Screen Time

Chapter 10: Robin

"God that hurts", when I first opened my eyes I found myself at the bottom of what looks like a cliff I think? As I try to get up, I immediately fall back to the ground. I feel a visceral pain coming from my ankle and a few sharp pains coming from my back. "Did I fall?", as I try to remember how I got into this situation I soon realize that not only can I not remember what I ended up doing at the bottom of a cliff, I can't remember anything at all. Well, I do remember one thing. My name is-

"ROBIN!", says a man coming from around the corner. It's dark so it takes me a while to see who it is but once he comes into full view it's like a wave of memories starts to flood my brain. That's Simon, my best friend of a few years or at least I think he is? I don't know how to describe it but my memories don't really feel like memories. It feels like someone forced them into my brain. It kinda hurts to think about it. "Robin oh my god are you ok? I'm so sorry I didn't mean to, I was just- are you ok? Does anything hurt? Is anything broken? Shit Robin, I'm so sorry I-", I can't tell if it's because he's nervous or if it's because he just finished booking it towards me but he's extremely out of breath

"Simon. Relax. I'm good. Well as good as I can be for someone who just fell off a cliff. What was I even doing here in the first place?", actually, now that I think about it, what am I doing here? Why am I just at a random cliff in the middle of the night?

"...Because I had something to show you?", Simon says as he gives me a puzzled look. "Are you sure you're alright Robin?"

"I told you, I'm good. Anyways, what did you have to show me?"

Simon stares at me unconvinced but eventually, he says "I wanted to show you the scene- actually never mind. I don't want to start another fight."

"Scene? You mean the scenery?", wait so that's why we're out here in the middle of the night? Because he wanted to show me the scenery? I mean don't get me wrong, I appreciate a good view as much as the next guy but I can't believe he would drag me all the way out here just to look at the- "HOLY SHIT WHAT IS THAT?", as I turn my head towards the view in question I start to realize why he wanted me to see it. It's like half the world ends and the rest is covered in some sort of black darkness. "What the hell is that? Are you seeing this too? Should we tell someone about this?"

"Wait, you can see it?", Simon says now even more confused than ever.

"Obviously I can see it. Isn't this why you called me out here in the first place?"

"But you couldn't before. Why now?"

"Before? You mean before I slipped and fell?"

"What? You didn't slip, I-", Simon looks at me wide-eyed as if he's just realized something that I haven't yet. "Robin, what happened before you fell?"

He's already worried enough and I don't want to make him even more nervous with my sudden onset memory loss so I lie and tell him, "Sorry, I don't really remember. Must have hit my head harder than I thought haha"

I thought this would be enough to get him to drop it but instead, he persists and says, "Ok then what about before we got to the cliff, if you still can't remember then what about before that, tell me about anything you remember before all of this happened." Honestly, now would be a good time to just give up and tell him the truth but instead of doing that I choose to lie, lie, and lie some more.

"I remember us hanging out...?", I say as if I don't even believe the words that just came out of my mouth. I mean I know that we're friends so we probably do hang out a lot...right?

"...you remember us hanging out?", he says as if he clearly sees through my bullshitting. "Oh really? Where at?"

"At the arcadelibrarypark", I say hoping that one of these places will be correct and he'll just drop it.