Peter raised his back from the ice and propped himself onto his feet, ignoring Jackie’s arm. Of course your first thought is your phone. With numb fingers, he dusted the ice chips from his jeans. That’s what addiction does to a person.
The capsule was no longer in the center of the ice rink. It had disappeared once again, leaving behind nothing but a memory that wasn’t his. A memory that never should have been so vivid, even if Peter were to describe it with the talent of every author in history. All that remained in the center of the rink were the skaters who had reclaimed their space, staring at the intruders with furrowed brows. He and Jackie had overstayed their welcome, and now the frustrated employee had nearly reached the rink’s entrance.
Jackie lowered her arm and caught Peter’s eyes. They needed that phone back, and fast.
The pair rushed in unison toward the entrance. As they caught up to the employee, Jackie swooped around the woman’s right, plucking the phone from her grip. She ran forward before the worker could say a word, and as Peter followed her toward the sliding glass doors to the lobby, he looked over his shoulder to see the woman step off the ice onto the rubber-coated floor, hands empty, jaw dropped.
Peter and Jackie entered the chattering lobby. The heat melted away the soreness in his lower back as though he’d walked into a sauna. The two split up, weaving between different workers and avoiding packages of cherry gummies held out in their direction, but by the time the front doors slid open, they were standing side by side.
The two jogged down the front steps, turning around the corner to a long stretch of sidewalk with more blooming cherry blossom trees on their left and the road bordering the parking lot to their right. As they slowed to a walking pace, the spring sun beamed onto their faces. Pink petals fluttered to the ground in a soft gust of wind.
They walked next to each other, and their breaths slowly fell into sync. That’s when the laughter set in.
“That was crazy.” Peter reached for the back of his shirt. The cotton fabric was still wet from the ice. “So crazy.”
“Bet they hate us now.” Jackie had a nice smile. A shame she didn’t use it much.
“For all we know they’ll be putting up wanted signs in our honor.” Peter gestured out in front of him and quoted his vision. “Warning! Two crazy kids seen with shoes. Avoid at all costs.”
Jackie’s grin tumbled from her face as she remembered the phone in her hand. She raised the screen, which instantly revealed the time—2:04. Jackie sighed with relief. “I thought for sure we’d have to fix it.”
Peter should’ve been worried about getting to the next location, but the memory from the ice rink distracted him. He knew Kat in high school as the careless bitch who said whatever whenever and fished for compliments her self-esteem didn’t need, but now he wasn’t sure what to believe.
“That memory just now.” Jackie was about to swipe up on her screen, but she hesitated and turned her phone off instead. “Why did my brother show up at Kat’s house that day?”
Peter frowned. “No way.”
Jackie Mendoza? The-girl-who-sat-right-next-to-him-first-period Jackie Mendoza? The girl-obsessed-with-screens Jackie Mendoza? Had Peter really not noticed it before? They shared the same last name, same eye shape, same complexion—but he’d never put the pieces together.
“You two are siblings? Wow, I guess I didn’t make the connection because he’s so—I mean—you don’t really—”
“It’s fine.” Jackie stopped on the sidewalk and looked back at him. “Everyone knows my brother. Everyone loves him. And I’m just—”
“No no no. You better stop right there.” Peter crossed his arms. “Of course Jay has haters too. Trust me, I’ve got my problems with the guy. All I’m saying is that you two are practically from different worlds.”
“Nice symbolism.”
“Just hear me out, alright? You’re walking around wondering why your brother showed up at Kat’s house that day, but everyone knows.” Peter frowned at his sneakers. “It’s been nearly three years since it happened and even now the story gets tossed around. I mean, I get that he might not talk to his sister about personal drama, but like I said, you’d have to be from a different world not to hear about it.”
“Hear about what?”
“Everyone knows Jay had a huge crush on Emmeline. She was in cheer, student gov, debate club, drama. Pretty too, in a really generic way, so practically everyone found her attractive. And she was just nerdy enough to come off as genuine.”
Peter hadn’t been there himself, but he’d heard the story a million times. Jay Mendoza, star of the school. One of the most well-liked students at Brookwood High. He was the kind of guy no one really had any issues with, unless they had low self-esteem, in which case they were madly jealous and hated his guts. Even the upperclassmen thought Jay was cool. As a sophomore he was friends with countless juniors and seniors, and one of those senior friends was Emmeline Pike.
“Jay asked her out to homecoming in September of 2018. Had a huge poster and everything, got his friends involved. And she said no. In front of a huge crowd of people. That’s probably what he showed up to talk to her about—to ask her why she rejected him. Cause—you know—not knowing why someone doesn’t like him really drives a guy like Jay nuts. You haven’t heard any of this?”
Jackie showed no sign she was even listening, so Peter took that as a no.
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Even random freshmen at Brookwood know the story. News spreads. Your brother had a crush on Emmeline Pike at the absolute worst time. The Emmeline Pike.”
“Cool story, dude.” Jackie held her free hand out, a petal falling into her palm. “But what’s so special about Emmeline?”
“Well, there’s one thing.” Peter plucked the petal from Jackie’s hand and ripped it in half. “She’s dead.”
Jackie stopped. “Dead?”
Peter continued down the sidewalk. He really was right when he’d written that blog entry about Jackie. She’d trapped herself in video games to the point of complete social isolation.
Jackie caught up to him. “What do you mean dead?”
“It’s complicated. We all know how she died, but no one really knows the full story. The why.”
Jackie broke their brief moment of silence when she turned back to the phone in her hands. “We need to check the next location.” She made her way to the edge of the sidewalk and sat on the curb, facing the road.
Peter followed and sat next to her. She’d lasted surprisingly long without checking her phone, and he was almost impressed.
He leaned over her shoulder to find that LEVEL TWO was now crossed out. Jackie tapped LEVEL THREE to reveal a pop-up with the third level’s location—PELLE COVE.
They sighed in unison. Pelle Cove was a California State Park located on the coast of Ravensburg—over an hour’s drive away.
Peter raised his brows as Jackie swiped to a new page of Capsule she hadn’t shown him before. On it was an emergency button as well as a section labeled POWER-UPS, where a circle labeled TWO faded in next to ONE. Jackie tapped the second badge.
POWER-UP TWO: BATTERY RECHARGE
COST: ONE HOUR
RECHARGE THE PLAYER’S PHONE BATTERY TO 100% AT ANY POINT DURING THE GAME.
At the bottom of the pop-up was a button labeled ACTIVATE.
Peter snatched the phone from her grip. “Why haven’t you shown me this page before?”
Jackie reached for her phone, but Peter scooted away. Obviously she didn’t trust him. Did she really think he was going to click the emergency button and risk three hours of the countdown? He wasn’t the reckless one here. No, what he needed to figure out was if there were any clues inside the game. Something alluding to a creator. There had to be a person behind this. It was the only semi-logical explanation.
Jackie settled her restlessness, sitting a few feet away from him on the cur
b. Peter swiped at different angles across the screen, searching for a new page, tab, pop-up—anything really. Unfortunately there were only two pages. First, the countdown. Second, the emergency button followed by the power-ups. He held the worthless phone back to Jackie, which she grabbed instantly.
“Look.” Jackie’s voice was deeper now, catching Peter off-guard. She leaned toward him, her deep eyes shimmering under the blazing afternoon sun. “I need you to tell me what you know.”
Really, is this girl serious? Tell her what I know? She was the one who had been following him around at school all day. She was the one who burst into his book club meeting, opened a floating capsule, and gave him a memory of his past. It was Jackie who reeled him into this mess, and now she was questioning whether he had something to do with it? This girl was a hypocrite. An absolute hypocrite.
“Tell you what I know…regarding?” Peter leaned away from her, pinching a pebble from the road and rolling it between his fingers. “Let’s see. I’m pretty good at physics. I also know a lot about musical theory, if that’s something you’re interested in. And if you don’t care about my valuable knowledge, I do have information on the latest gossip. I’m a master at observation.”
Jackie faced the ground, her silky hair falling in strands across the side of her face. “I thought you were on my side here.”
“You obviously don’t, judging by the fact that you don’t trust me.” The worries he’d been pushing away all day started to seep in, leaving him light-headed. He rubbed his temple, thinking about the bed he’d forgotten to make this morning. He’d absolutely butchered his daily routine. “I should be at home studying for the SATs right now, but no. I just snuck into an ice rink with a complete stranger and now I can’t get the thought out of my mind that there are giant floating capsules only we can see that give us visions of the past and that this stupid game, or whatever it is, might actually be real. If I wasn’t as confused as you are, I wouldn’t be here.”
A few more strands fell loose from behind her ear, blocking her face from him completely.
Peter relaxed his hand, the pebble falling onto the road with a click.
A car raced by, creating a breeze that ruffled their hair. Jackie turned to face him, and as they locked eyes, her hair floated around her in wisps. It was the first time Peter wondered why she was doing this in the first place. Why would Jackie try to help him—the most despised student at Brookwood, or even Kat—the girl who didn’t earn one ounce of the popularity she was drowning in? Sure, maybe someone like Jay would jump at the opportunity to save someone’s life, but Jackie? The girl was the opposite of a people-pleaser. She spent every minute of her free time in Mr. Berkshire’s class playing mobile games and ignoring anyone who made an effort to talk to her.
“So everything you said in the car earlier. All of the time travel stuff. You really meant it, didn’t you?”
Jackie shrugged. “I lived it.”
Peter nodded slowly, finally processing the story she’d told him earlier. On the Riderr here he’d been scared by the first level’s memory, and sure—he did crack some jokes about it—but he wasn’t fully on board with the idea that it really happened. Now that he’d seen a look into Kat’s life—a memory that wasn’t even his own—Jackie’s story was starting to sound believable.
“Okay, so we’re obviously both really confused,” Peter said.
“Obviously.”
“And I know you’re fully convinced this is a magical game, but we can’t rule out the possibility that Kat knows something.”
Jackie stood from the curb.
“Where are you going?”
“The next location.” Her footsteps trailed down the sidewalk. “Alone.”
“Yeah?” Peter stood and followed her. So dramatic. “You really think you have superhuman walking abilities, don’t you?”
“I’m taking the bus.”
“With what money?”
Jackie stopped in her tracks, dead silent.
“You left your backpack in the Riderr earlier.” Peter stopped at her side and pointed to the phone resting in her hand. “That’s what happens when people get too addicted to their phones. They forget what really matters. Like their wallet, and their geometry textbook, and their—”
“You knew I left it and didn’t tell me?” She stared at Peter, her face a striking red.
“Look, I can get us a ride to Pelle Cove a lot easier than you can. It’s in both of our best interests to win the game. Plus, I may come in handy later. You never know when you’ll need a big strong man to sweep in and save you.”
The redness in her face faded, replaced with furrowed brows.
“Joke.” Peter sighed. “That was a joke. But anyways, I’ll be here to help you with this. All I ask is that we make a quick stop to see if Kat knows anything.”
“Dude, when are you gonna catch on? I’ve tried to understand this game before, but it’s hopeless. All this investigating is wasting our time. Look at what happened at the ice rink. If it weren’t for you, my phone wouldn’t be cracked.”
“Whoa, okay. I didn’t know the quiet girl had a temper.” Peter took a step toward Jackie and spoke painfully slow. “But really, there’s no reason to get all worked up over this. I know exactly where Kat is. One hour detour, tops. I’ll ask her a few questions, see what she knows, and we’re done. In and out, we’re back on track. If it turns out she’s just as clueless as we are, I’ll drop my so-called investigation and focus on the levels. Deal?” Peter held his hand out. “And to be frank, you really don’t have any other options.”
Jackie glared at Peter and shook his hand. Not necessarily firmly, but not hesitantly either.
“Great, I’ll get us a ride.” Peter pulled his phone out of his pocket and navigated to the Riderr app.
“Isn’t she in class?”
“She has a free sixth period. Works part-time at Halos.”
Jackie crossed her arms. “Weird knowledge.”
“Great, it’s ordered.” Peter tucked his phone away. “Now we wait.”
#129
WHEN IS BROOKWOOD going to wake up and realize that Jay Mendoza is mediocre at everything he does? He’s made out to be a prodigy, but he’s not. The only thing he has going for him is the fact that he’s two years ahead in math and science, but have you seen his grades? Hardly above average. He’s not the smartest student in class, he’s not the best athlete on the varsity basketball team, and he’s certainly not the best guitar player at school. Yeah, I’ve seen his YouTube covers.
The only thing that stands out about Jay is that he knows how to give compliments, but having good people skills doesn’t make him talented. All he does is dress pretty and call people nicknames. And to think Emmeline would rather die than go to hoco with him. Obviously she recognized the phoniness everyone else was too blind to see.
Moon.
17:49:02
TWO HAMBURGERS AND a large order of fries. Only five minutes into her shift Kat had somehow managed to drop an entire tray of food onto the floor, plates shattering, food splattering. One moment she was living in her ordinary world, the next she was trapped in the past, and before she knew it she was thrown back into reality, knees buckling from the impact.
Her loss of balance had felt just like her fall in the gym during lunch, but this time, Kat couldn’t stop thinking about the first time she’d met Jay Mendoza.
After cleaning the mess and gathering stares from literally everyone in the room, Kat situated herself at the least desirable booth in the corner of Halos—the one she sat at now, phone in hand. The booth had a broken light fixture dangling above it, leaving the ambiance in the corner dark in comparison to the other seats in the restaurant. Unless Halos seats were in demand, the grimy booth was open for employees during their breaks. Not that it was Kat’s break or anything.
Remembering the image of fifteen-year-old Jay s
tanding at her doorstep was definitely strange, but it was explainable. She’d been there. The memory was hers, so it didn’t leave her panicked, but it did help her realize how unexplainable it was that she’d remembered Peter’s fifteenth birthday in the first place. How could she possibly recall a memory that wasn’t hers? How could she possibly recall a memory when she wasn’t even there?
Kat scrolled through responses to a Reddit post from eleven years ago. It was written by a nineteen-year-old college student who claimed to have a memory that didn’t belong to him. The student explained that he remembered his father taking him fishing on his fifth birthday. When he brought up the trip one summer evening, his father clearly stated that he’d never taken him fishing before. The man did, however, take the nineteen-year-old’s brother fishing for his fifth birthday—the brother who was nine years older than him. When he called his brother to ask about his fifth birthday, they both recalled the same exact memory.
This college student was now fully convinced he had one of his older brother’s childhood memories and was turning to Reddit—of all places to request medical advice—for an explanation behind this strange phenomenon. There were only seven replies in response to his post. Two users called him crazy, one claimed to have a similar experience but shared no context, and the other four displayed a genuine concern for his mental health. Kat stopped scrolling when she reached the final reply.
Sounds like psychosis to me.
Psychosis? A group had mentioned the term during a schizophrenia presentation in biology class last year. Kat didn’t remember what it meant, so she Googled a definition.
psy·cho·sis /sīˈkōsəs/: a severe mental disorder in which thought and emotions are so impaired that contact is lost with external reality.
Kat tossed her phone aside and slammed her head onto the sticky table. She focused on the light chattering of customers in Halos in an attempt to calm herself. Maybe she really was losing touch with reality. Maybe her mind had made up an imaginary birthday for Peter Moon to mess with her. But even if that were true, why would her mind fake a memory about Peter? What a random choice.
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