Experimental Realism: Chapters 1 & 2
Spoiler!
Experimental Realism
By Jamie Williams
Chapter 1 - Choices
This story begins in a pretty mundane way, in a bar, with Jayce, a man too young to be his age of 25, and his best friend Dave, who shares the same years but is a more accurate representation of the age. Dave is standing at the edge of the bar counter, whilst Jayce is leaning over it excitedly trying to get the bartender's attention. “Two Glasses of your cheapest vodka please”,The bartender unfazed by the request begins pouring, “A glass of vodka? That’s not exactly how I wanted to start my night.”, says Dave, deciding to chime in. Jayce gives him a squirrely look back, “Either you’re joining me, or I’m just going to drink them both.”, Dave reluctantly grabs one of the glasses against his gut instinct, and pays for both the drinks with a slight sigh, Jayce shoots him a smile.
Immediately taking generous sips of his drink, Jayce doesn’t even grimace, Dave trying to think of a way to delay the fate his friend has chosen for them asks a question he knows will distract, “What do you think of those activists who tried to give us pamphlets out the front?”, Jayce’s expression immediately gets quite a bit serious, “You mean the Yang guys!?”, Dave proceeds cautiously, “yes? I believe that’s what their shirts said.”, Jayce, replies immediately, almost as if it was a life or death situation, “Man, those guys are bad news! They may put up a peaceful front, but I've done my research, they’re crazy!”. Dave realising he might of just opened his own personal version of pandora's box, that isn’t going to close anytime soon, bites the bullet, “Well what do they even do?”. Anticipating the question Jayce replies even faster than before, “Yang’s are just modern day Amish, maybe they’re not against all technology, but they hate the more extreme stuff.”, Dave slightly intrigued asks, “What do you mean extreme?”. Jayce thinks for a second while taking another sip, “Stuff like the CERN Large Hadron collider, you know the one that smashes particles together and such?” He pauses until Dave gives a knowing nod, ”Well they are convinced stuff like that is somehow gonna tear holes through reality or something”. Dave raises an eyebrow, “Well sure that makes them a little obnoxious, but not crazy?”, Jayce concedes, “Well maybe that doesn’t, but recently I've read they’re sending death threats to people, and are planning to carry out attacks on research labs and such”, Jayce has clearly lost Dave. “I don’t know if I believe that.”, replies Dave, “This is starting to sound like another one of your conspiracies”, Jayce, quite animated, snaps back, “Hey! They’re not conspiracies if there is proof, and I know for a fact there was a price on that Dukes head!” he finishes of his vodka then slams the glass down on the counter, and prepares to go into detail, but Dave stops him, “I wasn’t even referring to that one.”.
After several minutes of listening to assumptions and leaps in logic, Dave is becoming increasingly disinterested with the conversation he started with Jayce. Unable to find an out and hoping for a saviour, Dave’s mind is seemingly read, When Jayce is pushed aside mid sentence by a woman who has clearly been listening in for a little while, She has a powerful quality to her that silences Jayce without a word, she focuses her attention on Dave and speaks, “Hey, I hate to interrupt your wallnut of a friend here.” she shoots a quick glance at Jayce, “But he’s talking nonsense and you look bored with it,” Her accent is ever so slightly Upper class giving each word a more official feel, “I thought I might rudely interrupt him, and ask if you wanted a drink?” Dave looks down at his still full glass of Vodka, then hands it to Jayce, and agrees to the strangers request. Jayce is offended by the whole interaction, but quickly realises he is now a third wheel and walks off inaudibly mumbling something about nuts to himself.
“Thank You for helping me out there, my friend can sometimes get a little too into his… theories.” says Dave, the woman smiles at him in reply then gestures to the bar, Dave quickly adds on “Oh, right, yes of course, a drink is the least I can do, order whatever you’d like”, “What a gentlemen.” she replies then quickly turns to the bartender who is already prepared to serve her “I’ll have a Pina Colada with ice cream instead of coconut cream” the bartender gets started, Dave curiously requests a second for himself “That’s an odd drink, something you order often?” he asks, “No, not at all, infact it sound dreadful, I don’t even like Pina Coladas” The woman replies, noticing Dave’s befuddled expression she continues, “I have this theory, that the perfect drink is out there, and I just haven’t found it yet, so everytime I order I make sure to try something new”, “Have you had much luck?” inquires Dave, “No, not at all, but you’ll never succeed at something if you don’t keep trying” she says gleefully, Dave Smiles at this sentiment. They Grab the drinks and both take a sip, almost instantaneously the pair of them let out audible gags followed by laughter.
Jayce not having his friend with him anymore decides to make his own fun, he spies a group of people starting to meet up at a table, and immediately focuses in on the jug of cider in the center, he gulps down the second vodka he got from Dave and proceeds to his goal. Jayce struts as confidently as he can manage up to one of the guys in the group, a man a little younger then him, “Hey, sorry I’m so late.” Says Jayce, pretending to be older than he is, he continues, “I haven’t seen you since you were about this big.” he says holding his hand about half a metre off the ground, The man positively bewildered replies, “This is actually my first time at a Yang meeting, do I know you from somewhere else?” Jayce trying to get out of the situation fakes a laugh, then rapidly shuffles through everyone and pours himself some cider from the jug he was eyeing earlier.
After some conversation with the woman, Dave Realises they haven’t introduced themselves yet and proceeds to give his name “By the way, I’m Dave.”, He waits expectantly, After a few seconds the woman replies, “Oh no, I’m not giving you my name that easily.”, Not for the first or last time that night Dave looks perplexed, She continues, “Where’s the fun in life if you know everything from the beginning? Don’t you enjoy a little bit of mystery, maybe i’ll tell you next time.”, Dave’s eyes light up a little bit, “So what I’m hearing, is that there is going to be a next time?”, she rebuts “That’s entirely up to you, but in any case you need something to call me for now, so how about “Ellie”, that’s my nickname.”. Finishing their drinks they proceed to order another one of Ellie's creations.
Jayce has been pretending to be part of the Yang meeting for quite a few drinks by now, generally tuned out of what’s going on whilst everyone else is listening intently to a woman, seemingly in charge of the event. With the meetup apparently coming to a close, Jayce attempts to quietly get up and leave, but fails miserably in his state, tripping over the leg of a chair, and drawing the the leader's attention, causing her to raise her voice and direct it at him “It has come to my attention that we have some new members, so I would like them to introduce themselves.”, She motions to Jayce who now resembles a deer in headlights, and the new guy he talked to earlier.
Dave and Ellie have since moved away from the bar and are sitting at a table, with new concoctions in their hands. “So what exactly do you do for a living?” asks Ellie, “I Set up computer networks for various clients.”, Replies Dave, He gets motioned to continue, “Well I’m a freelancer, it pays well enough, certainly enough to support me and my perpetually broke friend…”, As if summoned, Dave notices Jayce charging towards him. Running at breakneck speeds with a stumble every other step Jayce eventually reaches Dave and grabs onto his arm pulling him from his chair while continuing to run towards the exit of the bar yelling incoherently at first until he finally gets the words right, “We gotta go, bring your girlfriend if you must.”, Ellie not exactly sure what’s going on, but wanting to keep up with Dave decides to go along leaping out of her chair in an almost choreographed manner, and begins to run, easily keeping pace with Jayce’s drunken bolt, and Dave’s still not correctly placed feet.
The three of them burst onto the street and continue to run, Dave tries to look back to see who's following them, but Jayce yells at him not to and adds on something incoherent about them not getting recognized. After a few blocks of running Jayce spots another bar and drags Dave in, Dave is mildly out of breath, whilst Jayce looks as if he is on death's door. Looking around Dave questions “Where’s Ellie? I thought she was right behind us.” he looks a bit concerned, Jayce gestures with one arm for a second to catch his breath before he replies, but before he can Ellie runs in through the door, “Sorry about that,” she says “I lost you two for a minute back there.”, Dave smiles at her. He asks Jayce “What was all that about anyhow?”, Jayce finally having caught his breath replies “I was involved with this meeting thing with Yang, but don’t worry I wasn’t listening, so they couldn’t poison my mind, I was only there for the free cider,” Dave doesn't look surprised, Jayce continues ”but when they found out that I was somehow immune to their brainwashing they came after me.” The other two look at each other puzzled, and then begin to laugh, Jayce feels frustrated “I’m not joking,” he says, “they were after me, right behind us! I’m actually not sure how we even managed to outrun them.”, Dave takes pity on his friend stops laughing. “Well whatever happened they aren’t after us now,”, he says, Jayce smiles, Dave continues “anyway there’s karaoke here, You’re pretty good at music stuff right? I mean you do it for a living.”, “I’m a DJ not a singer!” Jayce snaps back.
Over an hour has passed, Ellie and Dave have since moved to a table where they have been talking again clearly having a good time, while Jayce is singing karaoke on stage clutching the mic in one hand, and a drink in the other. A woman approaches Ellie and taps her on the shoulder “We’ve been looking all over for you, come on you’re already late”, the woman pays no notice to Dave, Ellie gestures the woman to wait for a few seconds. Whilst waiting she notices Jayce on stage singing and scoffs at him, presumably due to him slurring half the words. “I’m sorry, I really should've left earlier but I was having such a good time.”, says Ellie, then thinks for a second, “How does coffee tomorrow sound?”, Dave can’t contain his smile and replies “That sounds great, and also means I’ll get your name too right? So I can contact you?”. The woman waiting on Ellie is trying her hardest to ignore the conversation going on in front of her, but is clearly agitated by having to wait for the exchange to conclude. Ellie slides Dave a napkin with her number on it, “Maybe you’ll get the name tomorrow, but this will do for now.”, Dave thinking for a second asks “When did you write this?”, Ellie smiles, “If I told you that, then you’d know when I made up my mind, and I’m not letting you think too much of yourself.” she gets up, turns to the woman and nods, they walk off, Dave gives a little wave even though he knows Ellie can’t see it.
After sitting for a few minutes thinking to himself, Dave’s concentration is broken by chanting, he turns to look what’s going on. Somehow Jayce is still singing karaoke with the mic but has gotten off the stage onto the bar counter and is dancing, half the patrons in the place are cheering him on with a chant, whilst the bartender is yelling at him to get down, suddenly he slips landing face first onto the counter, a chorus of “ooooooooo”, and sharp breaths in, can be heard by the crowd that was previously chanting, they quickly disperse. Sensing he should intervene Dave runs over to collect Jayce.
Helping his half drunk, half concussed, incoherent friend walk back to their House, Dave is in a surprisingly good mood, Jayce finally says something Dave can understand, “I was such a good dancer, I should be like one of those Russian guys who do the crouching thing.”, “A Russian?” Dave says back, “You’d have to be able to hold your liquor a lot better.”, They both share an amused chuckle. “That girl you were talking to?” asks Jayce, “What of her?”, replies Dave cautiously, “Well, I think you two looked good together, even if she did call me a cashew.”, Unsure what his friend is on about, Dave thinks for a few second then says “Walnut, Jayce, She called you a Walnut.”, Jayce somehow appears more disappointed with being called a walnut. In his best impression of a sobre person Jayce replies, “Well in any case, no matter what type of nut she called me, I still haven’t seen you that happy in a long time, especially since you’ve been jobless.”, Dave shoots him a slightly annoyed glance, “I’m not jobless, I’m a freelancer, how do you think I pay for all your drinks,” he mellows down a bit before continuing, “but thanks.”. they arrive at what would be a nice looking house if it wasn’t so run down. “Looks like we’re home” Says Dave. Jayce whilst still using one arm to support himself off Dave swings himself around to the mailbox, pulls out a letter, and reads the name it’s addressed to, he looks to Dave and says, “you’ve got mail”, in a robotic voice, they head inside.
Dave is putting Jayce down on the couch, he immediately slumps into position, “just get comfortable right there, I’ll get you some water.”. While Dave is is in the kitchen, Jayce begins to open the letter and read, after a few seconds of intense concentration he yells to the kitchen, “Yo Dave, what’s a…” he re-reads the sentence a few more times, then with a slur says “...Senior Network Engineer at Global OS Tech.”. Dave not knowing Jayce is reading his letter replies back, “It’s a highly prestigious job that’s almost impossible to get for starters, I didn’t know you were into that stuff?”, Jayce still trying to comprehend the letter yells back much louder then he needs to “I’m not, but this letter of yours says something about final round interviews happening tomorrow or something”, Dave quickly heads back into the room. “Are you sure you read that correctly, remember when you misread Santa as Satan?”, Jayce seems offended, “That didn’t hurt anybody!”, Dave shakes his head, “Except for the kids at the christmas parade you were DJ’ing for.”, Jayce’s eyes roll up as he remembers the event, after a few seconds he laughs “Oh yeah, that one parent was so...”, Dave cuts him off by taking letter off him and begins to read, gesturing to Jayce to be quiet.
Upon finishing the letter Dave immediately gets ecstatic, “Holy crap Jayce, I've never been so happy that you were right.”, Jayce looks surprised while Dave continues, “I actually got into final round interviews, it's tomorrow in the city, it’ll take me all day to get there and back, how did I miss this letter?”. Suddenly Dave’s excitement dies down, “If I get the job I’m going to have to move.”, he says as a his smiles fades away. Jayce doing his best to console his friend replies, “Well it’s not like I've got much going on around here, I’ll move with you.”, Dave appreciates the sentiment but continues with his train of thought, “Thanks Jayce, but that’s not what I mean.”, he takes a seat, “It’s just, I felt like I was getting on really well with Ellie tonight, but there's no way I could convince her, or even expect her to move with me after one night.”. After a few seconds of silence Jayce gives his solution, “Well, why not just decline the job?”, Dave looks unsure, “It’s not that straightforward, that job is a once in a lifetime opportunity, it could make me a millionaire in under a year.”, Jayce quickly replies without much thought, “Well you could get lucky and not even get the job, or this Ellie girl might not even like you?”, to Jayce’s surprise this doesn’t make Dave feel better, he lets out a sigh, “Really comforting words there Jayce.”.
While Jayce is passed out on the couch, Dave is in his room, lying on his bed, in deep thought. Two pieces of paper sit on his bed side night stand, both with a lot of potential, one a napkin with a phone number on it, and one a letter with an address. Unsure of what he wants Dave falls into the clutches of sleep restlessly.
Suddenly, Dave is within an empty space, with no walls, or ceiling, and despite the fact he is clearly standing, there doesn't even appear to be a floor, he begins to wonder what such a space would be referred to as? A room? Surely not since it doesn’t have walls, Nowhere perhaps? he quickly dismisses the entire train of thought as it seems trivial. “Where am I?” Dave asks himself. He feels a presence behind him, he quickly turns to meet the gaze of another man, he was sure no one was with him a second ago but he must of been mistaken. The unknown man begins to speak, “I apologise, this must all be quite concerning to you, but I assure you it is standard, and before you ask, no, you are not dreaming.”, Dave isn’t quite sure whether to believe the man on that last point, but he decides there would be no point to questioning it anyhow, the man continues, “At least not technically, but I’m not here to argue semantics with you.”.
Dave begins to question the mysterious man, “Alright then, assuming I’m not dreaming, which I’m still not sold on, then who are you?”, the man takes this opportunity to make a joke, “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”, he says in a cold voice, his humor is clearly lost on Dave though who immediately continues his line of questioning, “Alright, you’re the second person today who has refused to give me a name, so how about you just give me something to call you?”, the man laughs about something then responds, “Well I can’t tell you who I am so just call me Dr. Y, but I can tell you why.”. Dave unsure of if the name was supposed to be taken seriously or not proceeds cautiously, “Why? Why What?”, the Dr laughs a bit, “Well I can’t tell you why I can’t tell you my real name of course”, Dave still cautious motions the Dr to go on “Alright then, I’m listening”.
Dr. Y seems to of already planned out the whole conversation in advance “Well, you’re part of an experiment.”, sensing Dave's next question he quickly adds on, ”which you volunteered for of course”, “Because I’d just volunteer to be abducted into a white… whatever this is?” remarks Dave sarcastically. “This place is simply a product of my own laziness, I’ll admit I didn’t feel there was a need to create a detailed physical space for our meetings.”, Dave ponders for a second, “Meetings? Have we met before?”, Dr. Y again seems to have his answer already planned out, “Yes, but you wouldn’t remember, for this experiment we had to erase some of your memory, but you opted to have a bit more than needed removed, in fact a whole year's worth, very specifically to an exact date.”, Dave raises an eyebrow, “I’m not willing to believe this just yet, I mean, I have a very important job interview tomorrow, and a… meeting with someone, why on earth would I give up a year of my memory?”, Dr. Y smiles, “Actually that meeting, and that interview would of been a year ago as of now.”, “Well how did they go then?”, asks Dave eagerly. “I’m afraid I can't tell you that.” says Dr. Y somewhat defeatedly, Dave begins showing outward signs of annoyance, “What! Why not?”. Dr. Y looks at his watch, then gets intently focused, “Dave, just let me explain. You are going to have to make a choice, you’ll know what it is very soon, all I can tell you for now is that you have a week to make this choice, or two, depending on how you look at it, I really do wish I could say more, but our time is running out.”, “What do you mean, why do you keep only giving me half answers?”, replies an agitated and lost Dave, Dr. Y just smiles, “I’m sorry, our time is up.”. An alarm begins blaring, Dr. Y looks up, turns and begins to walk away, Dave tries to speak, but his words make no sound.
Chapter 2 - Monday A
Dave throws himself up in bed, yelling, “No wait! Come back!”, very confused Dave realises the alarm he had just heard was his phone, he checks the time then turns off the alarm, unsure of why he would set his alarm this early he decides to go back to sleep. Upon turning over he sees another figure in his bed, he lets out an inaudible gasp. The figure speaks in a familiar but tired voice, “Oh Dave, I told you setting your alarm to this time would mess with you, you don’t have to wake up early for me, just go back to sleep.”, the figure turns over, it’s a woman he can’t recognize, she shuffles towards Dave and attempts to grab him, but Dave, fully awake now, jumps back away from her in response, almost falling off his bed in the process. The woman speaks again in a more alert voice, “Honey, what’s wrong?”, Dave now recognizes her as Ellie from the bar, he decides to probe for more information, “Nothing… So what happened last night after the karaoke bar?” Ellie replies confused, “The bar? We stayed in last night, are you sure everything's okay?”, “No I ah… I just had a bad dream is all, hey what day is it?”, Ellie is starting to become concerned, “Gee, that must of been some bad dream for you to be that confused, it’s Monday, Dave.”.
For the first time Dave notices that the room he is in isn’t familiar, he notices two doors, one open leading to what seems to be an en suite. “Hey Ellie, I’m gonna gonna go have a shower.”, he says, before jumping out of bed and running to the bathroom, he slams the door behind himself, and immediately turns on the shower. Dave begins to talk to himself “Alright, so what exactly is going on?” he turns to the mirror, and looks at himself, he notices his hair has grown and is in a different style, he touches it just to test that it’s real, “So I had a crazy dream in which some… Dr. Y tells me that I’ll wake up missing a year of my memory, and now apparently I’m dating the girl from the bar that I don’t even know the actual name of, and I’m in an unfamiliar house,” He pauses and looks around the bathroom, noticing a lot of his stuff, “I think I can safely assume I live here, I don’t think I’m in the city, so I guess I didn’t get that job, so overall I guess this situation is both good and bad.”, he pauses and looks at himself some more in the mirror, “Has a year really passed since that night? I have to call Jayce.” He looks around for his phone, after not seeing it he attempts to search his pockets, at which point he finally notices that he isn’t wearing pants, or any other clothes. After a bit more though he remembers putting his phone down after turning off the alarm, “Well that’s fine, I’ll just go and get it, she doesn’t care whether I’m dressed or not… Unless we are the type of couple who likes to have the lights off.” He pauses for a second, “No she’s far too attractive for that.”.
Dave steps out of the en suite, trying to stealthily hold a bottle of shampoo in front of his privates, Ellie is giving him a very strange look, but she’s not quite sure what to say as Dave strafes sideways like a crab towards his phone. “I just forgot my phone.” says Dave, “you need your phone to shower?” quizzes Ellie, “Yes… I read an article last night about...” Dave looks down at the bottle of shampoo he is holding, and gestures to it, “a new way to apply shampoo… but I forgot it… the article, that is.”, he spends a few seconds unplugging his phone from its charger with one hand, then starts scuttles back to the bathroom. “If you need me to drop you off at a doctor's before I head out, I’m more then willing to.”, offers Ellie, “I think I’ll be alright.”, replies Dave before jumping back into the en suite and shutting the door.
Dave begins looking through his phone's contacts, and continues talking to himself “Alright, I need to know her full name, that could be awkward, I’m sure it will be in here.” Dave comes across two names that Ellie could be a nickname for, “Alright so her name is either, Elizabeth, or Amellia… I guess there’s only one way to find out”. Dave opens the door a bit and yells out to Ellie, “Amelia, could you get me a towel?”, there is a silence for a few seconds then Ellie replies, “As in my friend Amelia?” she sounds a bit offended, “What?” replies Dave trying to cover up his mistake, “I didn’t quite hear that Elizabeth?”, Ellie goes silent for a few more seconds, but then hands a towel through the crack in the door, “sure, there you are.” she says, “you really have to start remembering to bring towels in with you.”. Dave safely concludes that Elizabeth must be her real name.
Dave dials Jayce’s number, his voice mail comes up, “Hey it’s Jayce here, if you’re looking for my wicked DJ skills drop me a beat, and leave you message after the beep, hey I just realised my message bank rhymes.” Jayce can be heard chuckling in the background before the phone beeps. Dave hangs up the phone, “Dammit Jayce!” he says, “Wake up already!”, after a few seconds of deliberation he decides to actually have a shower since it would look suspicious to come out dry.
After his shower Jayce enter the bedroom again, and begins to get dressed, “I think I’m going to head over to Jayces house today.” He says to Elizabeth, “Alright,”, she responds, “just make sure you’re not back too late tonight, I have something special planned.”, “I’ll see you tonight then.” Dave replies, then gives Elizabeth a very awkward kiss before doing a stifled walk to the door. It takes him a minute or two of exploration before finding his way out of the house.
Upon leaving the house Dave looks out to the street and immediately recognizes the area, but then realises he doesn’t know where Jayce lives. After some thought he comes to the assumption that Jayce must still live at their old place, knowing Jayce wouldn’t have the motivation to look for a new house. Dave puts the address into his phone and is pleased to find out it’s only a few blocks away, considering the weather seems nice he decides to walk.
He arrives at their old place noting that it is even more unkempt than he remembered, and spots Jayce’s run down car in the driveway “Well,” he says to himself, “I guess I don’t need anymore proof that he still lives here.”. He begins banging on the door, “Jayce, it’s me, get up we need to talk.”, he hears the rattling of some empty cans, followed by Jayce's voice yelling back from inside, “Alright, alright, just give me a minute to find some pants.” they begin to yell a conversation to each other through the door, “Come on man, I don’t care if you’re wearing pants, this is important.”, says Dave, “I don’t either,” replies Jayce, “ but I’m also not wearing any underwear.”, Dave represses the thought that comes to mind, then replies, “Trust me, you’ll want to hear this.”, “Are you finally ready to believe me about Yang?”, “No, even better.” he hears Jayce running, then the door is flung upon. Jayce looks incredibly disheveled and is wearing a dressing gown, “Even better you say?” Jayce tries to hold eye contact, but it’s clear the sun is blinding him, so instead he just ends up doing an awkward squint, he ushers Dave inside then slams the door shut.
Dave is sitting awkwardly on Jayce’s couch, it’s surrounded by empty energy drink cans and half finished bottles of various spirits. A digital clock reads 8:30am, Jayce clearly isn’t used to being up this early, because he is grabbing a few energy drinks from a the fridge which he appears to have relocated to the lounge room, he offers one to Dave, but is declined, “Oh well, more for me then.” says Jayce with a smirk on his face. “Do you do this every day?” asks Dave, “It’s not my fault you got me up so early, the life of a DJ leads to late nights.”, says Jayce, “So you had a gig last night?”, asks Dave, Jayce replies defensively “No, but I could have, so what was so important you had to interrupt my sleep cycle?”. Jayce sits on the couch opposite Dave, legs wide open, Dave avoids looking down, realising Jayce never had a chance to find any pants. “You mentioned whatever you had to talk about was was a bigger conspiracy than Yang being militant, naturally I’m insanely curious.”, Dave shakes his head, “Jayce, those guys aren’t militant, and what I’m about to tell you isn’t a conspiracy.”, Jayce’s eyes widen, and he leans in, “That’s how all the best conspiracies start.”, At first Dave is annoyed by this statement, but quickly realises that his friend is probably right.
“I've had a year of my memory removed.”, begins Dave, “Apparently by choice, and the only person who seems to know why is a man from my dream last night, named Dr. Y.”. There is a silence as Dave and Jayce stare at each other intently, it is finally broken when Jayce begins to laugh, after a few seconds of laughter Jayce notices that Dave hasn’t broken his intensity. “Oh come on, you can’t expect me to believe that, even I have my limits.”, Dave becomes a little defensive at this remark, “Well alright, maybe I didn’t realise how it would sound out loud, but I didn’t have time to practice this, my first thought was, I’ll tell my best friend, he’ll believe me.”, Jayce’s chuckling dies down a little, “A man who comes to you in your dreams? Whose name is Dr. Y? That’s the best name you could come up with? I know you can do better than that.”. Dave still on the defensive snaps back, “Hey hey, I didn’t come up with it, it’s not his real name anyhow, and besides, I think it’s cool.”, Jayce chuckles a little more, “Oh come on, even I know it’s not cool.”, Dave frustration peaks, “Fine, I’ll just find someone else to help me.”.
Dave starts to get up, but Jayce motions for him to stop, “Woah you’re serious aren’t you?”, “Yes!” replies Dave vexed. Jayce takes a breath in “Alright I’m sorry, I thought you were just messing with me, I mean, for real, what kind of name is Dr. Y?”, this makes Dave smile and chuckle a bit, “Yeah,” he says, “I suppose it is a bit ridiculous.”. Jayce now somewhat believing asks “So what’s really up?”, “That’s just the thing,” says Dave, “I really don’t know what’s up.” Jayce strokes his stubble, “Well you said you had a year of your memory missing, so what’s the last thing you remember?”, “It was the night we went to that bar and I met that girl who is currently in my house, or her house, I’m not really sure on that, and I also got that job offer for Global OS Tech.”, Jayce nods, “I remember, that was around a year ago, and you mean Elizabeth?”, Dave is struck a little to have confirmation of the time gap, but quickly shakes his head and continues, “Yeah that was her name, at least I’m pretty sure… it’s definitely not Amelia.”, Jayce is a little confused by this remark. Dave continues, “Anyhow, all I know is I went to sleep last night or last year, and I didn’t dream, I mean, it was too lucid to be just a dream.”, Jayce interjects, “And that’s when you met this Dr. Y?”, Dave nods, “Yeah, and he explained to me that apparently I had a year of my memory voluntarily removed, and I would have a week to make a decision, then I woke up next to Elizabeth very confused.”.
“I don’t trust her.”, says Jayce, as he takes a sip of his energy drink “who Elizabeth?”, Replies Dave, “Is it because she called you a walnut when we first met her?”, Jayce clearly doesn’t recall the event but explains himself, “No, it’s just a personal rule, that I don't like people who don’t like me.”, Dave curious asks, “Why don’t you think she likes you? Or are you just jealous that I apparently spend more time with her then you?”, Jayce gets a little defensive, “No, I don’t see what that has to do with anything, she just always shuts me down whenever I bring up my theories.”, “Conspiracies you mean.”, Jayce sighs, “Right, conspiracies, Anyhow what’s this choice you have a week to make?”, Dave is amused for a moment by Jayce’s response, “I have no idea, but Dr. Y told me I’d know soon enough.”, there is a silence for a few seconds while they both think, Jayce breaks it “Well as long as nothing bad happens to me, I’m okay with it… But just out of curiosity, you wouldn’t make any decision that could hurt me, would you?”, Dave raises an eyebrow at Jayce, “No, At Least I think not?” Jayce is somewhat shaken by this response, Dave laughs, “Relax,” he says, “I doubt the choice even has anything to do with you.” Jayce laughs nervously back, and takes a massive swig of his drink, “Yeah, so what are you going to do?”, Dave just sits back on the couch in silence.
“I don’t know,” says Dave, “In a weird way I was kind of hoping you’d have answers, maybe I should go back and explain the whole thing to Elizabeth.”, “No,” snaps back Jayce, Dave jumps a little, Jayce takes a second to catch his cool then explains, “You’ll only freak her out, I've already told you how she reacts to my conspiracies, and none of those even affect her, where as you’d just be telling her that you don’t remember her almost at all. Besides, she’ll probably be at work by now.” Jayce looks at the clock again and shakes his head in disbelief. “Speaking of her work,” begins Dave, “do you have any idea what she does?”, Jayce shrugs, “I’m not really sure, you’ve told me she doesn’t really like talking about work, but I know she’s been really busy the past few weeks, because you’ve been hanging out with me a bit, I think that’s about all the information on her I can give you, is there anything you wanted to do today?” Dave shakes his head, “I’d say I need a drink, but I suppose it’s too early.” Jayce smiles, “It depends on your perspective,” Dave looks confused, “It could just be really late.”. Jayce tosses Dave one of the energy drinks, Dave reads the label, and notes the alcohol content, “I thought these were just energy drinks?”, “I never said that.” says Jayce with a smile.
Dave having been persuaded by Jayce is biting into a lemon slice after having done a shot of something much stronger than he anticipated, “Holy crap, Jayce what was that?” he groans through clenched teeth, “I’m not really sure.” replies Jayce, “I buy it off some guy who owns a farm, I never thought to ask what was actually in it.” Dave would be laughing if his throat wasn’t burning. After a few more drinks of various things Jayce has around his house they both begin to mellow a bit, Jayce is attempting to show off his DJ skills, whilst Dave is trying to tell him about computer networking, neither aware that the other isn’t particularly interested. Some time later they are both planted on the floor in front of Jayce’s TV playing some games, “Wait,” Dave says, “what time is it?”, Jayce tries to look at the clock but is too drunk to focus on it, “I dunno.” he says, he looks out the window and continues, “Probably like 7 at night.”, “I better go then, apparently Elizabeth has something planned for me.”, Jayce thinks “Well I mean, you’ve been dating her for like probably a year apparently, so I can’t imagine it’s anything to important.”, “Oh crap!”, replies Dave he spends almost a minute trying to get to his feet, then quickly stumbles to the door, Jayce just smirks at the whole ordeal.
Dave throws open the door to his house, and hears Elizabeth calling out to him from the other end of the house, “Is that you Dave?”, he briefly shakes himself into being more sober and replies, “yeah, it’s me.”, “Great, you got back in time,” Says Elizabeth as she begins to walk over to the door, “remember how I said I had something special planned this morning?”, Dave replies simply “Yes.”, “Well,” she says, “as you know, it’s been a year since we met, so I thought maybe we could go out for dinner, I got us a reservation at that fancy restaurant I know you’ve always wanted to try, but we have to….” Elizabeth enters the room, and immediately notices Dave is anything but sober, “...leave soon.”. Dave having had plenty of time to think of what he would say on the way home decides to explain, “This may look bad, but I’m sure I can…”, Dave is interrupted by his stomach, as he suddenly vomits all over the floor, then collapses.
Dave begins to get up off the floor, but notices that he is no longer in his house, but the white space from his dream last night, as he looks around he notices Dr. Y approaching him. “It appears you’ve had quite the party.” comments Dr. Y with a bit of a smirk, Dave quickly jumps to his feet. “Forget about me,” says Dave, “You've got some explaining to do, let's start with your name.”, Dr. Y looks a little confused, “I thought I already told you, I can’t tell you my real name.”, “why not?” snaps back Dave, “Now that’s the right kind of question.” says Dr. Y with a smile. half asking, and half demanding Dave says “Alright, go on then.”. Dr Y as per usual has the conversation planned out, “You have a choice to make.”, Dave doesn’t look impressed, “You already told me that.”, Dr. Y waves the comment off, “I know, but last time you interjected so much I didn’t have time to tell you anything more, you see, the choice you have to make, is a choice between two different realities.”, “Realities?”, “Or universes if you will, but the name is inconsequential, point is they are two identical versions of history.”, “If they’re the same, then why do I have to choose?”, asks Dave. Dr. Y was waiting on this question, “They were the same,” he starts, “up until a year ago that is, when you made a critical decision in your life.”, “what decision?” asks Dave, for once Dr. Y is the confused one, “Perhaps you didn’t realise it was a decision?”, Dave frowns, “What are you talking about? Just be straight for once!”. An alarm starts sounding, “No, not again, not yet!” says Dave while looking around him trying to locate the sound, “I’m afraid our time is up again.” says Dr. Y.