Oblivious Chapter Two

(Second chapter. Enjoy the lies. It's also kind of long, so if you're like SOME PEOPLE WHO DON'T LIKE READING LOOOOOOOONNNNNNNGGGG REVIEWS, please don't even comment. Thank you for your time and patience.)

I lied again.

I told you I would tell you when I lied, so this doesn’t count as lying anymore. This book won’t make you throw up if you’re riding on a plane. Unless, of course, you have motion sickness, then you might really want to put the book down now and look at all the elephant-shaped clouds in the sky.

Anyway.

I was sixteen years old. I was something at that time I like to call a ‘forgetfully aware.’ When someone is forgetfully aware, it means they know something is wrong in the world, and it’s on the tip of their tongue, but they just keep forgetting what it is.

I had failed another driving test, and was riding home on my bike when I saw a sale at my favorite place to get art supplies. I stopped and locked up my bike, and then went inside to browse.

I was looking at a set of acrylics that could have been water colors shoved into a different bottle when I heard the commotion.

Truthfully, it wasn’t that hard to hear it. There was banging and clashing and yells of “Fight! Fight! Fight!” which mixed along very nicely with the employees yelling at the kids outside the store.

Curious (as I mentioned earlier, we’re all curious, and we wouldn’t have a reason to live because of it. By the way, the true term is ‘curiosity killed the kid.’ Whoever heard of a cat being killed by curiosity? It’s ridiculous!) I placed the acrylics back on the shelves and made my way outside, looking as the scene unraveled.

There were two huge, muscular teenagers (possibly 18 or 19) shoving another thin, slender, tall teen (definitely 17) in between the two of them like a game of catch. The thin boy looked exhausted and beat up, and almost as though he was going to pass out.

Now I’m going to tell you one of the few things that I learned at the Museum of Learning’s History: one is that listing is nice, which is why I use it. Two: victims are people who are being attacked either physically, mentally, or in any other way. Three: attackers are exactly that: attackers that attack victims. Four: bystanders are people who stand there and watch the victims be destroyed by the attackers.

I wasn’t going to be a bystander, but I certainly wasn’t strong enough to take on those two walking refrigerators. So I did what any other girl would have done in that situation.

I yelled, “HEY!” No one stopped ranting though. Everyone chanted even louder, I think. The victim was now having his arm twisted by the bigger of the two refrigerators. The teen cried out in pain and that just made me plain angry.

There are several good things about being a girl, but one of my favorites is our ability to scream very loud. It catches lots of peoples’ attentions, such as the blissfully unaware policemen sitting across the street eating his Dunkin’ Donuts.

I let out a high-pitched scream that seemed to rock the whole town, and the whole mob of boys turned to look at me as though I was nuts.

I stopped when I saw the policemen look around, startled. He then watched the stunned victim still groaning in pain as the giant refrigerator held his arm tightly behind his back.

The policemen got out of his car and pulled his belt up, trying to suck in his huge potbelly.

He gave the attackers a good scolding as I helped the victim sit down. I watched him as he rolled his shoulder, moaning.

“Are you all right?” I asked him.

“Huh?” He asked, looking distracted. “Oh, yeah...”

I cocked my head at him and squinted. Dark brown hair, amber eyes that could melt my heart into a puddle... I swear I had seen him before.

“Do I know you?” I asked him.

The victim looked up and then said, “Um... My name’s Abriel.”

I stared at him for a moment longer, and then recognized him in a snap.

“You were that kid from the reunion.” I murmured, looking at him in shock. “And from the museum, and from the....” I stopped, registering that he had no emotion on his face except for pure blankness. “The truck accident.”

“Liada,” Abriel said immediately, almost as though he was begging me. “You cannot tell anyone.”

“I haven’t,” I realized suddenly. “After two whole years of holding it in, I have never once told anyone what happened.” Then I freaked out when I saw the look on his face. “Oh my god, I was actually dead?!” I cried in horror.

“Liada!” Abriel said immediately, trying to calm me. “Please don’t do this. Not here.” He pulled out an old fashioned pocket watch that had been tucked under his shirt. Abriel had cleverly turned this pocket watch into a necklace that hung on a thin golden chain. “I’ll show you a better place.” He told me softly.

He let the watch fall to his chest and I stared at it for a moment. It was backwards. The numbers were going counterclockwise instead of clockwise, and so were the hands.

When I looked back up at Abriel, I realized we weren’t on the street anymore. We were in this little oasis in the middle of a desert (the Sahara, to be exact.) with nice soft grass under my feet and water glistening. The small island of green in the middle of a sea of sand made my knees go weak from shock.

I collapsed on the ground, which is when I realized that I had been standing and so had Abriel. He sat down next to me and murmured, “I know you don’t remember much, but... Try to remember. Just the simple things.” He turned his amber eyes on me, making my heart melt out into my lungs, making my breathing short and rapid. “Every morning,” He murmured. “We would go to the nearest white star and sit there for ages just watching the Earth rotate.”

I looked very confused now, but Abriel continued. “What about the time when you lost your watch?” He asked desperately. “It was your favorite watch, and you got really mad that you lost it, so you went back in time and got rid of the biggest bully that had ever existed, but then you put him back and realized you had put your watch in your pants pocket back home.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I said, slightly frightened now. Was I hallucinating?

“What about....” Abriel looked desperate for another occasion, and he just began rattling off random ones. I shook my head to each one.

When Abriel looked about ready to give up, he suddenly turned to me and took my head in both his hands. He pressed his lips to mine.

They were soft and perfect, and our mouths seemed to mold around each other as if they were made to be that way forever.

This was my first kiss (that I remembered in that lifetime) that I had ever had, and it felt so good and so... right that I just kept going. I just kissed back.

The memory hit me like a bag full of stardust (a better metaphor to use would be a bag full of a thousand tons worth of molten lava.) and I screamed.

When you’re body is accustomed to being stupid, slow, and ignorant, memories of intelligence, speed and awareness are painful, and yet good. The pain was a good pain, and one that I could handle.

I sifted through the memory I had just been handed and picked out any information I could find.

The first thing I found out was that I was, in fact, stuck at 16 years old and always would be. I found out that I had a small silver pocket watch like Abriel’s that hung around my neck usually. And I also found out that Abriel and I were lovers.

I know, I know, the last one comes as such a shock to you that you probably fell of your chair and are now skipping over these very words to see what I do about it.

Well, you want to know how I responded to this memory?

I kissed Abriel again.

After a ten minute long kiss (I’m not joking, it was seriously ten minutes long! Abriel’s watch told me so!) We pulled away and Abriel murmured, “You remember everything?”

“No,” I told him softly. “I remember that I’m sixteen, I have a silver watch like yours, and that....” I stopped for a moment, looking into Abriel’s amber eyes. He was encouraging me to say the words. “I love you.” I was startled how it came out of my mouth. It sounded like I was realizing something for the first time, but the words felt so nice and right on my lips that I said it again. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Abriel said, looking relieved. He stroked my straight black hair out of my face (I went through a hair change between then and when I was three. My parents weren’t happy when my princess-like golden hair became straight and black and my eyes went from sky blue to dark green.)

It made me shiver. I knew I loved him, and I knew why, I just didn’t remember loving him.

But Abriel is a good kisser.

When you have until the rest of time to be who you want to be, you really don’t care what you do or say, who you tick off and who you make friends with. As long as you have someone by your side until the end of time, you won’t go mad.

The only problem is, time can’t end. Time ending contradicts itself, for if there was no more time, nothing could end. Everything would be endless, cease to exist.

Also, if time ended, how would we know? If time ended, we wouldn’t remember it ending. We wouldn’t remember ceasing to exist. We wouldn’t even be anything.

Scary, huh?

“What’s going on?” I finally asked Abriel after what seemed hours of ‘catching up.’ (AKA we kissed for hours on end. Hey, when you can bend time without batting an eye, why not?)

Abriel sighed and murmured, “I don’t know how to explain this, but-”

Let me stop right here. First of all, if you don’t know how to explain something, why try? (By the way, contradictions really bug me, if you haven’t figured that out by now.) Second of all, I lied again.

At the end of the last chapter, I told you that was your last chance to close the book. Truthfully, you can close the book whenever you want, but you will become aware before you do. Now this is truthfully your last chance to close the pages of this book and now remain curiously aware. (AKA you know something’s out there but you don’t really want to find out.)

No? Oh well, I tried.

“You’re a Melix.” Abriel finished.

“A what?” I asked.

“A Melix,” Abriel repeated. “A person who can jump through time. We’re run by a government, but it’s different than the one here.” Abriel let out a frustrated growl suddenly. “It’s hard to explain, it would do better to show you.”

Abriel slid his hand onto my waist and my arms automatically hooked around his neck. He looked down and kissed me, and in the pure joy of it I closed my eyes.

I only opened them to see why Abriel had pulled away. We were standing in... Well, it’s hard to explain to you. You know so little, and your brains cannot grasp what I’m going to explain to you. So I’m going to explain what you can understand.

Abriel and I were standing on a thin line of magua. (That’s a color that hasn’t ever been seen before in any human’s eyes.) Gaggles of other thin lines were streaking across the never-ending black, each a different color, either known or unknown to the human race.

Other people stood on the lines. The people ranged from one person per line or hundreds.

“What is this place?” I asked softly, looking around.

“The Chambers. Where families of the Melix meet,” Abriel answered quietly. “Each line represents the Melixes that travel through time, and the families they have made.”

“Why are we here?” I asked. This place was scaring me, and the frightening sense of nothing but time came to my mind. There was love and hate and emotion, but it was different somehow... Nothing seemed right.... everything seemed so.... Empty.

“I’m here to show you. Hopefully you’ll remember some things.” Abriel murmured, looking around. I followed his gaze.

The place looked familiar, and yet I had never seen it before. I knew what each color was, even though no one had told me. I knew that I wouldn’t fall off the one-inch thick line of magua that was simply there as a color.

Ah, contradictions. You have yet to make my life happy.

The déjà vu was overwhelming. I had been here before! I just knew I had been here before! I knew everyone here, all their names, their ages, and when they became a Melix.

It was amazing how much I remembered in such a short time. And yet... I still didn’t learn anything very important about myself, which was what I truly craved.

I wanted to remember the times I had experienced with Abriel, whether good or bad. I knew I loved him, I just didn’t know why.

Do you know how heart-wrenchingly painful it is to love someone when you barely even know anything about them other than their name and the fact that they’re extremely cute? Of course you don’t. You’re not a Melix.

However, if your life did happen to become meddled with by a Melix, you might look at someone and immediately love them. Chances are you two were lovers in a former life.

Which brings me to a funny story.

There was once this man whose life had been meddled with by a Melix (as I mentioned earlier.) In his former life, said man had a lover, and she was still alive. However, this man did not know that, so he married the girlfriend he had been dating before he met his lover.

Eventually, the man saw his former lover and he cried because he could never be with her again.

Melixes’ lives are full of despair and heartbreaks, and it’s hard to find a true love when you’re a Melix. You need another Melix that is equal in power and brains with you, or else the tables tip and all of time goes plunging uncontrollably out of control.

(Yes, I know uncontrollably out of control is the same thing, but I’m just trying to get it through your thick head that if a Melix were to fall in love with the wrong person, time would be so messed up you wouldn’t be able to tell a catfish from an elephant!)

It felt nice to know that I had my lover by my side, holding me by the waist as I pressed close against him. I loved him, didn’t I?

Abriel sighed and murmured, “Do you remember anything?”

“I remember the colors and the people,” I murmured, bewildered. My brain capacity had expanded once more. I was getting smarter.

Abriel smiled at me brightly. “Anything else?” He asked hopefully. I shook my head. Abriel’s face fell, and he said, “All right then. Might as well let you think this all through... Sift through memories... Don’t touch any clocks though.”

I looked at him, confused. “Why not?” I asked.

“Clocks are something that represents time,” Abriel explained. “Because you can’t see time yet, your brain will take the next best thing: a clock. You’ll get lost somewhere in time, and it took me long enough to find you the first time.”

“At the reunion?” I asked.

“No,” Abriel admitted sheepishly. “When I went on my search, I kind of came to a tough spot in your life... You had gotten married because you didn’t know me, and you had cancer that was killing you and all this bad stuff was happening so I had to go back and change a lot of stuff.”

I was pale. I had been married? I had cancer? Did I have it now?

“You’re going to be fine, Liada.” Abriel assured me when he saw my face. He turned and hugged me close. He whispered into my hair, “You’ll be fine.”

When I opened my eyes, I was lying in my bed in my room, the lights off and the covers pulled up to my chin. I lay there for a moment, thinking.

Did this all really happen? Was Abriel real? I failed my driving test again! Okay, so the last thought wasn’t that important, but even in a moment of pure panic and illusion, you can think of the most ridiculous things.

My hand strayed to my mouth, where the tips of my fingers touched my lips. Did I really kiss Abriel, or was it just a dream? Is Abriel a dream? What if my whole life is a dream, and the real dreams I have are actually my real life, and pain and discomfort is just some side-affect?

Like I said: panic and illusion.

*****

Congratulations. You have successfully finished chapter two. I am telling you this so you know that the chapter is over, and because I hate ending things with cliff hangers, so I just end it with something really boring.

Now you’re probably going to skim over the rest of this chapter because I just told you it was boring. Well, if you happen to be reading this book right at this second, I’m going to tell you something very important to the story.

There is a bad guy.

His name is The Qesta.

And he is destroying time.