(TPOR) Chapter 187: I Care?

Everyone spent their day doing their individual things. The Olympians spent it strategizing in their room, making plans and cancelling plans. At least Zed suspected it was what they were doing.

Ash and Oliver spent theirs in their room with Chris. Whatever conversation they had was lost to Zed since he didn’t spend very long with them. The main subject of the little he was present for was still wrapped around the concept of being smuggled into the city. Chris remained of the opinion that it was a better option than any other they had.

As for Shanine, she spent the day with Festus and Eitri, answering questions and tracing the most uncomplicated runes with her finger. Apparently, Festus had no intentions of making her cast any or even making her memorize any. He made her take her time tracing each rune, completing each one in the longest amount of time Zed had ever seen.

It turned out that teaching an Awakened rank how to cast a rune was like teaching a toddler how to write. Well… a toddler with a sense of responsibility.

As for Zed, he spent the time when he was neither with Oliver and the crew or Festus and the others strolling around the motel.

He had much on his mind. Things he had ignored for far too long.

The first and the most recent was the details of his last quest.

Quest: Purchase Order 001

You have ruffled a few feathers. Purchase what you require and make your exit before the time runs out.

·       Objective: Acquire map: 2/2

·       Objective: Acquire battery: 1/1

·       Reward: mana stone x1.

Time remaining: 00:00:01.

He’d never gotten his reward or the quest clear message. The timer remained stuck on one second and he had no reward.

It had been like this since they’d left the small town. A part of him had been hoping for a possible solution when he’d shown Festus and Eitri his notifications. He’d hoped that after looking through it, they could’ve brain stormed and gotten the answer he needed, figured something out.

I guess this is my problem to solve.

He dismissed the notification with a wave of his hand, not that the gesture was necessary and made his way for one of the empty hotel rooms.

From what he and the others could tell, they were safe in the motel, for now. There were no threats, and in the event that the buildings in the bouleuvard where he and Kid had fought the golem were actually golems as well, everyone was of the opinion that they would remain where they were until someone chose to intrude on their territory again.

When Zed got to the empty room, he closed the door behind him and sat down on the bed.

This room was smaller than the others they occupied as if it had been designed for one person, and one person only.

He checked the shower and the taps, stalling, delaying what he wanted to do. Each of them was functioning properly. Although, the first bout of water came out brown before finally spitting out clean water. Or at least water that looked clean.

When he was done with his checking, he sat down on the bed.

“I guess you can put it off any longer,” he muttered.

At some point he had all but forgotten about it, but it was always there, hovering in the back of his mind. Waiting for him to pay attention to it.

He pulled up the notification with a thought.

·       You have 1 unraveled [Pocket memory].

·       Would you like to unravel [Pocket memory] (I care?)?

He didn’t like the name of the pocket memory.

I care? He read it.

It sounded like something he felt he shouldn’t open. There was a part of him that felt the pocket memory wasn’t just going to be a memory. He could understand who am I? It explained itself well enough to make anyone who read it know what it did.

But ‘I care?’

It was an odd question. Wasn’t there supposed to be no question mark? Why would he sound so unsure of his ability to care? As if he’d forgotten that he cared once.

Shouldn’t it be something like Why do I care? Or Why I care?

“At this point does it matter?” he asked nobody.

He was going to unravel the memory and increase his Will. Each occupied pocket memory was reducing his Will.

He read the notification once more and agreed.

“Unravel pocket memory, I care.”

·       Unraveling [pocket memory (I care?)]

What would happen was anyone’s guess.

Zed jerked, his body doing a full spasm. Before he could fall forward, he forced himself back. The action worked and instead of falling forward and plummeting face first into the floor, he fell back on the bed.

He spasmed a bit more but it wasn’t anything great. Each spasm was quick and abrupt, taking their time. They were like a mental twitch in some way, growing from his head to spread through the rest of his body.

Surprisingly, no new memory flooded him. He didn’t remember some lost friend or family member. He didn’t realize that he knew advanced kung fu or could kill a man from across the room with a pencil.

Nothing of the sort.

Instead, his mind replayed memories of what he could already remember. His family, his friends, school. He remembered the small town he’d grown up in. The mean children that had been bullies and the nice or timid children than had been bullied.

He had been small as a child, and while he hadn’t really been a target for bullying, being bullied by larger kids every once in a while came with the territory of being small.

None of this was new.

But they were different now. He didn’t feel the pain that came with being tripped while walking or being shoved in the back as he made his way back home. Instead he felt the vulnerability of being harassed in public, having everyone see you at your weakest, helpless and unable to defend yourself.

He felt the fear that came with it, the worry that fighting back would only lead to more punishment. People wondered why the bullied never fought back. Maybe this was it. Maybe it was this fear. The terror that if you tried to fight back, the bullies would only double the pain, worsen the shame.

It was a tough emotion to feel. If he felt like this when he was only bullied occasionally and in passing, he wondered how those who were specifically targeted would feel.

He remembered what it meant to fear another human being, to be humiliated in front of people that knew him as well as strangers.

Zed spasmed again and different memories came with new emotions.

He remembered an uncle spending time in their house and one of the times he had been put up against his older brother. He was young, barely seven, and his dad had put him up against his brother in a spelling competition.

Their father had dictated words for them to spell, and they had written them down on a piece of paper. They sat opposite each other and his brother had teased him by pretending to spy on his work. Zed had had a lot of complaints to make on the subject. And some mean words to give. Mean enough for his father to silence him and caution his brother.

At the time he’d thought his brother was willing to cheat to win until the game had come to an end. Their father had given them fifteen words. Zed had failed six. His brother had failed none.

Confused annoyance, inferiority, these were the emotions he felt. They were heavy and mocking. If his brother had known the answers, then why the games? Why had he pretended as if there had been a need to spy his work?

Zed knew he’d never gotten the answers to those questions. But over the years he had come up with one. His brother had done it simply because he could.

Each spasm brought about a new emotion. Where his memories had simply been memories once upon a time, even if with a touch or two of nostalgia. (I care?) enhanced each memory, tagged an emotion to it so that he was suddenly more invested in each one.

Zed remembered the first time he’d gotten in a fight. It was a Sunday afternoon. His family had just come back from church. He was playing with his older brother in the yard while his younger brother was inside. Their sister had gone for a sleep over and was on her way back with her friend.

Zed and his brother had not been there when it began, but they’d heard the commotion. Then someone had brought the news. Their sister had gotten into a fight with some boys.

Zed had still been young then, twelve years old. But he could still remember the event vividly. There had been no questions, no hesitation. He and his brother had left the yard with nothing but their older sister in mind.

The events of that day had been Zed’s first fight, and he’d broken someone’s nose while he was at it. It was an odd feeling. Something that could push him to fight off boys larger than himself when he had been too terrified to fight off boys that had been bullying him.

There was love there, duty, and comradery. He didn’t like his sister growing up, Zed knew this as clearly as he knew that fire was hot, but he had loved her. It was a strange sensation to know he could love someone even if he didn’t like them.

Duty was there, watching every action he took. It was his place to protect his family. He didn’t have to like it, he simply had to do it. His father had often told him and his siblings about how they had to look out for each other, and this was the first time he’d had to do something drastic to look out for them.

Comradery was simple. He knew it easily. A common goal, a shared mission. He and his brother had acted without question, reaching the same conclusion without even sharing a word. He had fought alongside his brother for a common goal and knew they would have each others’ back in that fight to the very end. It didn’t matter the outcome.

The memories taught him with every spasm. But it didn’t feel like he was learning. It felt like he was remembering. All the emotions he had been feeling before now seemed like shadows of what he was experiencing now.

They felt like a joke.

When the pocket memory came to an end, Zed was left lying on his back on a dirty bed. He stared up at the ceiling in dissipating confusion.

“Peter got into two fights at the institute because of me.”

The words came out simply. He could still remember the fights. One of them had left the opponent so badly wounded that no one had seen him again after he’d been taken to the infirmary. Later on, Peter had told them that the boy’s medical condition did not allow him to continue participating in the institute.

How Peter hadn’t been expelled for violent conduct was hidden in his family relationship to people that were important to the institute.

The second fight had simply been a fight.

“He was oddly protective about us,” Zed mused quietly.

Peter had protected every one of them. He lied for them and sometimes lied to them. He stole for them but never stole from them. He gave Anthony the courage to talk to a girl he’d had a crush on but had been too timid to approach. Then he’d played wingman to help him get another girl when his crush had turned him down.

Yes, Anthony didn’t really want another girl, but he appreciated Peter for it. Peter cared in his own way, even if he cared too much.

Zed smiled at the thought.

He couldn’t believe he had forgotten them. They had been important to him and he had just forgotten about them.

His family, his friends. They were out there somewhere with no idea of what had happened to him. For all he knew they’d tried to continue living their lives with the acceptance that he was already dead.

A tear slipped from his eye and ran down the side of his face unbidden.

“How could I have forgotten them?” he sobbed lightly.

The answer came to him as he remembered the day of the second awakening.

You didn’t forget them, he thought. When you were given the chance to save a few memories of yours, you chose them.

Zed sat up on the bed, staring at nothing.

Outside the window, evening had aged and the darkness was proof that it was night.

How long had he been lying down?

It didn’t matter. What mattered was that he needed to have a conversation with the Olympians.

They had dallied for long enough. Now he needed to convince them to hurry up.