WHY

The day begins like any other. Your alarm beeps, signifying the start of your school day. You groggily get up and stop the alarm. You get dressed and head downstairs to eat breakfast. The half-hour goes by quickly and before you know it, it’s time to leave.

“Bye Mom, bye Dad.” You say.

As you leave your house, a boy your age approaches you. You know this boy, of course. He has been your best friend for as long as you can remember. The boy begins talking.

“Are you ready? Today's the big day!”

“Huh? What’s happening today?”

“You seriously don’t remember?!”

You’re having trouble remembering anything at all. For example, this boy’s name.

“Well, I guess I have to remind you since it’s such an important day.”

“Please do.”

“The school festival is today, Emma! You know, the huge event that yours truly has been working hard to make go smoothly?“

You do not know what he is talking about at all.

“Oh yeah, I remember now.” You lie.

The boy exhaled heavily.

“Phew, you had me worried there! Now let’s head to school, or else we will be late!”

The day goes by quickly, only taking up one line.

“This is a school announcement. Please head to the gym for the opening ceremony of the school festival.”

As you exit the classroom you find yourself in, your friend walks up to you.

“I’m getting kinda worried. What if something goes wrong?”

“What could go wrong? You told me you had been working hard for this, right?”

“Yeah… You’re right. I shouldn’t worry. Everything’s gonna go just fine!”

He grins wildly as the two of you head to the gym.

“I gotta get onto the stage now, goodbye!”

“Bye.”

He runs off towards the gym. Soon enough, you arrive. Students flood into seats that have been set up facing a makeshift stage. You get into a line and take a seat. When you look at the stage, you see your friend in front of a microphone. He is sweating nervously. You throw him a smile, but he doesn’t notice. He clears his throat.

“Good morning, fellow students of this academy! We’ve got a lot planned today, so get ready to-”

It happened so suddenly. Pandemonium. Chaos. Screams of pain. You notice your own voice among the screams. The most terrible pain affects your right arm. You look at the stage and see it has exploded. Your friend’s burnt body lays unmoving on the ground. You cry out in absolute despair.

The day begins like any other. Your alarm beeps, signifying the start of your school day. You quickly sit up and look at your arm. It’s fine.

“It was… a dream. It was just a dream.”

You get up and stop the alarm. You get dressed and head downstairs to eat breakfast. The half-hour goes by and it’s time to leave.

“Bye Mom, bye Dad.” You say.

As you leave your house, a boy your age approaches you. You know this boy, of course. He has been your best friend for as long as you can remember. The boy begins talking.

“Are you excited? Tomorrow's the big day!”

“Oh, the festival? I thought that was today…”

“Didn’t I tell you like, fifty thousand times that it’s on Friday?”

“Haha, I must have forgotten…”

You are terribly confused. Even though the dream ended, you still have no idea what he’s talking about.

“Hellooo, Earth to Emma! Come on, we’re gonna be late if you stand there all day!”

“Oh, yeah, sorry.”

He and you begin walking to school.

The day seems to drag on forever and ever, even managing to take up more than one line.

“Hmm…”

You can’t stop thinking about it. You know it didn’t really happen, but your curiosity gets the better of you. Once school ends, you check the gym. You see the chairs and the stage have already been set up. You know that nothing will be there, but you have to check anyway… You lift the cloth off the stage and check underneath. You see…

Exactly what you thought. Nothing. There was no bomb, students didn’t die, it was all a dream. You don’t even know why you were worried. You begin laughing about how stupid you were to even consider the possibility. Then, you go back home. The day goes by quickly and fades into the night. You fall asleep easily.

The day begins like any other. Your alarm beeps, signifying the start of your school day. You groggily get up and stop the alarm. You get dressed and head downstairs to eat breakfast. The half-hour goes by quickly and before you know it, it’s time to leave.

“Bye Mom, bye Dad.” You say.

As you leave your house, a boy your age approaches you. You know this boy, of course. He has been your best friend for as long as you can remember. The boy begins talking.

“I did it, Emma!”

“Huh? What did you do?”

“What you told me to do! I’ll be working on the festival for the last two days of setup!”

“What?”

“Huh??? I thought you would be excited!”

“I thought you were already working on the festival. Isn’t it today?”

“Uhhh, you seem a little confused… maybe this will jog your memory!”

He takes off his backpack and unzips it. You peek in and see the last thing you expected. It’s a bomb.

“Aren’t you happy? This was pretty tough to get my hands on!”

You don’t understand. You don’t understand you don’t understand you don’t understand you don’t understand you don’t understand you don’t understand you don’t understand.

“Emma? Why are you crying?”

He seems to have an idea as he pulls a scrap of paper out of his pocket.

“Don’t you remember this was your idea?”

You look at the paper. On it is written the plan to blow up the bomb at the school festival. It’s all in your handwriting.

“Emma…?”

“Why?”

“Huh?”

“Why would I do this? Why would I do such a terrible thing? Why are you doing this?”

“Uh… you told me that this had to be done. That I had to sacrifice myself during the festival. Why don’t you remember any of this?”

“Why? Why? Why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why why?”

“I don’t know! I’m just doing what you told me to do, and I trust you! Why are you so surprised about this situation?”

You can’t understand. You start running away as fast as you can. You don’t know why. You don’t know anything anymore. You just keep running and running and running. You run for hours. You run until all you can do is walk. You walk until all you can do is crawl. You crawl until you can’t do anything anymore.

The day begins unlike any other. You wake up in a hospital bed, unable to feel your body. You look at your right arm to see it in terrible condition.

“No…”

You just don’t understand what’s going on anymore. You hear his voice.

“It didn’t work.”

It sounds like he was having trouble speaking and breathing.

“Our plan failed, Emma. I’m still here.”

You start crying.

“I can’t even say I’m really alive anymore, but I’m still here.”

You wish the nightmare would end.

“I hate you. You were just trying to get rid of me, weren’t you?”

You can’t answer.

“And don’t just say you don’t know. I’m sick of you lying to me.”

You don’t know. You can’t remember anything.

“I never should have trusted you. You’re obviously crazy.”

You can’t say he’s wrong.

“I-I can’t remember anything from before three days ago. I can’t even remember your name.”

“Can’t even remember-- You really are insane,”

“I think you’re right. Everything has been out of order for me.”

“What does that even mean?”

“I don’t know. I just can’t understand. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know who I am. I don’t know anything about this world.”

“It sounds like you aren’t lying.”

“Trust me, I wish I was.”

That was the last thing you ever told him. After that, the two of you stopped talking and just cried. You cried until you couldn’t cry anymore. You couldn’t understand what was happening, or why it was happening. But in the end, you suppose that was what life really was. Trying to understand what couldn’t be understood.

(Context: I wrote this for school a while ago. Not my best idea, given the content.)