Tales From Heller

Yes, I Know What Isekai Is

I:

I was used to having dreams where I was back in high school, but none of those dreams had ever started with my waking up in the wrong bed. A comfy one, no less, and one where I still woke up to my usual "I Got You Babe" morning alarm at 6:15. My first instinct was to check the date—August 25th, 2018. Junior year of high school—what a nice trip down memory lane. My room was simply decorated, reminiscent of my dorm at UCLA, as if some generous host had chosen what they knew I'd like: some video game posters, a Casablanca poster, and on my desk was a binder of expensive Magic: The Gathering cards (far more valuable than my collection at home). My bookshelves were even better stocked than those at my home, including not just personal effects like my school yearbook but a wider range of classics and even some works in Chinese. Home sweet home, indeed.

In my dresser there was a kaleidoscopic array of college shirts, rolled up and sorted by region. Clearly my host was cheeky. I won't bore you with the rest of the inventory check, as much as it was sufficient to prove my unknown host was benevolent and intended for me to live in material comfort. My phone, tablet, and laptop remained identical to my knowledge, as much as I questioned what emails from 2022 were doing on my phone, but there was one new detail: my old high school email had unread messages. So it appeared I was a transfer student about to begin my first day at Heller High School. My overlords were clearly Catch-22 fans. My class schedule, albeit with unusual teacher names, remained the same as then: physics, ceramics, AP Chinese, statistics, a TA period with a new fellow I didn't recognize by the name of Mr. Thompson, APUSH, and AP Lang. At least I didn't have to do PE again.

I got dressed quickly, picking an USC Marshall shirt for good luck, and went to quickly survey the rest of the house. It was a nice one, and judging by the interior architecture I was somewhere near my old high school, but while there were two other bedrooms, the house was empty. It did have a Bosendorfer grand piano (better than Steinway, in my opinion) and what appeared to be a well-stocked kitchen, with a note handwritten in very neat print: "Don't worry about the house. Focus on school." Someone had gone through the effort of providing me with my own house, stocked with more college shirts than I would ever need in a lifetime, delicious foods of all sorts, and a good piano, but had neglected to provide me with a family or any indication of what circumstances had transported me here beyond that returning to my roots was the goal.

I wanted to give myself some time for reconnaissance, and to establish myself a set of ground rules, so I set off for Heller early; as predicted, I was only a few blocks away, and I arrived at the school I knew by a different name. I was pleased to discover that the layout was identical, and I thus knew the place by the back of my hand even if the teachers' names were different (names which I immediately set out to remember), but I knew as a supposed transfer student I would be expected to feign confusion. Some trappings of my former life would have to remain hidden at all costs: having functional university emails and access to the staff Wi-Fi via my admin account was beneficial, but a hard fact to explain, but at least my technology appeared appropriate for the era. If I were to recognize anyone, I would keep that fact to myself, and despite my inclination to use my superiority in knowledge to run wild through the school, I would keep as low a profile as someone who had presumably taken BC as a freshman could. The thought also occurred to me that some facts seemed missing from my former life: I thought I had one or two more email accounts, and there was a sense of deja vu inherent in the names "Heller High School" and "Patrick Kurtz" that were initially lost to me. This last fact revealed itself to me when I walked through Center Court, still staring at my course schedule as if I did not know where to go: "Mr. Kurtz" was listed on a poster as presumably working in the front office, and then I connected the dots: this was not only a reference to Heart of Darkness, but my old principal's name!