Work Text:
Pat came home from school, as he walked through the door and into his dwelling as he had many times before this. This time something was off, he felt an alien feeling creeping into his mind. Then the feeling vanished, leaving him feeling strange, he didn’t know why or what that feeling was, all he knew was that it was strange. As he walked up the steps to his bedroom to do his schoolwork on his desk. He noticed a small dark object in the sky, then the loudspeakers spoke “Everyone go inside” in its cold monotone voice. He continued working on his schoolwork for about an hour, until the loudspeakers spoke again “We apologize for the inconvenience, a trainee pilot steered off course and has been released”.
He felt a sense of remembrance for a day quite long ago in distant memory, of a similar event, he didn’t know how long ago though, a couple days? Months? Years? As he continued on his schoolwork, he heard his downstairs door open, then he got up, walked down the stairs to greet his father, but no one was there. He pondered on that for a moment, before walking up stairs, and back to his room. As he got to his room he glanced at his clock on his desk, it was 4:30. Which was strange considering that his father usually got home around this time. Unlike his mother who came home around 5:10. Soon, he finished his work, walked downstairs, got his helmet on and hopped onto his bike and went away, he was gonna hang-out with his friends.
He got to where they usually were, and they were there, “Hey, Pat! Nice to see you here early, though you weren’t gonna come here, since you know you usually stay up till 10 doing your schoolwork.” Pat knew this was true, he usually didn’t even come here most days since he focused on his schoolwork so hard, that some days he didn’t even realize that it was after 8PM. The scheduled time to go to bed, well normally he would get punished, but since he was a star student he wasn’t. He hanged out with his friends, when one said “Pat, you do know it’s October, it's almost time for the ceremony of twelve in December.” Pat was pulled back into reality from fun, he felt as if he was on a timer, he hadn’t thought about what he would do for the rest of his life but, now that he realized that it was so soon, he froze up, said “I have to go I haven’t signed up for helping” He ran got on his bike with his helmet on and then pedaled so fast that it felt as if he couldn’t slow down, but he could.
He got to the Building of Helping, slowed down, got in front of it, then proceeded to get off his bike, then put it in the bike stop. Then, he fell. He got up, but wasn’t where he was, and he could see weird things in his vision, he walked around thinking he might be dreaming, he saw that he was in a place with tall buildings with little windows poking out like a giant checkerboard, he saw people all around him, walking down the street, he saw a calendar with a date, September 11th, 2001, he saw a clock with a time 8:43, he walked around he saw people of different colors and shapes, he saw entire buildings filled with people and covered in advertisements, he got in one, and in an attempt to see where he was, he took an elevator took it up, and then once he was up there, he saw a giant statue in the distance, it was green, and looked like it was holding a torch, he saw two giant buildings, then, he felt it. He felt wind, he saw a plane flying low right above him, he heard faint gasps from people below and beside him, he heard screams, and then it hit the building. He woke up again. This time in a place full of mud, he heard crying, he saw wrecks of vehicles beside him, he saw people on the ground, most with blood, he noticed too, that the things in his vision were a little less vibrant, he then tried to get up, then he felt pain, unbearable pain, pain that felt like hitting his toe on a table’s foot, but worse, it felt warm, too warm, it felt cold too, too cold. He tried not to scream, but he couldn’t, he screamed for what felt like hours, he heard others too, he turned his head, only to face someone's unmoving head. He saw planes in the sky spitting fire at each other, he saw wrecks on the ground on fire, he saw people coming his way, each of them holding sticks that spit fire.
He abruptly woke up, in the same place where he was he got up, then he got up he didn’t see those things in his vision but when he looked up, he saw a vibrant sky, full of different things he couldn’t describe, with swirls, and blinking dots, he walked inside the Building of Helping, and on the floor was 3 people all on the ground not moving, he knelt down to see if they were alive, they were, but there heartbeats and breathing were slow. He tried to move them to a safe spot, but then. One of them coughed, then stopped breathing, he ran out of the building afraid if someone or something was there, he got on his bike and ran, he went to his dwelling, and found his little sister, who was only a six, on the floor, breathing slowly, he saw his mother barely awake, and looking outside he saw, more planes, all circling the community, it seemed that whatever was happening, was dire and urgent, stayed in his dwelling, silently crying all night that his family wouldn't die, he didn’t know when he learned what dying was, but he did now.
In the early morning when he should’ve been asleep, he heard his mother move, he walked to her, and gave her a hug, she got up, said “What was that?” “Pat do you know?” Pat didn’t know, he didn’t know what had just happened or why it did, all he knew was that it was quite possibly the biggest threat the community had ever faced. He replied “ I don’t know, it happened when I was trying to get a help assignment, for my hours so I could have a job, I fell down on the ground, then I woke up in a big city, it was strange I felt weird I could see weird things in my vision.” “Color,” His mom replied. “What?” Pat responded. His mother responded “I lived the life of what they called a painter mixing color all around to create beautiful paintings of expression and, it was fun, it felt like a puzzle, and I don’t know if I can ever go back to that beauty.” His mom seemed to break down, crying and not responding to anything he said.
After what seemed like hours, the alarm to wake up rang, he woke with a jolt, with a hope that yesterday had been a weird dream, it wasn’t as he woke up on the floor. He saw his mother too. She was trying to do her normal routine, but she couldn’t. Her brain had been completely fried, by that experience, she was randomly bursting into tears, and after a while of him watching her, she was sitting on a chair and holding a fork acting like she was trying to paint, but she was just moving here hand and then incessantly broke down into tears, he saw his sister get up, then walk over to him asking “What is mom doing?” “I don’t know Cherry, I don’t know.” Pat replied, his mother seemed to suddenly awake, she walked over and they hugged and cried.
It was only later that day, that Pat finally learned that this had all happened because the next receiver of memory had gone rogue and escaped, and caused mayhem, and pain all over the community. He harbored anger that the man who had caused so much pain to the community would never get caught and brought to justice, because the last time he was seen, was 200 miles away, in a different area. Known as elsewhere.
