Piece By Piece ~ Snippet 8

Aiden

“You didn’t do anything,” Savannah tells me, putting a hand on my shoulder. I look over to her and she smiles reassuringly. 

“I’ll go talk to him.” Lana gets up and quietly walks after Danger. 

“I tried to give him an easy question,” I say. “I thought maybe he could remember something about that knife because he carried it with him before we all lost our memories.”

Viren shrugs. “Last night Lana tried to recall memories associated with her journal, but she couldn’t remember anything either. Maybe he’s just frustrated like she was.” 

Elise nods. “They’re the only two who had any sort of belongings tying them to their pasts. It makes sense that they’d be the most easily irritated by not being able to use those ties to remember anything.” 

“My question, it just angered him more,” I realize. I put my head in my hands. “Why am I such an idiot?”

“How are we supposed to know?” Viren raises their hands and shrugs. “We can’t remember.”

I narrow my eyes and stand, shrugging off Savannah’s hand. “Yeah, I got that. Thanks.” I turn. “I’m going to talk to Danger. I feel like I owe him an apology.” I walk away before they can say anything else to me. 

Though Danger’s long, anger-driven strides took him pretty far, two voices in a mostly empty department store aren’t hard to track down. I listen for Danger and Lana’s quiet conversation, letting it guide me to their location. When I start to hear what it is they’re saying, my footsteps slow until I stop just out of sight behind a shelf. 

“I shouldn’t have reacted like that,” Danger sighs. “You guys didn’t deserve that from me.”

“No, I understand,” Lana replies. She exhales. “Last night, I tried to remember my past. I really tried, and even flipped through my journal to try to spark any kind of memory. Even that wasn’t enough though. Nothing was familiar, not even my initials.”

“I’m sorry,” Danger says. 

“I didn’t say that so you would feel bad for me,” Lana quickly refutes. “I just want you to know that I understand. We all do. We’re all going through the same thing you are. It’s okay for you to be angry. This situation we’ve been thrown into, it’s frustrating. I know we can get through it though, together. We’ve already started to recall some things, like our ages and names. Even those were hard at first.”

“But what if we can’t?” Danger sounds morose. “What if we can’t remember or learn how to survive this? What if I don’t innately know enough to keep us alive?” There’s a beat of silence. “The fact that I carried this knife led you all to believe that I can lead us, that I can keep us alive. Hell, it even led me to believe that. I don’t a damn thing about it though, or anything at all. How am I supposed to protect you all from this world when I don’t understand it in the slightest?”

There’s a pause before Lana speaks. “Danger, we don’t expect you to know anything more than we do. We’re just grateful for anything you can offer. It’s already clear that you know, or knew, more than we do.” 

“I don’t know,” Danger adds. “Maybe Viren was a genius before getting their memory wiped.” 

Lana laughs once. “Even if that were true, I bet you’d still have more practical knowledge than Viren. That’s what really matters, especially now.”

“So does that mean you’re going to be my backup now, Miss Practicality?” Danger’s voice is as monotonous as ever, but he’s clearly teasing. 

Lana responds with enough sass to rival Savannah at her best. “No way. I brought an extra hat for each outfit. Just because it’s the apocalypse doesn’t mean I can’t be neat.” 

Danger exhales. “Actually Lana, I’m pretty sure that that’s exactly what it means.” 

As they both start to walk back towards the group, I tuck myself in between two displays. I hadn’t really meant to eavesdrop for so long, but I feel like it would be rude to reveal that I was. Maybe it’s just rude and I don’t want reveal that I’d been rude. I did invade their privacy. I sigh in relief when they pass without seeing me. I wait for a minute before taking an intentionally different route back to the beds. 

I take my time so that I don’t run into Lana and Danger. I walk past a large window and the wind whips rain loudly into the glass. I cross my arms over my chest and a shiver races up my spine. The spacious emptiness of the department store suddenly seems ominous, oppressive even. It seems like I shouldn’t be here, or maybe, that someone else should be. I can’t imagine what it would have been like to wake up alone, without finding Savannah or the others. 

Now uncomfortable in solitude, I quickly return to the group. My earlier thoughts make me appreciate seeing them more, even though Viren immediately questions me. “Hey, where’d you go?” 

“Yeah, I thought you were going to apologize to Danger,” Elise adds. Danger raises an eyebrow and Lana gives me a strange look. 

I rub the back of my neck. “Yeah, I couldn’t find him.”

“You couldn’t find us?” Lana asks, Danger’s eyebrow raises a little further. “I mean, we didn’t leave this floor, let alone the store.”

“Uh, big store?” I can’t even convince myself. 

Savannah rolls her eyes. “Well, regardless, your apology, though well-intended, is no longer necessary. Danger apologized for exploding at us earlier.” She turns to him. “And by the way, you could give us a warning next time. Usually people’s faces change, or something.” 

He shrugs. “I can’t force myself to emote for you, and who says I would if I could?”

She sticks her tongue out at him. “Fine, but come sit back down. We’re going to resume our game.” 

Elise looks concerned. “Because it went so well the first time?” 

“Shh!” Savannah shushes her by reaching over and putting a finger to her lips. “It will be different this time.” She crosses her arms in an x before swing them apart. “No personal questions. We weren’t really getting anywhere with that anyway. What we need is information we can use, so that’s what we’re going to try to remember.”

Viren comes up with a question. “What do you consider useful information?” 

“Anything we can use to help us survive.” She points a finger at them. “No funny business from you or I’ll kick you out of the circle.”

“Oh, yeah?” Viren crosses their arms. “Half of the circle isn’t even sitting down yet.” Savannah pierces Lana, Danger and I with a serious death glare so that we sit down. She raises her brow in challenge, but of course Viren has a retort. “But what if I have a piece of key information that is absolutely essential to our survival?”

She grins. “Then you can discover it with your other friends.” 

“Ouch.” Viren holds a hand to their chest. “You wound me.” 

Savannah smiles triumphantly. “Good. Now, behave.” She looks across our circle to Danger. “I guess it’s your turn this time.”

He nods, but waits a moment, almost seeming hesitant. “Savannah, where are we?” 

“A store,” she replies helpfully. He narrows his eyes at her and she raises her arms in innocence. “No, seriously, I know that it’s called A-Mart, but that’s all I know.” 

Elise raises a hand. “Actually, I think I know.” Everyone looks to her, and she fidgets, shrinking away from the attention. “We’re in a city, a supercity.” 

When Elise pauses, Danger asks a follow-up question. “A supercity?” 

Elise nods. “I’m trying to remember, but it’s all a little fuzzy. From what I can piece together, we all live in this supercity. Supercities came about after some type of fighting, they replaced the previous government.”

“But what happened to it?” Danger presses further. “Surely, this isn’t how we’ve all lived.” 

“I don’t know.” Elise shrugs, looking down. “All that I’ve remembered seems to come from a history lesson, just generic information.” 

Lana puts a hand on her arm. “It’s alright. You’ve given us more than we knew before.”

“Do you know how the supercity was run? Where its supplies came from?” Danger continues to ask questions. 

Lana glares past Elise to him. “Quit pestering her. She already told you what she could remember. Now it’s her turn to ask a question.”

Elise looks at the rest of the group, stumbling for a moment. “Um, Aiden, what was your job before?”

Viren lets out a noise like a buzzer. “Wrong! That’s not a question about how the world works.”

“Yes, it is,” Savannah refutes. “It could have societal implications.”

“Hey, guys,” I interject. “I remember what my job was, and you’re right, Savannah. It definitely has other implications.”

- Piece By Piece returns! Sorry for the unannounced hiatus last week. On top of being very busy at work, I was also very sick. So, I have to apologize for the skipped update, but I had neither the time nor energy to write last week. I hope you enjoyed this week's snippet!