Sunday July 2nd, 2056

Andrew wakes up at eight in the morning. His sleep schedule has returned to normal again. For the past days, he has played games and talked with Mike, Chris, Joe and Wilhelm about their experiences from the past and the present. After breakfast, Andrew goes to the recreational area, and meets them there.

Wilhelm starts shuffling the cards, while the others look are still looking at their phones. "Almost all the things on these we had back in the day are gone." Mike says. "Do you have a phone?"

"I had one." Andrew replies. "I still have it in my room, but it none of the apps seem to work."

"You still have your old phone? And it works?" Mike says.

"Yeah, it's a model from, I don't know what year exactly, somewhere in the 2010s. Helen was really intrigued when she saw it."

"That's to be expected for someone from here. Look, this is a model from last year." Mike shows his phone to Andrew.

[It hasn't changed that much, still the same shape and screen it looks like.]

"It's not that different from what you had, probably. It has a few nice quirks and new things, but I heard technology hasn't advanced as much on the microscopic level. It had to do with something called Moss Law I think."

"Moore's Law." Chris corrects him. "I read they wanted to make quantum computers pocket sized, but it didn't work out because of some new challenge that halted the progress." Chris explains, while still looking at his phone. "I forgot what it was exactly."

[I should look into that.]

"Can we please stop the intelligent talk?" Wilhelm says. "I'm done shuffling, so let's shut up and play. We'll get you a new phone later, Andrew. 'll be useful if we could keep in contact."

[He kind of talks like dad, sort of.]

Wilhelm divides the cards over them, and they start playing. They are silent and concentrated during the game, even Andrew has picked up on their playstyle. A few games pass, and it is already almost lunchtime.

"Andrew, can I ask you something?" Mike asks.

"What is it?" Andrew puts his losing set of cards on the table, as the game had just finished.

"Do you remember anything from your accident? Sorry if this is so sudden, but we were told by Helen that we shouldn't keep silent about it forever. And I'm curious myself too."

[I still don't know what happened. I went to school in the morning, on my bike, no, with the bus, because it was raining. I went inside, but I don't know which class I had. Did I walk up the stairs? I think I did, so it must've been on the B or C floor, but I'm really not sure.]

"I know I went to school with the bus. The fields I passed looked barren and empty. I arrived and went into the school building, through the main entrance, but I don't remember anything after that." Andrew tells them.

"Well, it's more than you told us last time." Mike says. "I'll tell you our accidents, if you're okay with it. Except for Wilhelm's, sorry, it's a little too gruesome for now." He looks at Wilhelm when he apologises.

"It's okay, I understand why." Wilhelm says.

"Thanks." Mike responds. "So, I'm here because I got shot, in the neck." He pulls down his shirt, to show a round scar on the left side of his neck. There is also a scar on the back of his neck, with the same shape and size. "The ambulance wasn't on time, and the rest is self-explanatory."

"So did you know you were shot, or did you find out because of the scar?" Andrew asks.

"Because of the scar." He replies. "It seems that all of us, and all of the people here, have lost the part of their memory when the accident happened, and right before it. So it's not unnatural that you lost it too."

"My sister told me when she went to visit me here." Chris says. "She told me I died of a heart attack, and they weren't on time with the AED."

[So they were all told afterwards, and he by his sister. Melissa should be able to tell me, or Connor, Keil, Sarah, May, anyone from the class basically.]

"Joe here was, well, hurt in the neck. With a knife." Chris explains. "I won't go any further than that, but he woke up without working vocal chords. They tried to fix them before his sleep, but it didn't work out like they wanted to. If you look closely you can still see a scar."

"If you know this that means Joe was the last to wake up?"

"No, Mike was." Chris says. "Wilhelm woke up first, then me, then Joe, and finally Mike."

"If Mike can show you his wound, I can show mine." Wilhelm grabs the bottom of his shirt.

"Don't Wilhelm, you'll only scare him." Chris tells him.

"He saw your wounds too, and heard your stories."

[This is only adding to the tension, just tell me.]

"So whaddaya say, kid?"

[He really does sound like dad.]

"Tell me." Andrew responds. "But skip over the small details, I want it in a single sentence."

Chris and Mike are silent, and nod. Joe doesn't make any signs, and nods as well.

"Okay then." Wilhelm lifts his shirt. Andrew waits in great anticipation as the cloth is lifted from Wilhelm's stomach. As his belly gets exposed, for everyone to see, a scar starts to show up. It spans from the height of the belly button all the way to the height of his breasts. It is red, slightly purple, a combination of burned and bruised skin. It is huge, taking up about a third of his chest, making a crescent shape with the points facing right.

"It happened in 1999, according to my sister. We were on a music festival, I don't remember which band, she wouldn't tell me."

"Keep it short, Wilhelm." Chris interrupts.

"I fell down from a platform, and was impaled by a steel pipe front to back. It is a miracle they were able to fix me and keep me alive for more than fifty years."

Wilhelm turns around and shows the scar on the back too. Slightly smaller, but equally scarring. He pulls his shirt back down. Andrew is speechless.

"So that's it, kid." Wilhelm says. "Now that we got that out of the way, let's get lunch." Wilhelm stands up and walks to the cafeteria. Mike goes to Andrew.

"You okay there? That must've been a bit hard on your stomach."

"It was." Andrew replies. "But, I'm glad I heard it now, and not any later."

Mike nods, and helps Andrew up. The four of them walk behind Wilhelm, to the cafeteria. In the cafeteria they have lunch together, and afterwards they split up again.

Andrew goes back to the recreational area, and makes begins reading another book, but he isn't able to stay focused for long.

[A new phone might be a good idea, but where would I get the money? They probably got it from their family or friends, but I haven't heard anything from mine yet.]

He looks out the window. The outside area is surrounded by a stone wall, so he can't see anything beyond the garden, except a tall tower in the distance.

[Helen told me she would tell me when someone contacted the centre, but it looks like it hasn't happened yet.]

[Would their friends even be alive? They will be in their nineties if they are, I wonder if they met any of them. May should also be in her fifties. Fifty-four, because her birthday already passed. Mine too. I wonder if she still recognises me. She should, she said she would never forget our relationship. I didn't forget. Her long black hair, dark brown eyes.]

Andrew closes his book.

[I can't focus like this. I'll ask Helen if I'm allowed to go outside.]

He stands up and walks towards the hallway, but once he turns the corner, Helen is suddenly there, walking straight at him.

"Woah!" Helen exclaims as she quickly does a step back. "I didn't expect you to leave so soon."

[Odd coincidence, let's keep it at that.]

"Well, I was looking for you anyway as I wanted to ask you something." Andrew says.

"Go ahead. I have something to tell you too."

"When can I go outside? Like in the walled off area at the very least, but hopefully further."

"What a coincidence!" Helen says. "I was actually about to tell you you're almost allowed outside."

[Still a coincidence, right?]

"Why almost?"

"We have to take a blood test first, to see if your immune system is back to normal. If it's not you'll be susceptible to diseases and other nasty stuff, especially when you go outside."

Andrew closes the door behind him. "So are we doing that now?" He asks.

"If you're up for it, sure." Helen answers. She guides him to the blood lab and they enter together, encountering a doctor sitting behind his desk.

"Come in." The man says, but after they had already entered. "You're here for a blood test I think?" He is still looking at his monitor.

"Hey, Erd?" Helen says. The man looks up from behind his desk.

"Oh, you're a new patient? Sorry I should introduce myself first." He says, while he stands up and walks towards Andrew. "The name's Erd Jostel, you can call me either name, doesn't really matter." They shake hands.

Erd is a middle-aged man with round glasses and a lab coat, and a balding head. He signals Andrew to take a seat on a white chair.

"I'll be outside for a bit, if you don't mind." Helen says. "I really don't like that machine."

[Machine?]

Andrew nods and Helen leaves the room. Erd prepares a needle, and sets up a machine.

"You probably haven't seen this before, but maybe you read about it." Erd starts. "It's a machine for taking someone's blood." He places the needle in a slot of the machine and returns to his desk. "I only have to give commands here, so it's not fully automatic, which is a good thing, in my opinion."

Andrew looks at the machine as it wraps around his left arm. He feels it pressurising his arm, and moving it around slightly.

"Don't worry, it's just looking where all your veins are. It can't do anything else unless I tell it to do so." Erd explains.

"What commands can you give it?" Andrew asks.

"I can assign a location and tell it to take blood there, and the amount of blood, or I can detach it from your arm. It uses the needle all by itself and stores the blood in containers automatically." He explains. "Looks like it found a good place? Are you ready? You'll probably feel the needle, but it shouldn't hurt."

"Yeah, I'm ready." Andrew says. Erd presses clicks a few times with his mouse, and a few lights on the machine light up. The needle stings Andrew in his arm.

[I felt that. It only tingles, but it hurts less than whenever doctor Mirad did it. Erd doesn't have a name card just like Helen and Robert… I forgot his last name already.]

The tingling stops and he feels the machine sticking something to his arm, a band-aid. The machine unfolds from his arm and the pressure is released.

"Perfect." Erd says as he looks at the three small vials. "You can come back in, Helen."

Helen returns to the room, and walks towards them.

"I'll have the results tomorrow." Erd says. "If everything is alright I'll tell Helen about it in the morning, and she can relay the results to you in the morning."

[I always thought that takes a week or two.]

Helen nods and they say their goodbyes to Erd, and leave. Helen heads back to her office, while Andrew goes back to his room. During the past week, he was assigned a new, personal, room. The layout is still roughly the same, with a bed, and bedside table, a desk and a chair, a couch, and a small bookcase, on Andrew's request. He sits down on the couch and looks at the bedside table, where the blue letter is standing up right, and the picture of him and his family faces him.

[None of them have called me yet, but they might not even know I'm awake.]

He turns around and looks out the window.

[But they should, Helen said the centre had contacted them when I woke up, so they could visit me. They should've already.]

He looks at the clock, on the other side of the room.

[Almost five, maybe I should get dinner early and get a good sleep. I don't know why, maybe to be more fit if I'm allowed to go outside tomorrow. I don't know.]

He picks up a book from the desk, opens it on a random page, and starts reading the closest chapter. The chapters are all separate stories, and the one he picked out, happened to be about a boy who suddenly disappeared from his class, only to return to his friends twenty years later, at a reunion. They all despised him for disappearing so suddenly, but after he explained the reason, his sister that suddenly died in an accident, they all turned very compassionate towards him. Andrew finishes reading the story, and goes to the cafeteria for dinner.

[Not very believable. Why would he stay away from his life for over twenty years? Just talking to people would've been better for him, or for anyone in that situation.]

At the cafeteria, he notices Joe is sitting alone at a table, and the others are nowhere to be found. Before ordering his food, he walks up to the table and sits down opposite of him. Joe is a slim, young looking man, with brown hair falling beside his head, to just over his ears. He has brown eyes, and wears a simple t-shirt and jeans.

"Hey Joe." Andrew starts. "Where are the others?"

Joe grabs a notebook from his pocket and starts writing.

[Because Chris isn't here, probably.]

He hands over the notebook, opened on a page, to Andrew.

"They will be here in a moment, I am always a bit earlier." Andrew reads.

"Ah, I see." Andrew responds. He hands back the notebook to Joe, and he writes something in it again. After writing he hands it back to Andrew.

"How is your new room? Are you allowed to go outside? What do you think about the centre?" Andrew reads aloud.

[He's fast with writing, I wish I was in school, that would've helped me a bunch.]

"Well, my new room is a lot better than that hospital-like room I was staying in." Andrew says. "I can decorate it all I like, so it's more suited to my tastes."

Joe retrieves his notebook, and starts writing again, but signals Andrew to continue talking.

"And about the centre in general, I like the calm atmosphere. It's a really big difference from the school I used to go to."

Joe nods and smiles, while writing something down again. Andrew continues.

"But it still kind of feels like a hospital, with all the white and grey everywhere, with the occasional blue. The rectangular lights too, I forgot what they're called."

Immediately after Andrew finishes his sentence, Joe hands him the notebook.

["What are your tastes? I won't ask about your school, I'm not allowed to ask about sensitive topics, if you know what I mean. Until I get permission that is. And I agree, it really does feel like a mundane hospital here!"]

[I heard Helen say something about that, those topics.]

"Well, I like reading." Andrew responds. "Mostly history books. Reading about history that I should've been a part of interests me."

Joe nods.

"Otherwise my room is pretty plain. The bookcase is probably the most notable thing. And about going outside, they just took my blood today, so I'll know if I'm allowed to tomorrow."

Joe writes something down again. Mike, Chris and Wilhelm enter the cafeteria, and Joe gives back the notebook to Andrew. He waves to the others.

Andrew reads the note.

"If Helen agrees with it, I'd be happy to have you guys along!" He responds.

Joe smiles and nods, and the others approach them.

[They want to go outside, with me. It's been a long time since I've met people this friendly.]

They have dinner together, and Helen also joins them later. Chris tells Helen about the plan to go outside with the six of them, and she agrees with it. After a nice dinner with good conversations, they all head to their rooms to go to bed. Before turning off his lights, Andrew looks at the picture of his family one more time. He closes the letter, pulls the blanket over himself, and turns off the light.