"Where am I?" My head throbbed and my vision was blurry.
"Wake up Arya!"
I heard a voice call me as my retina struggled to adapt to the bright light and my mind felt as if it was emerging from nothingness. I opened my eyes and saw a boy, maybe 15 or 16, shaking me.
I looked around me; I was in a school cafeteria, bustling with students. The table and chair that I was sitting at were kept in a corner of the huge room, excluded from the lively atmosphere. Had I been sleeping here? And where exactly is 'here'? What is this place? My mind was flooding with questions as soon as I gained consciousness, but suddenly theses questions seemed trivial in front of the problem that suddenly dawned on me- I didn't know who I was!
"Why am I here?" I asked, not being able to recognize the place and on top of all this, my head was spinning with confusion. Ha! As if I needed things to go worse.
"What are you talking about now? Don't tell me that you don't wanna help anymore. And how the hell did you manage to fall asleep amidst this entire ruckus?" the boy pointed towards other areas of the room where students were fighting, running, some girls were screaming in the center- amazing scene like a cheery on top of a cake. Was this really a cafeteria? Because they seemed to be doing almost everything except having a meal, but I couldn't bother. I was in no condition to do so.
I had other 'issues'. Everything felt blank- I couldn't remember anything! My name, this place, this boy in front of me- I remembered nothing! I tried to remember or recall something-anything of importance. Nothing.
Judging from the way this boy was talking to me, it looked as if he knew me well.
"Who are you?" I asked him, straightforwardly. His face first showed disbelief and then amusement, but my dead serious face stopped him from laughing out loud or maybe it was because my face showed evident confusion. I'll admit I might have looked like a mess but hey, you can't blame me it doesn't happen every day that I wake up and suffer from amnesia in the grandest scale possible.
He opened his mouth to say something, but something suddenly caught his eye, he was looking behind me. I followed his gaze and saw a girl approaching us.
"Hey guys! You all did your project work?" she asked, smilingly. She was tall and brown-haired. And she had a perfect celebrity-like figure. She was the same age as the boy, but something about her seemed off. She looked just like the girl who would be able to make anyone her puppet with her world class acting and hidden wickedness.
"Why are you staring at me like you're seeing me for the first time?" she interrupted my thoughts, but maybe I had been staring at her for quite long. She had a different kind of attraction to her.
"I'm sorry, but I think there's a misunderstanding. I shouldn't be here and I…by the way who are you?"
She started laughing, in the most lady-like manner. "What do you mean who I am? Has this project taken that big of a toll on you or have you finally lost it?"
She was definitely mocking me, but I found it hard to get angry on her. Okay, now something was definitely wrong, either with this girl or with me.
Before I could reply, the boy, who was just as charmed as I was, stood up and offered his seat to her. She shook her head and looked back at me.
"You better get into your right mind or you won't survive here a day."
There was urgency in her voice. It was as if she was warning me of something, but I could bet she didn't mean surviving the school or the cafeteria. "Well, I will get going. There's still much to do." And she left, leaving both of us staring at her fading figure.
"Isn't she amazing?"
the boy still seemed to be in some sort of trance. But I have to admit even though I'm a girl; I could barely stop myself from staring at her. But right now, I'm in no condition to do that.
"Hey, what's your name?" I asked again and he was pulled back to reality.
He sighed and looked at me, "Fine, if you want to keep playing pretend then let's do that. I'm Chester Gray and you are Arya…Arya…well what was your last name? That's so weird I definitely knew your full name..." he was soon lost in his own world and I was desperately trying to find anything useful in his nonsense.
"Chester…I really don't know you. I didn't even know my name and…and what is this place? Where am I?" I felt overwhelmed. It looked as if I am a girl of 16 and maybe my name's Arya, but I could recall nothing of my life. It seemed absurd. I mean, you tell me how it is possible for someone to just wake up and have no memories? It's as if I just came into existence, but that can't be, right? How in this world can you come into existence at sixteen years of age?
Chester seemed to see that this wasn't a prank and I really looked like a mess. "What do you mean you remember nothing? You clearly know me. We are classmates and best friends. We study at Amber International School and will be in our senior year very soon. You better not scare me like this." He said and pretended to smile.
The bell rang and the students started moving back to their classes. Somewhere down this cafeteria, some announcement was being made, but the sound was too faint for me to make out anything of it.
"Let's get back or else the Crock will so bloody kill us"
He hurried to leave the cafeteria and I had no choice but to follow him. We passed two corridors and then an auditorium. After few minutes of some twists and turns, we were standing in front of a classroom. The hanging board at the entrance said, "11th"
"Hey, who's this Crock?" I asked and he stared at me, dumbfounded.
"What…shit" he suddenly stopped. Someone cleared his throat from behind me and I turned to see the man.
He was a slender, medium-sized man. He had refined facial features and really profound and deep eyes. His face showed no expression, except that of rigidness and toughness. He scanned me and I could feel a chill run down my spine. I don't know if I imagined it or what, but for a fraction of second his face showed surprise. Though he just as quickly hid it.
"We're really sorry, Mr. Mark. We'll never be late again, I promise…"
Chester started giving an explanation, but it seemed obvious that he was just sprouting anything that came into his mind.
The man, whom Chester called Mark, pointed to get inside.
"Oh! Yes sir. Thank you so much." Chester said and dragged me along with him inside the class. Behind I could see that the man was staring at me.
We found ourselves seats at the very back of the class and sat down.
"What is going on?" I asked, but Chester signaled to be quite.
"Now, we'll begin our class. Today, I have a very interesting theory to tell you all about- The Theory of Everything, hopefully. There had been several attempts to unify the General Theory of Relativity and the Quantum mechanics and one of the candidates for the Theory of Everything is the M-Theory given by Edward Witten. Physicists like Einstein, Edward Witten, Stephen Hawking and other such brilliant scientists have…"
Mr. Mark's lecture on the M-theory or whatever the hell that was took really long to end. In the midst, Chester wanted to have a nap but maybe he was literally scared to death that he was pinching himself just about everywhere to prevent himself from falling asleep during the lecture.
Finally this really long lecture came to an end. "So the general conjecture is that there is a possibility that the multiverse exists, but proving its existence is the question. That's all for today. Class dismissed."
All the students began exiting the room. Chester seemed particularly happy about that. "Thank goodness it ended. I didn't think I could take more of it."
"Why do you say that? The topic seemed very interesting. Unlimited possibilities, multiverse- it all can be or cannot be true. Doesn't this uncertainty interests you?"
I argued as we made our way towards the door and I genuinely meant that. For the first time since the last one and a half hours of my existence, I had forgotten about my Himalayan-scale problems. This subject seemed very interesting.
"What has gotten into you, Arya? This is the first time you said theoretical physics interests you, you know that?"
Chester looked at me like I had hit someone and should immediately apologize. However, before I could answer or think of something close to it, I heard Mr. Mark's voice.
"Wait Arya, I want you to take these sheets to my office."
He was still looking at me with those discerning eyes. During the entire lecture, he would look at me for a second and by the way he looked at me, I was sure of one thing-he knew I shouldn't be here. I was planning to meet him afterwards anyway, but this saved me some time.
"Yes, Mr. Mark." I told Chester to go without me, carried the bundle of sheets and followed the physics teacher to his office.
His office was at the end of a long corridor and it had a different feel to it. It looked lonely. He opened the door and we stepped inside. "Put these on the front desk there." He said, pointing towards a very messy work desk in the middle of the office. I have to say, I had been in this world for, like, 2 hours and this the most messy thing I have seen yet only second to this situation that I am in. He should really take cleaning seriously.
But back to what matters, I turned to ask him what he knows about me, but before I could say anything, he advanced towards me and asked.
"Who are you?"