In The Wildest Dimensions

9. She Is Here

Sleep caught him in its cosy clutches, biting into his neck and charming his jugular veins to let go. Sleep licked his eyelids, cheering on their momentary demise. Sleep extended a finger down his throat, calming his internal organs.

Adam Jucas experienced euphoria like no painkillers had ever achieved, as he flunked himself onto the bed from which he awoke.

***

"June 17th", the pages of the journal stated on the following morning. "The man is still asleep. I'm not sure if he's reached the wilder dimensions. But surely something is wrong. I found a vehicle crashed near the southern pole. No bodies were traceable. This man might be quite important, for having people trying to find him. And the part that ticks me the most is his face. He looks just like my dear Jack."

Similar to yesterday's routine, Adam was up and awake, alone and drunk on confusions. Life as usual, or atleast the life he remembered from the lapse of the last three days.

'Wilder dimensions. Southern pole. This town unnerves me more than solving the ridicule of criminal cases. An anomaly. Absolutely.'

Stigmatized by the arrival of the new terminology, Adam wanted to sit down. With the absence of chairs, he parked his rear onto the flaccid mattress.

The identity of the mysterious woman bounced about his prefontal cortex. None other than the same name mentioned by her uncle - holding valid as long as that man really was her uncle, and if she really was his niece.

Spoken facts and eye witness testimony go hand-in-hand, he knew.

Now, the question was where and when to find her.

The train of thoughts stopped at the next station.

Michael mentioned Eve Bouchie and Jack Jucas being the founders of the café bearing their first names. First names instead of their surnames, as the general population would. But Adam swatted that question out of his encephalo viewfinder.

A greater inconsistency rose.

Concerning Adam's own parents.

The names had spilled out of his mouth like running water, as if from a previously-trained muscle memory coiled up in his cerebellum rather than an actual search query through his real memories.

How come he didn't remember a single second of his childhood? Why couldn't he remember their faces? The sound of his father's voice? The touch of his mother's skin?

It seemed almost as if his amnesia stretched for a longer time period than he expected. Almost artificially.

Almost as if there was no "almost", and all such instances were actually true with a hundred percent probability.

The life-questioning thorns stung more bitterly than ever.

Even after recovering his lingering memories from the moment he entered the café the last time, in the bathroom where he found the key, he still had not a clue about the events preceding the three days.

Presumably Adam was the best detective in a town without crime, and yet he was unable to scratch for clues.

Clues about his own life.

What was this life anyway? Where did he come from? When does his vacation end?

Conjuring the motif of the key, he urgently plucked it out from his pockets.

'Good thing I didn't give the key back to that bullock,' he turned it over to reveal a new word on the opposing side. 'Factory.'

The woman's journal had indicated that her cabin was near the south of Vicilia. Jucas didn't need a volunteer to tell him what else was located near the south.

He stood up.

He felt the vigilant eyes crawling on his presence again.

Jerking his head out towards the door, he heard a gasp.

A female voice.