The next day dawned early and bright, and brought with it the mother of all hangovers. Oasis stared blearily at the clutter in their old room, somewhat reluctantly impressed. They were immune to magic, and poisons, and most viruses. Alcohol fell firmly into the “poison” category, and as such they didn’t usually have much of a problem with it. Whatever it was that Karry had put into her blue cocktails, it had to have been lethal if it had had this much of an effect on them. Maybe antifreeze? It tasted delicious, and they wouldn’t put it past her.
Several minutes passed, in which they did nothing more than squint at a spot of water damage on the ceiling. Slowly, but much quicker than it would have for anyone else, their headache was passing, and unpleasant reality was settling in. They didn’t know what to do. The idea of destroying the necklace had been floated last night, but with no clear direction as to where to start looking.
The necklace was a magic item, yes. But it the museum curators hadn’t managed to identify it as such, then there was little hope to be had that anyone else in the world would know much about it. Aside from the Tyrant, for some reason, and Oasis had not the first clue as to where that brute had gotten his information.
They let themselves stew in their miserableness for a moment, almost relishing the fading sharp pain behind their eyelids. The entire range of human feelings that they experienced seemed sharper now that they were in the past, more full. Perhaps because the first time around they had never taken the time to truly live it, always jumping from one crisis to the next. But probably mostly out of the sheer relief of being here at all.
Being with people.
The first days had been the worst, just after the end. After the first panic, when the realization had started to settle in that they were truly alone. That there was no one left.
There was no words for it, and Oasis closed their eyes tight, fighting back a wave of nausea that had nothing to do with their rapidly dissipating hangover. They forced their thoughts to turn elsewhere.
It wasn’t the first time that they had this thought, but it was still odd, being young again. They’d known to expect the returned vigour of youth and the screaming absence of agony a full ten years before their chronic pain problems had set in, although it had still taken them by surprise that first morning. But what they hadn’t expected was to land inside their younger brain. For some reason, they expected their adult thought patterns to follow them into the past. But by whatever quirk of chemistry, their brain was now a strange mix of adult memories and teenage reactions. How weird, to be able to remember maturity, but no longer being able to attain it. Ever since they’d arrived, they’d forced themselves to act according to how they remembered how to, not according to what seemed to come naturally to them now. More than once, they’d swallowed back an irrational tantrum, or had to stop themselves from making an insipid or irrelevant comment that tried to escape as a gut reaction to something or another.
Not to mention the return of their anxious behaviours and thought patterns, which they had worked so hard along with their assigned League therapist to fix.
The regression was jarring, and frustrating. The change from child to adult had likely been just as intense the first time around, but at least it had happened gradually over the span of three decades. Being snapped back into a much younger brain in the course of seconds was definitely the most ill-considered, shocking experience of their entire life. If they ever came clean to the League about all this, and wrote down a proper report detailing the entire situation, they would be sure to note it down as a major drawback to time travel.
They’d had to properly break the world in order to roll it backward, so they highly doubted that anyone would ever do that again, but it paid to be thorough.
With a sigh, Oasis got up and dragged themself to their closet. Everything in it was making them feel old and out of touch. Did they really use to wear leggings? Ugh. They dithered for a moment, before grabbing the first sweater that they could find. Something long and shapeless. Who even cared what they looked like, right? The world was ending.
They eventually reluctantly made it out of their room, only to come face to face with Alice, who had just finished cooking breakfast in their tiny kitchen. She was plating some fish and rolled omelets just as they walked in, and barely spared a glance at them as they mumbled a greeting. They winced. If she had gone to the trouble of making a full breakfast instead of just grabbing a granola bar from the cupboard, then she was probably bursting with energy. And they knew exactly on whom she was going to unleash that energy.
“Had a nice evening?” she asked, somewhat snidely. “I’d have expected you to come straight back here after your crime, but I suppose you wanted to stay out celebrating with your new best friend.”
Oasis groaned and sat down at the table.
“It was less celebrating and more trying to figure out what comes next,” they pointed out.
Alice slammed her spatula down, then grabbed the newspaper she’d put next to her and shoved it under their nose.
“Your robbery is all over the news, by the way. Congratulations.”
“Huh,” said Oasis, taking the paper from her hands. “Print news. We still have those?”
They started turning the pages, but Alice ripped the newspaper out of their hands, turned to the appropriate article, and then shoved it at them again. Oasis barely spared it a glance, instead opting for catching Alice’s hands. She immediately tried to pull them back, but they held on.
“Listen, I’m sorry, okay?”
“You should be! You broke the law, Oasis, to enable a murderer! There have to be better ways to save the future than this.”
She kneeled on the floor in front of them, squeezing their hands with hers. “Let me help you, that’s all I want. Let me help you do this right.”
“I am already trying to do this right, Alice,” they patiently explained. “I’ve worked on this plan for ages. The necklace was the Tyrant’s greatest weapon. By retrieving and destroying it, we’re making sure that he can’t use Karry.”
“But she’s using you!” she shot back. “How do you know she hasn’t already left town, now that you got her her necklace back? How do you know she’ll let you destroy it?”
“I know you have no reason to trust her, that you’ve only ever seen her as a villain. But people change, Alice. I’ve seen many sides to Karry, and she’s a lot more complex than you think. She’ll help me, I know it.”
“But that’s just the problem!”, she argued back. “So you know a version of her, from the future, who maybe evolved beyond being evil, fine. But this Karry right now drowned you two weeks ago. She’d not the person you know!”
“But she can be!” They shot back. “Besides,” they hurried to add, before Alice could get going again. “I’m not getting into this without caution. I know a lot more about her than she knows about me, and if things turn south I know how to beat her.”
It was a blatant lie, because if things turned south, probably no one in the world would be able to beat Karry. But Oasis knew how to survive her wrath, and they knew how to turn back time. If trusting Karry was a mistake, then it was one that they wouldn’t make twice.
They squeezed her hands, leaning forward until their forehead was touching their cousin’s. “Please, Alice. I know what I’m doing. If you won’t trust her, won’t you trust me at least?”
She sighed, all the fight leeching out of her at last. “Fine. I guess.”
Alice let go of their hands and stood up, looking down at the newspaper first and then at the two plates of eggs. “Fine,” she said again.
But all was clearly not fine, because she didn’t look at them again for the rest of the morning.
Comments (0)
See all