The Journal of Memories

I woke up hearing Luna from the bedroom.

She was mumbling, “No. Let me out. I don’t want to do this.”

I jumped up and ran into the bedroom. Her eyes were closed and her breathing was heavy.

She must be having a nightmare.

I slowly walked over and sat on the bed. I gently shook her but she startled awake and she panicked. Her eyes darted around the room and her heart was beating fast. I gently took her hand, “Hey it’s okay... you were just having a bad dream.”

She calmed down once she saw me and engulfed me in a hug, “T-thank you for waking me.”

I smiled wrapping my arms around her, “No problem... since you are up. The kitchen has enough stuff for me to make pancakes.”

She chuckled, “Don’t you mean. I am going to make the pancakes.”

I laughed, “That will probably be best. We wouldn’t want a repeat of the waffles now, would we?”

She unwrapped her arms, kissing me on the cheek, “No. We wouldn’t.”

With that she walked to the kitchen and I could already hear her mixing things together.

She works fast.

I walked out of the bedroom with Macy and sat on one of the stools at the counter around the kitchen. She put a pan on the stove, pouring the pancake mix onto it. The smell filled the air. I looked at the tablet she put on the table in the corner, “So... do you want to look through the tablet after breakfast?”

She looked outside, “I think you mean lunch, the sun it up way too high for it only to be breakfast time.”

“Lunch then?”

She flipped the pancake, “Sure. We better get to know what they know, if we are going to save this city.”

She put down a plate in front of me and slid the pancake from the pan onto it, “Eat up before it gets cold.”

I pushed it away, “I want to eat with you though.”

She pushed it back at me, “You are eating with me. I am here, aren’t I? Now eat up?”

“Yes ma’am.”

She is getting sassy again.

I dug into the pancake and just the coffee and waffles, it was amazing. It was perfectly cooked and fluffy. It wasn’t too sweet. She looked over, “Oops! Almost forgot.”

She grabbed some maple syrup, drizzling it over the cake, “Now you can eat it.”

She flipped another pancake onto the plate, “I haven’t even finished the first one.”

She smirked, “You better get to eating then.”

After lunch we cleaned all the dishes. She decided she wanted to shower before anything else, which I understood because, honestly, we haven’t showered in awhile. I jumped in after her, letting the hot water cleanse my skin, and relax my mind. I threw on some random clothes from the bag and the coat, walking out to meet Luna. She had put on some of her clothes. She was wearing black ripped jeans, a t-shirt, and a black, leather jacket.

I laughed, “Where did you get all that?”

She twirled in a circle, “Well the clothes are mine. I found the jacket in the closet. I figured you stole a coat, so I should too.”

I shook my head, “I guess that’s one ideal to live by.”

I walked away grabbing the tablet, “Should look through this now?”

She threw herself on the couch, “Yes! Let’s get to snooping!”

I chuckled, flopping down next to her. I looked at the tablet confused. She took it, “Here I got it. You can’t read remember.”

I crossed my arms over my chest and pouted like a kid losing his favorite toy, “So mean.”

She laughed, “Yeah but you love that about me.”

I leaned over and kissed her forehead, “Yes I do.”

Her face reddened but she turned on the tablet to hide it. She began scrolling through screens until she landed on the one with the pictures of the three brains again, “Weird...”

“What is it?”

She pointed to the less glowing one, “This one says a normal person’s brain.”

Then she pointed to the one that was almost all glowing, “This one says it is my brain.”

Lastly, she pointed the one fully glowing, “And it says this one is yours.”

My eyes widened and shifted between each of the three, “Why is mine the most glowly?”

She shrugged, “I am not sure. If we kept looking we might find out though.”

I feel like I am only getting more confused the more stuff I know.

Luna has been scrolling through screens for a couple minutes now, trying to find something about those pictures. She made strange faces at some of the screens.

“What’s wrong?”

She narrowed her eyes, “I can’t understand half of this stuff... It’s like some sort of code.”

I looked closer.

It still just looks like wavy lines to me.

“What makes you think that?”

She shrugged, “It’s just a bunch of random letters and numbers, without any real words... I am pretty sure these people are smart enough to write. So it must be a code of some sort.”

She tried to help me understand more by pointing them out, “You see how that is an a then there some random numbers then there is an n."

I am lost.

She sighed and laid back on the couch, “You are lost, aren’t you?”

I chuckled, “Yup, but I guess I can kind of understand what you are saying...”

Shock.

Like a word search.

How can my brain remember that but not how to read?!

She noticed my eyes had dimmed, “What are you thinking?”

“It’s like a word search.”

She looked back at it, “I guess you are right... We just don’t know what words to look for.”

I thought for a moment, “What if someone has a key to it? Like Dr. Simon can unscramble the words-”

My head started hurting and pressure built up on it, feeling like my skull was going to get crushed in. I closed my eyes and leaned back against the couch.

My dad was sitting at the table looking through some papers, “None of this makes any sense.”

He examined it more closely for a few minutes, “I might be able to figure this out, if only I had enough time.”

My dad noticed me, peeking through the door, “Hey Ben! You are supposed to be sleeping.”

I walked in, pulling up a chair next to him, “You are too... What are you working on?”

He began to clean up some of the papers thrown around, “Just a hard assignment, well more like a puzzle... I should have it figured out in my notebook by morning though.”

I yawned and stood up, “I will leave you to it then. Good night dad, good luck on that puzzle.”

He began scribbling things into his notebook, focusing on the papers again, “Night.”

I opened my eyes, wiping the blood off my nose. Luna had her hand on my arm, “What did you see?”

I rubbed my head, as if that would get rid of the pain faster, “I saw my dad working on something. He called it a puzzle and that he was going to have it figured out in his notebook...”

Her eyes widened, “Do you think he figured out how to decode this in his notebook?!”

I shrugged, “I am not sure but he probably did... Just another reason why we need to find him.”

She nodded and jumped off the couch. Turning off the tablet, she placed it on the coffee table, “Well since we have no idea what this says. I think we shouldn’t stress about it and enjoy this suite.”

I laughed, “Can you make me some of your delicious coffee?”

She put her hands on her hips, “I said enjoy, not be your slave.”

I pouted, “But it was so good! You started this when you made that challenge.”

She went over the kitchen and put on some hot water, “Why do I do these things for you?”

I smiled.

Ha! I won this round!

After about ten minutes, she sat down next to me, handing me a mug, “Sorry there wasn’t any whipped cream.”

I sighed, “Some people just don’t understand the joys of whipped cream like we do.”

She laughed.

Macy jumped up next to us and let out a sigh.

She is still lazy, like always.

I looked out the glass doors, seeing the sky was becoming clouded over. I got up from the couch, placing my mug on the table, and walked over to the doors. I opened one, stepping onto the balcony. The temperature had dropped pretty low, I was even shivering in my coat. I felt Luna walk up behind me, “Do you think it is going to snow again?”

I looked up at the clouds, “It might.”

She shivered, “I hate snow and the cold.”

I wrapped my arms around her, “We are safe here though. It might also slow anyone who would be looking for us down.”

She wrapped her arms around me, “How many?”

“How many what?”

“How many people do you think are going to die? Last time there was so many...”

I looked down at her, looking into her eyes, “Listen, people are going to die... I hate it too but we can’t stop it. It is not our fault, it is whoever dropped those bomb’s fault.”

She nodded but looked to the ground, “I have just been thinking... what if our blood could have saved everyone... and we just left them there.”

I lifted her chin with my fingers, “Maybe our blood could have saved but maybe it wouldn’t... I don’t trust those scientists and Dr. Flora knew something was off. That’s why she helped us... they wanted us dead.”

She nodded again, “Alright. Thank you... Can we go inside now? It is getting pretty cold and we still have some warm coffee to finish.”

I released my arms from her and grabbed her hand instead, leading us back into the room. With the door closed, the cold wind was blocked from us. We both curled up on the couch again until suddenly...

The tablet on the table began to glow. The hologram of the newsman appeared, “Breaking news... Authorities have found out the bombing suspects from the tragedy in New York...”

Both Luna and me leaned forwards on the couch.

They did? Who was it?

He continued on, “They are still at large inside the city. Authorities are doing their best to locate and capture them. They are optimistic that they won’t be able to leave the boundaries of the city but just in case you see them, call 911 and do not approach. They are extremely dangerous. Here are there pictures now...”

We both tensed up with shock and fear. Luna almost fainted.

We were both staring at pictures of us on the hologram.

“... there names are Ben Foster and Luna Sora. Once again if they are seen outside of the city, please contact the authorities. Thank you and that will be all.”