a.u.

Chapter Eighteen: Façade

Damian remembered everything.

He wasn't supposed to remember everything.

Well, "wasn't" was a strong word. He didn't want to pretend like he knew the rules to how this thing worked. There was no manual on the weird plot swapping, world changing phenomena that they kept finding themselves in, but he had his own theories.

And remembering everything that happened in the past four previous scenarios directly after the setting changed was not supposed to be one of those.

He came to in a dark corner of some room. His eyes were still adjusting from the blinding light that permeated his short term memory. There was something in his hand.

It was Alexander. The two were still holding hands. They were standing, though, which was different than where they'd last left off. This was a new setting, alright. He had no doubt about that. But something felt very, very different than it had before.

He squeezed the hand in his. "Hey, Alexander," he whispered quietly. "You alright?"

From the corner of his eye he could see Alexander shaking his head and rubbing his eyes. "Geez. Yeah, I'm good. That's a hell of a feeling. What happened?"

Damian's eyes were still adjusting. He squinted. "I think we switched."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Where the hell are we?"

He shook his head. "I have no idea."

His vision eventually cleared enough that he could make out a soft light in the distance. It wasn't white like that light, but a soft orange. He took a couple steps toward it, pulling Alexander along with him.

The area around them became clearer with each and every step. The soft orange light was emanating from a musty-looking lamp sitting on top of a desk. The desk itself was made of an old wood. What appeared to be white paint had mostly chipped off or faded. The top of the desk itself was littered with books and loose leaf paper. A matching wooden chair was pulled up to it.

Damian craned his neck and looked up at the walls. The walls were lined with dark bookshelves, each loaded with books from floor to ceiling. The carpet was an outdated plush dark green. Wherever they were, it looked like an old fashioned study. The desk lamp was the only thing illuminating the entire room. Everything beyond the desk and handful of bookshelves was dark.

Alexander squeezed Damian's hand. "What is this place?"

Damian shook his head. "I don't know. I have no idea. Usually we get like these fake sort of memories that give us some context, but I'm getting nothing. What about you?"

"Me neither."

Damian turned back toward the desk and observed what was on there more closely. Most of the paper was blank. The books looked like those old reject ones on library shelves. He didn't recognize any of the titles. He took a step to the side to get a better look, but something crunched as his foot came down. He quickly lifted it back up to see what he'd stepped on.

Sitting adjacent to the back corner of the desk was a cross hatched paper waste basket. A dozen crumpled pieces of loose leaf paper were inside and a few lay scattered on the outside.

Damian let go of Alexander's hand and reached down to pick up the crumpled piece of paper that he'd stepped on. He smoothed it out on his knee and held it under the lamplight to read.

What he saw made his heart pound against his ear drums and beat against his chest. Halfway through reading, his hand started shaking.

Alexander didn't take long to notice his reaction. "Damian? Damian are you okay?"