infinite

Part 9

"Jai? Is he alright?" I look at the door and see that the voice belongs to Ned, Peter is standing close behind him staring into the room. 

"He has really bad nightmares, he will be alright in a few." 

Jack squirms away from me. "No I won't, you don't get it, you don't understand, I am not just having nightmares or night terrors, whatever you want to call them, these things I see are real, they haven't happened yet obviously but, they're going to." 

What does he mean? "Are you claiming that you're a psychic now? There's no way." 

Once the words leave my mouth I realize that there is a way, I mean, I can do what I do so what is there to say that Jack isn't a little... off too?

"No... I don't know, it's not like I can see what you're going to learn in class tomorrow or anything, it's more of a feeling that I get when these dreams happen and when I wake up from them, it's a feeling in the pit of my stomach, a bad feeling, I swear I'm not making any of this up or I'm just imagining this." 

Peter and Ned have made their way into the room now and are standing at the foot of the bed, it's too late to kick them out now. The feeling that Jack was talking about, I get them too and I'm always right, if Jack is right about what he says then we are all in deep trouble. 

"I believe you," I say. 

"Whoa whoa whoa whoa, he said that we're all going to die and we're just going to go along with it?" I'm surprised hearing this come from Ned when he's usually very open-minded. 

"My brother does not lie, something is going on and we are going to fix it."

 Ned sighs in frustration, "What the hell does he mean then?" 

"I don't know what it means," I say while standing up and running my hands through my hair, "all I know is that we can't ignore this, Jack has never acted like this, we have to figure this out, and since you two are here, you are part of the equation."

"I believe him too," This is the first time Peter has talked since this started.

 I nod my head, "Good, we have to figure this out guys, and we are the only ones who know about this, let's keep it that way." 

We all take seats around the room, Ned sits in the desk chair, and the rest of us all sit on the bed. "Well, what do we do now?" asks Ned. 

"If what he's saying is a fact then we have to figure out a way to stop it." Says Peter. 

"Yeah, but how do we do that? We don't even know what this is?" Ned says with emphasis on the this. 

I turn to Jack, "You see these things when you sleep, if tonight you start... let's call it seeing, I'll try to keep you from waking the whole neighborhood, all you have to do is remember." 

"This is basically a puzzle," says Peter. 

"And we don't even have half the pieces," Ned adds. 

I walk quickly out of Jacks room and go into my own, and sit down on the bed grabbing my notebook and pen from my nightstand. I open to a page with some blank space and write down the words, "sight-puzzle" and "save", these words are both important at this moment. 

"What are you writing down?" asks Peter. 

I look up at him while closing my notebook, "Words," I place the objects back on my nightstand, "it helps me keep track of things, it gets pretty jumbled up here," I point to my head, "I know that this whole thing seems quite literally insane." 

Peter shifts on the bed and says, "Trust me, I've seen and heard more insane things than this."

 I turn my head to look at him, "I don't doubt it." 

I take notice of the lack of light coming through my window and look at the clock on my nightstand, it's already past 6 pm. 

"Do you guys have rides home or do you need a ride?" I ask both Peter and Ned. 

Peter answers me, "Uh I forgot to call Aunt May, so will you?"

 I nod, "Yeah, of course, we should probably get going now because it's dark out." 

We all get up, Peter and Ned head downstairs, I stop in Jack's room to tell him that I'm leaving. "I'm taking Peter and Ned home, I'll be right back okay? Call me if you need me." He nods and  I go downstairs to meet the boys and then we head outside and hop in my car. 

"Ned I'm dropping you off first since you live the furthest away," I say, Ned from the backseat replies a quick yeah. 

The drive to Ned's place is mostly silent besides the voice of the radio show host. At Ned's place, he gets out and thanks me for the ride, before he closes his front door he waves goodbye to us and we drive off. 

"Jaina, there's something I have to tell you." 

I glance over at Peter, "What?"

 He takes a deep breath and speaks, "I have been keeping something from you, for a very long time." 

I'm nervous now, from the way he is acting the news doesn't seem like it's good. 

"Okay... I'm listening." I turn left down Meadow street and get caught at a stoplight.

 "I... um- I..."

 "You... what? Get on with it." 

"I uh I- I need help with my uh biology work, I'm just really confused about the whole sheet, I mean I don't get how to take the atoms and the equations and plu-." 

"Peter, you have the best grade out of the both of us, and you want my help? THAT'S what you had to tell me?" 

He shrugs, "Yeah sorry, I need help, your help specifically because you're really good at the subject." I know he's lying, but I'm not going to push him, he'll tell me when he wants to. 

"Alright, I'll help you tomorrow when you come over." 

About ten minutes later and I pull into Peter's apartment complex and park. We sit there for a few seconds before Peter breaks the silence, "I really do believe Jack, it's almost as if the world isn't the world anymore, little by little every day something is different."

 I nod, "Yeah I see it too, and as of now it's only us and we have to figure it out, I can't do this by myself, Peter, I need you." 

"I'm here." He reaches over and pats my hand, and for a moment, the only sounds I can hear are our breaths and the world living outside. 

"I better be heading in now," He gets out of the car, "Thanks for the ride, I'll see you tomorrow." He shuts the car door and I wave bye at him as he goes into his building and disappears. 

***

I am drained when I return home, right when I get in the house I go to Jacks room to check on him. "You doing alright?" I ask. 

"Yeah... no, not really, everything that is going on in my mind, to pass on the message is all up to me."

 I lean against his doorframe, "It's not all up  just you, you have me, Peter and Ned helping you, and you know that I will always be here." 

"I know, I just need to sleep." 

I take that as a hint that he wants me to leave, so I do and go into my room and get dressed for bed. I haven't even had dinner but I don't care, I just want to rest a little before Jack wakes me in the middle of the night, if he even does. 

What if he doesn't even see anything tonight? We are all worked up like this and it was only a two-time thing. Ugh whatever, I'm too tired to think about that right now.

I turn off all the lights, lay down, and slowly I drift off to sleep.