Endless Sky ~New Beginning~

Chapter Sixteen

Time was practically nonexistent in the arcade. OStar had no idea how long she had been in there until she started to feel her stomach trying to claw its way out. It was so sudden that OStar nearly collapsed on the spot. Luckily, Charlotte was nearby to steady her. "You alright?" she asked.
OStar shook her head as her stomach growled.
"Oh damn, did you eat breakfast?"
She shook her head again.
Charlotte inhaled sharply and looked around. Since she had no need to eat, she could play games all day, but OStar couldn't function without food. "Let's get you something to eat really quick, I think it's around one or two PM now," she said, starting to guide OStar to the exit.
"Really? That late? We've been here for hours!" OStar thought as she tried to ignore her own starvation. It really hadn't been that long since she last ate, she shouldn't feel like she's dying. Perhaps she was just used to having meals at proper times.
Keeping herself calm, OStar managed to walk with Charlotte to the kitchen to see what was happening. Roxxan had definitely finished cooking a while ago and, once again, had left some still warm food for OStar.
"Go eat," Charlotte encouraged, "I'll be in the main room waiting for you,"
OStar nodded her understanding before padding off to eat.
She didn't stay for long. Her hunger caused her to make quick work of the food, leaving a practically clean plate behind. OStar then put the dish away to be cleaned later and headed back to the main room.
As she had said she would be, Charlotte was sitting on the couch in the main room, with Afina curled up and asleep in her lap. "Wow, I was only gone for a few minutes and Afina is already dead asleep in your lap?" OStar chuckled as she padded over.
"Hey, that is not long for a tired cat, I don't even know where she came from. I was just relaxing when she appeared and instantly fell asleep!" Charlotte protested in a loud whisper that made Afina's ear twitch.
OStar only shook her head with a small laugh before joining her friend on the couch. Things seemed a lot better now. Charlotte looked more like her usual cheerful self and not someone who really wanted to escape a conversation.
Good. OStar didn't want to screw up a friendship when Charlotte was going to be the first person she invited to her home.
Of all the people in the mansion, still all good friends, Charlotte had clicked the most, even more than Afina, who was the first one OStar had met. If something happened, the odd fabricated teen would be the first person to whom OStar would go.
Three days.
She was sure they would pass very quickly.

With her mind at ease, the rest of the day continued normally. Roxxan was even able to give a small tour of the mansion with Charlotte tagging along. Now whenever OStar was bored, she had more places to go besides the main room and her own room. Though she must say, a whole room that was just a massive grassy meadow without even a ceiling, was very strange to be inside of a building.
"This is OCTown, what can I expect? Everything is strange and wild here," OStar thought, thinking about how different everyone inside the mansion are. Avaro was a dragon, Lucerne a Celestial Beast, Afina a small talking cat, Rual a dinosaur-like creature called a Shifl, Roxxan a robot, and Estella a cat princess of some lost kingdom. How had she remembered that she was a princess? OStar should ask that next time. But even Charlotte was odd despite being labeled as a "normal human". A normal human eats, they don't pass out for a week in a corpse-like state after having done so.
OStar wouldn't dare say that aloud to Charlotte who she seemed to get quiet or even mad whenever the "odd" parts about her were questioned.
It didn't matter though, if she did not want to explain, OStar wasn't going to force her.
Unlike the day before, when dinnertime came around, OStar joined with the others instead of camping out in her room. She contributed to the conversation and laughed at some jokes. All was normal, that was the plan. She didn't want anyone thinking she was plotting to leave soon.
"Someone pestering me for answers then wanting to join me is the last thing I want," OStar thought during dinner, stuffing her mouth. "I'll be coming back anyways, I'm not ditching everyone."
She'd decided tonight was a good time to meet the other part of her, the nameless one, only to make sure that going home was truly going to give answers.
If the cat showed any sort of malicious grin that made OStar feel that she was going into a trap, she would rethink her plan and listen to Mystic. But she doubted that would happen. Again, if that cat were really a part of herself, why would she be an enemy? How could OStar be an enemy to OStar?
It would be quite pointless for a part of OStar to send herself to her death as she would most likely die with her.
"This will be easy; I don't see why Mystic would want me to avoid my own home. I can stay hidden and quiet."
She finished her food and headed to bed, saying goodnight to her friends that had not yet left. Making sure her door was closed as she hopped onto the bed and curled up, letting sleep slowly wash over her.
As expected, a paw prodded her side, jerking her awake.
It was the mean cat. OStar had suspected the cat would know she'd wanted to talk to her and come.
She shook her head and sat up, keeping her posture firm instead of afraid.
"What do you want?" the black cat asked, already sounding like she wanted out of the conversation.
OStar ignored her tone.
"I wanted to ask you about my home, what you know about it," she asked.
"Tsk, I know nothing more than what that runt knows. Well, maybe not," she snickered with a grin.
"Most of it is assumptions, though. While she spends her time dreaming, I spend my time actually learning things."
OStar flicked her ear, not liking Pargenti being called a runt and practically an idiot, but she wasn't going to change the topic now. Even so, if she tried to get this cat to stop being mean, she knew it would be pointless. It would be like asking a fish to stop living in water, you can't stop them from doing what they normally do.
"What did you learn?" OStar continued with the questions.
"Honestly, not that much. That runt can go into your deep memories where I cannot. She can see and hear much more than I can from the edge. Not like she pays attention to any of it anyways," the she-cat huffed in irritation with a small eye roll.
"But I know there is something for you back at home, small, but I know it's for you. Let your paws guide you home. Shouldn't be hard to find a box with big letters spelling out 'OSTAR' now, would it?"
OStar shook her head, "No... I know what my name is and how it's spelled," she meowed.
"Good, you're not as dumb as you sound,"
She felt a little offended by that.
The cat didn't notice the frown OStar made after that, or maybe she did, but just didn't care.
"I can also tell you, before you ask, that I have no idea why Mystic did not want you to go back, I cannot see the future but I don't think there should be any danger anymore," the part continued.
"Anymore?"
"If anything goes wrong you can always fly away or something, make a portal, flee before you die,"
OStar made an annoyed snort, wanting to know what this creature meant by "anymore".
The cat narrowed her eyes and stopped talking on hearing the snort that had interrupted her.
"...You wouldn't have had a reason to leave if there was no danger. I don't know what happened, but I know it's been years since you have been 'home'. People you know might be dead by now. Or have forgotten you. Who knows? I don't. I'm not your memories, I am just stuck with the fragments of it," she hissed before padding off through the door and leaving.
"Hey wait! I still have more questions!" OStar exclaimed as she scrambled off the bed to follow.
Like every other time, once through the door, the cat was gone. Just like Mystic.
This infuriated OStar.
She had been left with questions far too many times, and it was irritating her. She knew that there were answers out there, but they kept sliding out of her grasp and escaping like slippery fish.
OStar wanted it to be over, she wanted to solve all the problems and lift the fog clouding her past.
Estella might be able to live without a memory, but only because there was absolutely no memory. If her entire memory of her past were put into a box, it would be empty. If OStar's were put into a box, it would be a puzzle with many pieces scattered around and missing.
Estella didn't have to worry about strange dreams or nameless cats that existed only in her mind. She could live on without a care in the world.
OStar couldn't. She was in too deep, her paws so close to answers as she manages to claw some out each day. Like a chest wrapped in vines. Each lash revealed more as the vines dropped away, but there was still so much to uncover. As long as she continued to try, she could open the chest, get its treasured contents. Trying to live life without knowledge but with temptation to know what was hidden was far too difficult.
OStar stood there for a long moment, not realizing she was digging her claws into the ground until they started to ache from the force she was putting into them.
"She won't come back, no point in looking for her," she thought as she made her way to Charlotte's room.
It looked just like before, not when she was awake just the other day, but when she was asleep about a week ago. The frame was empty, and the room was dully lit, also empty. Charlotte wasn't here. This wasn't her dream anyways, this was OStar's.
Instinctively, OStar went to the bed and looked under it.
...
Empty.
All the papers were gone.
"Huh?" she blinked and squinted, wondering if it was just too dark to see anything.
Nope, there was really nothing under the bed except maybe some dust.
No papers at all.
"Did Charlotte move them...?" OStar thought. "But that makes no sense! I'm dreaming! How can the real world affect that?"
That was a stupid question. Of course, the real world can affect her dreams, how else do traumatic events cause nightmares?
Maybe OStar dreamed they had been moved because Charlotte caught her snooping, that she may have reasonably moved them knowing OStar knew where they were kept.
"But why is she hiding these? What's on them that needs to be hidden?"
She shivered. She'd already told Charlotte that she didn't think she was hiding something bad; she couldn't turn back on that now. It was just a stack of papers anyways, maybe it was some kind of diary to Charlotte.
Thinking of it that way seemed to help a bit. OStar too would hide her own diary in a new spot if someone knew where it was originally located.
"But... Why couldn't she write in a book instead? There is no way there are no empty notebooks in a place that has practically everything," she then thought, getting a bit more confused and giving up conjecturing.
This wasn't her business. Dream or not, this wasn't something she deserved to find answers for unlike other things. OStar decided to forget about the papers, focusing more on the task at hand, her own memories.
Her brother, Boston, and that lady.
These papers weren't going to solve anything of that matter. It might solve some questions about Charlotte, but Charlotte wasn't in her memories. When she had met the teen in the mansion, that was the first time she'd met her in her life. Maybe some other time OStar might be able to learn more, but for now it did not matter. In fact, she no longer cared if she never figured out what was on those papers. It wasn't her problem, and she was no longer going to worry about it.
This is, again, about her lost memories now, not the pasts of her friends or the things they hide.
This was about getting her own past back, the things she herself might be hiding.
Two more days.