Chapter Text
In hindsight, Clifford realizes he should have seen them coming.
Now that summer break was almost over, he couldn’t even remember when it started, just that first one.
The first real memory. With an actual concept of what happened without someone telling him about it beforehand.
Soft tunes were filling the room, small hands guiding a bow over the violin strings in a familiar pattern. Then there was a sudden sharp and shrill noise.
“Ugh! I don’t know how to play this thing!” a little boy with short raven hair stomped his feet and looked as if he might just toss the instrument across the room.
“Now now!” The teacher chided. (Can’t recall the teachers face- not important, this is an actual memory, don’t distract yourself!)
“……….?” The teacher's mouth was saying something.
(no)
“…….” The boy answered.
The first one had been surprising, and even though it was incredibly amazing to remember something on his own, it was immensely frustrating that he had let himself get caught on a random detail and broke the trance.
He wouldn’t notice until later how fitting that word was.
Thankfully, that first one had occurred in his room, where he had been practising, but the second one he had in the garden, working on the hedge facing towards the small patch of forest there. Had he been alone, he’d never have noticed, but then, it was his mother who interrupted the new memory.
He was running through a dark forest.
‘Have to find HIM.’
(who?)
‘HE took it.’ He was chasing, hiding, sneaking,
‘Have to get it back. Need to get it back.’ The trees are rushing past him.
(what was taken?)
‘There!’ A light is shining through the trees.
“Clifford?” a hand waves past his face.
“What?!” he whirled around to face his mother.
“You’ve been staring at nothing for the past three minutes, dear. Are you alright?” she tilted her head and frowned.
“No! No. I just- I thought I saw something.”
He hadn’t – didn’t want Willard to find out about this. It would be unfair, since just yesterday Will had been crying his heart out about not remembering a single thing and wondering if their parents even saw them as part of the family anymore.
It had stirred at some unpleasant thoughts he had been having as well, but clearly, Will had more trouble with them. And it would be just unfairly cruel of him to basically boast about his returning memories when Will was nowhere near recalling anything.
And so far, it hadn’t even been important things, anyway. He hadn’t even bothered writing them down. (So Will wouldn’t read about them when they shared entries with each other.)
Another – the third? - was actually caused when Annie showed him their lullaby. He had been lucky that she had bought his excuse of ‘Just thinking.’ One of these days, he would run out of excuses for the weird trances he got into when remembering.
“Boys, it’s time for bed!” Annie called from down the hall. The twins giggled and ran from the bathroom towards their own bedroom, quickly snuggling into the sheets. Their mother came to give them both a kiss on the forehead before she sat down on the armchair in between their beds.
“Can you sing us a lullaby?” Will asked.
“Of course, dear.” She cleared her throat. “Come now my dear,” Annie looked over to Clifford with a soft smile.
“Come wayward Souls,”
“My sweetest little darling,” she turned back towards Will with the same smile.
“That wander through the darkness,” There was another voice singing in the background.
“There is a dream that is calling your name.”
“There is a light for the lost and the meek.”
(I know that voice)
“Monsters and ghosts,”
(It’s just changing the lullaby around)
“Sorrow and fear,”
“Are easily forgotten,”
“Are easily forgotten,”
(This is the exact same song!)
“For you can hide in your warm little bed.”
“When you submit to the soil of the earth.”
“Sleep, now my dear,”
“Grow, tiny seed,”
“you are called to the sheets.”
“you are called to the trees.”
“Sleep, 'til the sun rises high,”
“Rise, 'til your leaves fill the sky,”
“Until your dreams fill the air in the night.”
“until your sighs fill the air in the night.”
“Rest your tired eyes,”
“Lift your mighty limbs,”
“and you’ll sleep”
“and give praise”
“through the night.”
“to the fire.”
But really, there were memories that confused him to no end.
No. Oh nononononono-
He’s gone. He’s dying. Why aren’t you helping?
‘Can’t move. Can’t act.’
No. Something is wrong.
‘Of course, there is, your brother is dying.’
(What?)
‘No.’
‘………?’
(not again.)
‘……..’
‘……..’
‘………’
‘Do we have a deal?‘
“Helllooo!”
“Eeek!” he flinched and nearly covered himself with his cereal.
“Bro, are you okay?” Will was staring at him from behind his ruffled bangs. He never bothered to brush his hair before breakfast. Unless breakfast was really late.
“Yes, yes. Spaced out for a moment, don’t mind me.” He attempted a smile, which seemed to work better than he thought.
“Uh-huh, okay then.” Will shrugged and went back to his toast.
There were some that just couldn’t be real, but they still came to him during his trances, so what were those?
Willard was nearby. That was really the most reassuring thing, since he was sure he would have been more scared if he were there alone. Willard’s best friend Cordy was sitting at their feet, and she was looking up at them.
“Huh?” she suddenly sat up and looked around.
“Where am I?”
‘I don’t know.’ Clifford replied and looked around. They seemed to be in the middle of a forest.
“Hello? Is somebody there?!”
‘We are, Cordy!’ Will said.
“Anybody?” Now she looked as if she was about to cry.
‘Didn’t you hear?’ he asked. ‘We are standing right next to you!’
And in a moment of clarity, he realized how small she really was. And how little he could move. And then Will began to cry as well.
“What is going on? Mammy!? Daddy!??” Cordy began to run away into the forest.
‘No, please stay with us!’ Will screamed after her. ‘Don’t leave us!’
She never came back to them.
There were good memories too of course, but there was nothing to distinguish them from the bad or strange or downright impossible ones.
He was sitting on his dad’s lap, a storybook held open in front of them both. His dad was reading to him.
“- Treat it with care. Give it clean water. And feed it fresh air. Grow a forest. Protect it from axes that hack.” He paused. “Then the Lorax and all of his friends may come back.” Then he slowly closed the book.
“That was a sad story.” Clifford hummed and hugged the book close as if to give a hug to all the strange creatures that had been sad in the story.
“It had a lot of funny words.” Will added from where he was playing with some cars on the floor of the living room.
Finding a book he liked as a kid – and still did after reading it on his own now – or a song he heard a lot, with the help of the internet, was nice and made him feel a little better. By now he had a hunch that he might be remembering dreams instead of real memories as well.
He was dying. They had killed him.
Breathe. In, Out, In, Out.
Why did everyone want him dead?
First the snow.
Then the fire.
Then HIM.
Now those boys.
Everyone.
And now he was alone.
And now it was his turn too.
So this is it. He found the explanation. He was simply having a fever dream during his coma, and now he must be confusing real memories with ones he got of that dream.
He sighed and curled up under his sheets. It was night-time and the Saturday before they would start school. The orange hues of his carpet and bed sheets were enhanced by the light garland casting a soft glow from the bottom of his bed, the lantern it was curled into putting strange shadowy shapes on the walls.
He reached over to his nightstand to turn on some music on his phone. Nothing fast-paced, just some nature at night sounds.
He fell asleep soon after.