A soft ray of sunlight hit Brown’s eyelids. He lay motionless in his warm bed, his chest slowly rising up, then back down again. He was dreaming of… a familiar machine.
A shadow intercepted the light, looming over the boy. The figure leaned in and gently shook his body, bundled in covers. Suddenly, Brown awoke. Chel was the first thing he saw.
The feminine shadow moved back to give Brown room to sit up. His blurry, sleepy vision eventually found his best friend sitting on his own bed next to him, excitedly tying his shoes. The phone on his nightstand was playing the exact song he heard one hour ago.
Shareef don’t like it,
Rockin’ the Casbah, rock the Casbah!
Shareef don’t like it,
Rockin’ the Casbah, rock the Casbah!
The considerably more awake of the two boys looked up. “Rise and shine, Brownie!”
The riser-and-shiner rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, opening up the strange world around him once again. He read his alarm clock. 8:01am. “Saki, what are you doing up so early? You hate mornings.”
“It’s Leap Day, dude!” He beamed, Chel bringing herself back to her master.
“…And?”
“And, I have a date with Pearl today! Do you realize how epic it is to have a date on a day that doesn’t exist every three out of four years?”
“Nope. Can’t-”
Brown stopped dead in his tracks. Suddenly, his brain suffered the worst case of dejá vu he had ever felt. A wave of foggy memories began to surface in his head. They felt like memories of a long-gone dream, but for some reason they all felt incredibly urgent, until one word came to his mind in the form of Skyber’s worried voice.
Nova!
Everything came back to him in an instant, like a baseball to the nuts. His heart dropped like a rock as he sprung out of his bed. “Oh God!”
Saki raised an eyebrow. “Hey man, I’m sure you’ll get a girlfriend eventually. Don’t get that beat up about it.”
The boy looked around worryingly as he realized this played out like the exact same morning he had earlier today. Was he dreaming? Was it a vision? Whatever Nova sneezed on him sure got him good.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. “I’ll.. get it…” Brown said reluctantly.
He opened the door, and there stood his taller, buffer third roommate with his indigo hair slicked back and his leather jacket scuffed and well-worn.
“Just the guy I need to… see,” Xander glared at him. “You planning on wearing pants any time soon?”
Brown looked down. He forgot to dress. Turning back, he could see Saki giggling to himself.
“Yeah, sorry, uh… I just got up and-“
“Whatever man. Just take this.” Xander handed him a piece of paper. Brown has a feeling he already knew what was written inside. Despite his suspicions, he opened the note anyways.
Hallo, Brown!
If convenient, come to my lab as soon as possible. As thanks for your service as my former lab assistant, I would like for you to witness my newest revolutionary creation! If inconvenient, come anyway.
-The one and only, Dr. Ernst
He crumpled up the note and stuffed it in his… oh, right. He didn’t have any pockets yet. Brown ended up tossing it in the trash can. Just what exactly was going on today?
“Hey, Xan, weird question but, um… Haven’t you already done this before? Like, just an hour ago?”
Xander gave him a weird look. “The hell are you talking about, kid? If I did, I would’ve asked for more money the second time. I got five bucks out of this little errand, so it’s a win for everyone. Now put some pants on and move.”
Brown stepped out of his way, this time into the closet, and Xander nonchalantly marched inside. He failed to acknowledge Saki, crashing face-down on his bed instead. Saki scoffed.
“Fine,” he said, “I didn’t wanna talk to you either, Xander.”
The sarcastic quip fell on sleeping ears. It was then that Brown came out with a change of clothes.
“Ugh, whatever,” Saki gathered his things and exited the room. “Brown, lock the door behind me. I’m gonna be late for my date. Catch you later, dude!”
“Yeah,” Brown replied, “See you around.”
Brown left his room posthaste, his mind running wild with anxious and perplexed thoughts. What the actual hell is going on? This already happened, and now it’s happening again! How in the hell did I get back to my room? What’s going on with Nova-
His train of thought screeched to a grinding halt as he bumped into Lucas in the hall.
“Ow, jeez, again?” Lucas grumbled as his books fell to the ground once more.
“Sorry, Luke, I—again? What do you mean, again?”
“Yeah again, the same thing happened like an hour ago. You’re a cool dude an’ all, but you gotta open your eyes more, and my shoulder… doesn’t hurt more than it did last time now that I think about it. Huh.”
“Wait, so you know what’s going on here? I’m not the only one with a massive case of dejá vu, right?”
“Uh… dunno what to tell you. Listen, I gotta head out to my next class, er… do you remember what’s after biology? What time is it, anyhow?”
“Hold on.” Brown checked his watch, holding it so Lucas could see. 8:14AM.
“What the fuck?” the boys said in unison.
“What do you mean biology didn’t even start?! I just finished with it!” Lucas hastily pulled out his phone. 8:14 AM.
“This doesn’t make any sense…” Brown muttered. “Listen, I gotta go. I need to check on something really important. Tell me if anything else weird happens.”
“Ughh…” Lucas groaned in defeat as he picked his books from the floor. “I can’t believe this, now it’s going to be even more boring because I know everything they talked about…”
With that, Brown raced to the lab. He needed to get to the bottom of this conundrum.
He made it to his destination in record time. Six minutes and twenty-eight seconds. Panting, he found the entrance of the laboratory, expecting this, too, to be familiar.
“Ah, Brown! You’re finally here! I was about to introduce my latest contraption, but somezhing else came up!”
There, at the entrance of the lab, the bandaged genius stood. A very familiar scene behind him: a huge contraption covered in sheets. Although his attention was more so focused on the divine duo, Skyber stood tall with a worried expression with a pale-faced Nova huddled in her arms. They looked exactly as they did before Brown returned to this morning, only this time their expression worsened.
“As I was saying,” Skyber said quietly, holding tightly to the sickly fluffball, “they were like this since they woke up. They won’t talk, they won’t eat, they can barely move… It isn’t like them to get sick, I-“
Skyber looked down at Nova with a saddened gaze. This time there wasn’t anyone she could be mad at. “I d-don’t know what to do… “ she said in a quivering voice, a defeated gaze in her hollowed eyes.
Brown gulped. Finally, he had fully realized the severity of his situation, barely holding back his panic. He glanced to the weakened Nova, then to the broken Skyber, then to the covered machine, frantically trying to put the pieces together in his head.
This is not good. This is NOT good at all. Of all the things that stayed the same, why hadn’t Nova reset? What did they even sneeze on me? Was this all because of the damn machine? What is happening to me?!
“Vell zis is not a huge problem, I am a healing GENIUS after all! My touch can cure the most severe of conditions most of ze time! And zis just looks like a common cold!” The doctor stretched his gloves, his hands began to glow in a bright light red aura.
The doctor placed his right hand on Nova’s forehead. He shivered through his warm bandages—they were much colder than he expected them to be.
One second…
Two seconds…
This was usually enough to cure such conditions, yet Nova still seemed to be the same. Ernst grunted. He placed his other hand on Nova’s forehead, doubling his output; he could cure bones with such effort, yet despite that along with a few more seconds of his pulse, Nova was still the same.
“Ugh, schiesse! No common cold vill beat ze GREAT DOCTOR ERNST!” The doctor gritted his teeth, for the last few seconds of the pulse the lights were almost blinding, so much so Brown couldn’t feel the pain from the bump he had with Lucas anymore, and yet… Nova was still the same.
Ernst couldn’t hold on anymore. He fell back, sitting on the floor with a heavy pant. “Huff… hoof…! I can’t believe zis! My powers are null! Zis is most curious, but also EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING! I zon’t remember ze last time I tried so hard, haha!”
Skyber wasn’t as amused. “Of course your powers won’t work. Ugh, I should’ve guessed… Not only is Nova not a human, they are also able to nullify Electi. Perhaps they are subconsciously nullifying you. I don’t know if their condition is what’s causing this but-”
“It’s the machine,” Brown said out of nowhere. The boy certainly managed to steal the spotlight. The trio looked right at him in utter confusion.
Ernst scoffed. “VHAT? But I haven’t even tested it yet, let alone showcase it!” He jogged over and pulled over the cover, making sure it wasn’t tampered with while he wasn’t looking. As expected, the machine was brand new.
“Are you talking about the machine we were invited to view today?” Skyber said with a raised brow. “What does that have to do with anything?”
The boy stepped forward. “Okay, this sounds absolutely insane, but I’ve been in this exact spot, at this exact moment before. I don’t know how or why, but I know what happened last time. When Doc unveiled his machine, Nova said they’ll volunteer. Then the machine backfired because of something about voids and stuff, and came out looking like that. Then, they sneezed some stardust shit on me, and now I’m back here.”
“…vhat? I called you all here today to testfire it! I vould never spoil ze grand reveal of such a magnificent contraption! Which you just did! UGH! I didn’t take you for ze snooping type!”
Skyber placed her hands on her hips. “Please. The concept of time is just that. A concept. The actual process of getting back to the ‘past’ is a delicate procedure even I had trouble doing in my godhood days. I had to physically take everything in existence and push it backwards.I doubt this metal toothpaste tube could even come close to achieving such things. This is no time to make such ludicrous statements!” Skyber gruffed at the boy. “Reality is at stake and you pull this nonsense? I thought you were better than this Brown.”
He quivered in place and stuttered. He was at a loss, realizing he had nothing tangible to prove to them of his predicament. “I… you have to believe me…”
“We should get back to business…” Skyber turned back to the low-headed doctor, gently setting Nova down.
“Yes, yes… you’re excused, Brown, your aid is not necessary for now.” The doctor seemed distraught over not being able to cure what he saw as a simple cold, and Skyber’s death glares certainly didn’t help.
Brown sat criss-cross next to Nova at the edge of the room. He checked his watch, reading 8:59AM. Perhaps Skyber was right: he had gone insane.
“What am I going to do, Nova?” He put his hands to his face in defeat.
Despite their lack of irises Brown could tell they were looking at him. It looked like they were about to say something, but suddenly they turned away from Brown and sneezed loudly. This time there were no particles, yet Brown was still engulfed with an overpowering exhaustion just as before.
He reached out his hand, and faded into nothing right before Nova’s worried eyes.