The Nibiru Effect

Uh-oh!

Will Jr. awoke just as the memory organizer detached from his wrist. It fell onto his lap, the metallic legs that once protruded from the device having retreated into it. Will Jr. stared at it, breathing heavily.

"W-what just happened?" he muttered. His voice was hoarse and his throat dry. His head throbbed softly. How long had he been sitting there, reliving his father's memories? Minutes? Hours? Days? Time was impossible to determine in this dark, dust-filled attic. For all he knew, it was the middle of the night.

Something was wrong with Will Jr. He had spent so much time reliving his father's memories he no longer felt like himself. He now felt like Will Save, saviour of the forest korrigans and prisoner of the past.

Will Jr. shook his head and massaged his tired muscles. He cracked his knuckles and did stretching exercises to ease the tension in his neck. He even yawned a couple of times. By the time he was done, he felt like himself again.

The confusion caused by the momentarily displaced identity was gone, yet Will Jr. was still confused. Reliving his father's memories had allowed him to get to know the man in ways he had never dreamed of, yet he now possessed more unanswered question than he had before.

What happened to Will Save? Why was he trapped in the past? What of Avalon? Where was she, and what did she have planned next? Was that really Will Jr.'s mother when she was young? She seemed so different. So did Jonn—his grandfather. Will Jr. had always known him to be a kindhearted, easy-go-lucky kind of guy. It was difficult for him to accept the Jonn he had seen in his father's memories was, in fact, the same man.

So many questions, and not a single answer. But Will Jr. did not regret reliving his father's memories. He now felt much closer to him. Not to mention all the incredible things he had witnessed. For the first time in his life, Will Jr. realized how vast the world was. He had heard stories, but now that he had seen it with his own eyes, he felt a voracious desire to explore it. Doing so in real life was too dangerous, but there were other ways to travel.

Will Jr. grabbed the memory organizer and placed it onto his wrist. He waited for the metallic legs to appear and encircle his wrist, but nothing happened.

"Oh no," groaned Will Jr. Was the memory organizer broken? What if he could never relive the rest of his father's memories? How could he go on not knowing what had happened to him?

Maybe the disc is full, he theorized. Maybe the next set of memories are on the second disc.

Will Jr. flipped the memory organizer and twisted the two metallic triangles that adorned it so their tips were facing away from each other. Nothing happened for a few seconds, then the flaps flipped open. Soon after, the rest of the metallic device split into thin points and opened up like a flower, revealing the silver disc it contained. The Roman numeral "I" was engraved on its surface.

Will Jr. reached for the disc, hands shaking. It took a few tries, but he finally managed to extract the memory chip. Moments later, it was returned to the wooden box that contained the other nine discs the teenager's father had left for him. The memory organizer sealed itself as soon as the disc marked with "II" was inserted into it.

Will Jr. hesitated for a moment, then twisted the triangles. They clicked into place, forming an hourglass. Moments later, the memory organizer came to life. A dozen metallic legs erupted from the disc's perimeter and started flexing and feeling around.

"Yes!" yelled Will Jr. victoriously. In his excitement, he sent the memory organizer flying across the attic. It vanished behind a dusty dresser but came scurrying back after only a few seconds. It crawled up Will Jr.'s leg and tried to attach itself to his wrist, but the teenager would not let it. It was not that Will Jr. did not want to know what had happened to his father, it was just that he wanted to know how many more discs contained memories.

Were all ten memory chips full or was this the final one? Determined to find out, Will Jr. deactivated the memory organizer and inserted the discs one by one. The device turned on time and time again until he inserted the eighth disc. Instead of sealing shut and coming to life, the memory organizer remained inert.

"It must be blank," muttered Will Jr. as he removed the disc and replaced it with the one marked with "IX." Like before, the memory organizer remained dormant. The same also happened when he inserted the final disc.

Will Jr. did the math and concluded seven of the ten discs contained memories. Since he had already relived the first set, only six remained. It did not seem like much given how they were all that remained of his father, yet so much had already happened Will Jr. could barely even fathom what could happen next. But he was eager to find out. It was thus with a sense of excitement that he slipped the second disc into the memory organizer and waited for it to seal itself. He was about to twist the triangles into place when something caught his ear.

It was a soft thud. Will Jr. could easily have ignored it, but he chose not to. He looked up, just as a shape emerged from the shadow cast by a nearby stack of boxes.

"Uh-oh!" muttered Will Jr. at the sight of the woman standing before him.

It was his mother.

To be continued...