach growled in hunger.
"Let's go eat something. I'm hungry," he said.
The conversation had Jayce troubled. At breakfast, Samantha had saved a seat for each of them.
"You're saving these seats for us, right?" Jayce asked.
"Nope, they're for my distant cousins who live by the end of the river here. Just sit down already. And good morning Mark," she replied.
"Morning Samantha." He said with a smile.
"Good morning," Jayce sighed.
"You okay?" Samantha asked him
"Yeah, I just got something on my mind."
"What is it?"
"Nah, it's nothing,"
"I'm here if you wanna talk."
"Thanks."
"Is it about your auras?" Mark asked.
"No bro, I'm okay.'
"The what now?" Samantha was confused.
"I'll tell you later." Jayce said.
The rest of the day went in a blur with all the activities. Soon the Sun settled down and everyone gathered for dinner.
At night when everyone was asleep, Jayce was wide awake. He couldn't sleep because his head was filled with questions that he had about himself, the blackouts, auras, the voices in his head, the nightmares.
After everyone had fallen asleep, he laid there for another 30 minutes trying to sleep but when it didn't work he got up and went out for a walk. It was almost a full moon so he didn't need a flashlight to see. The night was cold and quiet. It was all so peaceful yet Jayce was restless, and so he started walking aimlessly, unaware that he was walking into the woods.When he had walked for about half an hour he sat on a rock under the canopy and called his mom,
"Hey mom," he said.
"Hi, Jayce." Mrs Clark answered. "How are you?" She asked.
"I'm okay, mom. How are you and dad doing?"
"Son, if I'm not wrong it's about 11:45 p.m. there. And you called me at this hour… something must be bothering you."
"Nah, it's just… I was just thinking about my nightmares and blackouts, it's nothing."
"Jayce, everyone gets nightmares once in a while, you just get it more often. It's normal."
"I know… I just miss you and dad, mom. Ugh… it's been so long since I ate your pancakes."
"We miss you too sweetheart. You're just homesick, don't let it ruin your camp trip sweetie, enjoy yourself with your friends. Don't think too much of it and if your father gets some days off we'll visit you next month. Ok? Now go and sleep."
"No, it's alright mom. You guys don't have to bother coming here. It's just a phase, it'll pass, I'll go now. Goodnight mom."
"Goodnight sweetie."
Jayce hung and took a deep breath then looked around, "Shit, now which direction did I come from?" he said out loud to himself. He checked his phone for directions and as he started to walk he heard a sound coming from in front of him…
Since it was night and he was deep in the woods he figured that it's best not to find out the source of the sound. So he decided to go around, after walking for a while he noticed that he had reached the bottom of a cliff. "Where hell am I…" Jayce wondered, and checked his phone again, he was walking close to the escarpment when he saw an opening on it. He turned on his flashlight to see the inside.
The cave was empty inside and there were no prints of any animal, he checked thoroughly from outside then the light got reflected from the wall of the cave. The surface was not a reflective one so he went in to see the cause of reflection.
When Jayce walked into the cave, he found that its walls were covered with cave paintings of symbols. Jayce looked through them as it could be a discovery of proof of some long-forgotten civilization.
As he was going through the markings, he came across something that somehow he was able to decipher and as he was reading them in his head, he read, "Pratp… Pratyahvyati…" out loud.
Within a moment the cave's walls started to glow and then Jayce's head started to fill with memories of his entire life, like a flashback on rewind… but the flashback didn't stop at Jayce's birth.
Jayce fell down on his knees and his eyes got closed, "Where am I? Who's laughing?... Mom… Atria… Orion! What's happening to me, Orion? Is that… me? But I'm…"
He fell to the ground… "Wake up! Wake up, prince!"
"Ah…" Jayce opened his eyes and yelled.
"Good morning, sleeping beauty."
"Wait… Ereck? Is that you?" Jayce asked in surprise.
"Yes, took you long enough to remember." Said the voice inside Jayce's head.
"How? What happened?"
"Do I have to tell you everything? You died, but the spell worked so, reincarnation, your memory came back..."
"Hold on… I died…"
"Yes…"
"Just give me a moment to catch up."
Jayce sat on the ground in his thoughts recalling his past life, his eyes started watering, he sobbed… after taking a deep breath,
"Ereck, it's so good to hear you again, old friend," Jayce said out loud with joy.
"Whatever," Ereck dismissed him.
"Wait, if I'm here then…"
"Yes," Ereck answered.