Elliana X Jason

Thirty One, The Final Push

Jason felt obnoxiously guilty. He didn't know where to go, though. He knew that he should just go back to the pond, but he wanted to tell someone what had happened. And as kind as Rebecca, Alex and Ian had been, he just didn't feel like he knew them. Frankly, he didn't feel like he knew anyone. Hence his dilemma. Of course, there was one person who seemed to trust him, and who he, admit it or not, trusted.

But she was the reason he'd gotten into that dumb fight in the first place, so he couldn't help feeling angry at her. Then, smoke.

This memory showed him sitting at a lighthouse. On his own, thinking. It didn't matter what he was thinking about. He was looking out at the waves lapping against the island shore, and he was so perfectly peaceful. While recently he just let the memory play out on its own, short or long. But this memory, he hung onto, tight. He watched himself atop the lighthouse for what felt like forever. Then he was atop the lighthouse, but no longer in a memory. He'd teleported. That was perfect. Suddenly, there was even more smoke. He saw himself with Elliana. He picked her up, and jumped off the lighthouse. He felt himself rushing through the air, in both the memory and in real life. It was as if he was jumping, with other Jason's jumping in his peripherals. He smiled and felt the water smack against his skin. And of course it was painful, but it was also freeing. He felt it again and again and again, as more and more of the peripheral Jason's jumped. He swam up and broke the surface, taking a gasping breath.

He was happy. His emotions told him so. He felt calm and content. And yet his mind was in complete turmoil. Memories were racing through his mind, and he didn't recognise a single one. None of them stayed long enough for him to process them, though. He was losing all of them, which should make him feel miserable, and yet something still told him he was happy. He was confused, miserable and happy. It didn't make sense.

Not thinking, he closed his eyes and pictured himself somewhere else. He opened his eyes and was at the pond. His vision was getting blurry, and it only managed to focus on one person. Ian.

"Ian... Something's happening." He said, quaking, physically and emotionally.

"What's up?" Ian asked, concern lacing his voice.

But Jason couldn't see him approaching. Everything was blurry, and when it did focus, it was shaking. Then, when it was finally focusing and not shaking, he'd be somewhere else, in the flash of an unfamiliar memory.

"Memories... too many." He muttered. He tried to find his voice, and ended up repeating the words in the memories.

"MammaRebeccabecausefunscaredMammaconfusedandifbadAlex."

"Jason, what's happening?" Ian asked.

Then a familiar memory. "Hive mind. David... Red Mask. He told me something about my memories had to do with a hive mind." He muttered, using the balance of the clear memory to make his words clear.

"Hive mind? Between who?"

Ian's voice was distant though, and it was shaking along with the clear memory. Then it was all gone, and all he could see were blurry, shaking, flashing memories. Then another clear memory, this one he didn't recognise. He didn't care to try to figure out what it was. He just began to speak.

"I'm assuming me, you, Alex and Rebecca. I remember someone saying something about telepathy. Maybe it has to do with that?"

"You're the only one with a window, though. None of us have telepathy anymore." Ian said.

Jason thought that maybe Ian said something else, but he couldn't tell. The memories came again, but now the flashes were even quicker, to the point where he couldn't even hear full words for each memory, just incoherent sounds and even more incoherent images. He waited for a memory to stay for a while so he could talk, but none of them did. He had nothing to work with, except these flashes of nothing.