Chapter Text
For some reason, Multi hadn't thought much about it until recently.
Maybe not to add another issue to an already long list of worries. Perhaps because he hadn't heard anyone mention having a similar dilemma before.
The truth is, he has no idea why he came here.
He knew when — on March 14th, a particularly sunny day of early spring. He knew how — via a weirdly luxurious cruise ship that had crashed mysteriously on abandoned land. Hell, he even noted down the clothing he wore, the words he exchanged and all the people he spoke with. In order.
Those were the technicalities he had marked in a journal days after, to make sure that details of that event would have been properly archived. Those were the undeniable and confirmed facts.
The one thing he couldn't recall, however, was the reason he had been on that ship along with over 40 multilingual people, a majority of whom he hadn't even known names of at that time. He couldn't remember why he would want to join such a trip. He couldn't even remember anything before it.
…Or so he thought.
Scrambles of the past have been hidden behind a thick, distorted layer of static. Strangely enough, bits of it have recently been coming back to him at the most random moments. Resurfacing like tiny pieces of styrofoam in a murky pool of water.
The first one happened last week, on Monday, around the afternoon.
He was walking beside his adoptive son, Nacho. They entered the KFC of his friend and boy's adoptive mother, Katie B. The woman lead them inside, ordered them to sit down at one of the tables and wait for a bit as she re-heated some food in the kitchen for Nacho.
Multi visited that place occasionally, to help Katie with thieves and vandals by adding security. The cameras he installed first did a decent job, but they required regular check ups to make sure they work properly.
The building itself was rather well kept by Mike, KFC’s co-founder — the modernized interior was a bit less cozy than the original one, but still pleasant to look at.
The only thing he disliked was the lighting. Maybe he was nitpicking, but its cool shade gave this place a much different atmosphere during evenings, where barely any sunlight came through the large windows. In a way, it made him feel… uneasy?
Huh?
Actually, didn't that remind him of something? Something like…
“Dada? Are you there?” Nacho waved his small hand in front of the man’s face. It was enough to bring him back to reality.
It was brief. Subtle in its form, yet with connotations so eerie the vision in front of him froze for a second. He cleared his throat.
“Ah, yes. Sorry Nacho, where were we…?”
Though the smile on the boy’s mask remained never changing, Multi could sense the frown on his face.
“Focus!” He exclaimed. The soft, slightly artificially monotone voice came off way less aggressive than Nacho desired. “We were talking about bunnies. Mama said she will give me one.”
“Oh, really? A bunny?” Multi repeated, to which Nacho passed him one of his drawings across the table. He had a hard time holding back a smile, looking at the row of crudely drawn, colorful bunnies in the form of blobs with long ears.
○○○
…The next flashback occurred on Wednesday.
Being the germaphobe that he is, Multi kept a strict routine of cleaning procedures around the CNE facility. This includes his office, which he usually cleans himself instead of ordering his workers to do so. It may be another level of unnecessary security, but the thought of a worker going through his belongings and private documents during cleaning made him paranoid.
And so, like every Wednesday, Multi began the day with the weekly cleanup.
The cleaning involved mainly dusting and vacuuming all the areas in the room, then disinfecting all flat surfaces. Every now and then, he would also go in-depth looking through the file cabinets and drawers, getting rid of documents that are not worth taking up space. The procedure itself didn’t take much time — half an hour, even less while listening to music.
Unless he gets distracted.
While vacuuming around the file cabinets, he moved one of them to get rid of dust underneath. What he did not expect, however, was that beside some cobwebs was a small plushie, lying with its back facing him.
He put down the vacuum to pick it up.
It was not just any plushie. It was a Cucurucho plushie.
A polar bear toy with scratched, black bead eyes and soft, dusty fur that definitely required washing. What’s more is that it lacked that sickly sweet, chemical scent of all the other plushies he had seen. Ones that were brand new.
He checked its tag for year of production, to which he found none. Numbers on the material have been so washed out they were now impossible to decipher. With its condition in mind, it was clear that this one was probably much older than the other plushies, scattered around the island.
Where did it come from? How long was it there? The only plushie he remembers owning was brand new, and currently sitting in a pile of stolen plushies in the Polish Cave storage room.
At first, he contemplated throwing it in the trash along with some papers. The more he looked at it though, the more he hesitated to do so.
But why? He holds no particular attachment to it. He didn’t even know it was ever in his possession until now. So how come he started to feel a strange, dull pain in his chest at the thought of letting it go…?
…Interesting.
He sat the plushie on his desk and grabbed a notepad instead, jotting down yet another occurrence of a brief memory hint. For some reason, he couldn’t help but start to anticipate them, purely out of sheer fascination. These flashes, like tiny, unmarked puzzle pieces, gave him a sign of hope — a possibility to piece together the puzzle that was his past, his childhood.
There appears to be a pattern in the way these resurface; He assumed the circumstances of present time had something related to it, in one way or another. So far, the hypothesis was flawless.
Then came Friday.
That day, although mostly wasted on fainting in and out of consciousness, brought one additional element to the equation. All thanks to malfunctioning earphones.
Though he lacked the energy to do most of his work due to dizziness and lightheadedness, he refused to waste the day on doing nothing. After all, the time is ticking, and his enemies are likely working twice as hard to take him down.
That’s why he settled on a task that required much less effort. The upgraded earphones he would give to his workers to ease communication required review before fully replacing the old ones.
The first few pairs worked perfectly fine. With fourth one came some issues — the testing sound came out at a much lower volume than intended.
It was unclear what was the reason behind this malfunction. The buttons appeared to be fine, and so was the tuning tial. Hmm…
There might be something wrong inside, he assumed. Before cracking the earphone open to check the wiring, he decided to test the sound one final time, when—
“Kurwa—!!” He jolted in his seat, immediately taking off the earphone, dropping it on the desk.
The earphones somehow worked again, a bit too well; The testing beep came out loud. Too loud. Was that loud of a volume even possible to achieve?
He leaned back in his seat, feeling the wave of exhaustion dawning on him yet again. His senses probably exaggerated it — logically, his hearing would be injured if it was far louder than possible. And yet…
The noise still echoed in his head.
Instead of fading away, it kept drilling his brain. The artificial echo distorted further and further, as if taunting the scientist.
Multi felt confused at the amount of distress it gave him. It made no sense. Why did his breathing get more and more frantic? Why did his vision get more and more blurry? Were the shapes in front of him always this mangled? Were the lights in his office always this painfully bright?
He couldn't understand. Why did it scare him so—
○○○
…the next thing he saw was the mask of one of the CNE workers.
He lifted his still heavier-than-normal head to look at them. The figure in a yellow hazmat suit and gas mask passed him a report book, along with a bottle of water.
How nice.
“Thank you. You may leave now.” Multi gave them a formal smile.
Upon hearing the polite dismissal, the worker bowed their head in understatement and left straightaway.
Now Multi was alone with his thoughts again. He reached for the notepad, looked through the previous entries.
The uneasiness brought by artificially cool lights, the melancholy brought by the old plushie. These emotions were strange, but Multi was able to conjure up some speculations off them already.
But the beeping noise? He was clueless. His reaction made completely no sense.
He tried to analyze it with his scientist mind, separating the gnawing anxiety off it, yet no results came to his mind. It was starting to annoy him.
He sat back in his chair, hit with a strange wave of resignation. Why has he been so desperate for the past few days? Whatever is blocking his memory is making sure that won't be able to know the full truth soon. Or even half of it, for that matter.
Was he alone in this? Does a similar thought ever hit the other islanders, when they were alone at night? Do any of them try to remember it yet again? Or did they already try, but regret doing so?
Right, regret. Will he too regret trying to dig into it? Or was overthinking a sign he already regrets it? Multi wasn't sure yet.
His gaze scanned the pristine office room, stopping at the unorganized desk.
The plushie sitting beside his computer stared at him blankly. The etched smile felt more apathetic than anything. It was weirdly saddening.
And yet, even more confusingly, it filled him with nostalgia.
Nostalgia for everything he does not remember.