This life is not better.
It's been a while.
I haven't written anything in this biography for a long time. Long enough that I almost forgot it existed. I was cleaning my room when I found it again—buried under old notebooks and random junk like it had just been waiting for me to come back to it.
Five years.
I think that's about right.
I'm ten years old now.
Double digits.
Sixth grade.
Middle school.
It sounds like a fresh start, but it really isn't. There's only one elementary school, one middle school, and one high school in this town. You don't meet new people—you just grow up with the same ones.
Nothing resets.
Everything just… continues.
Somewhere along the way, I realized something else too.
Since I'm writing about my own life, this is technically an autobiography.
Didn't know that when I started.
Doesn't really change anything.
I'm still not sure what I'm supposed to write here.
So I'll just give an update.
———————————————————————
Let's start with my memory.
Back when I actually wrote consistently, I had a goal.
Surpass my previous life.
Be better than I was before.
At the time, I thought my memory would be the key to that. That everything I'd forgotten would come back eventually, piece by piece, and give me some kind of advantage.
But it hasn't.
Not really.
I still don't remember much.
And because of that, I can't even tell if I've improved at all.
So about two years ago, I changed the goal.
Instead of trying to be better than someone I barely remember, I'd just try to become the best version of who I am now.
It's simple.
People always say comparing yourself to others makes you miserable.
Turns out, comparing yourself to your past life does the same thing.
So no.
This life isn't better.
It's just different.
And different isn't always bad.
But it isn't always good either.
Back when we first established Base 24, I thought I had everything figured out.
I thought:
This is it.
This life is better.
I have friends.
I have a place.
I belong somewhere.
But looking back on it now…
That wasn't growth.
That was luck.
I got caught up in it.
I got emotional.
I confused being surrounded by people with actually becoming someone better.
Just because you're part of something doesn't mean you've changed.
So no.
I'm not better.
Not yet.
But I'm closer than I was.
And that has to count for something.
———————————————————————
Factory 24.
It's grown.
A lot.
Five years will do that.
Our town has about 7,500 people.
Roughly 1,300 students.
And at least a hundred of them have been to Factory 24 at some point.
A lot of them still go regularly.
Because of that, things have… evolved.
We have rules now.
Not written ones, but everyone knows them.
And whether we meant to or not, we ended up with a system.
A hierarchy.
The newer kids handle most of the work—cleaning, moving things around, fixing whatever breaks.
The longer you stay, the higher your place becomes.
No one officially made it that way.
It just happened.
My group—the founders—we sit at the top.
We didn't ask for that.
But we're the ones everyone looks to when something needs to be decided.
We use the office constantly now.
It's basically our meeting room.
Our control center.
It's even started attracting attention outside the school.
The local government knows about it.
Mayor Tom especially.
He's not a fan.
He wants it shut down—or at least regulated.
I can't blame him.
We basically built a miniature society inside an abandoned factory.
If things got out of control, it could turn into something way bigger than anyone intended.
But he hasn't done anything yet.
Probably because shutting it down would make him look bad.
Most parents and teachers actually support it.
They think it's teaching us responsibility.
Leadership.
Structure.
They think we're building something valuable.
Maybe we are.
But they don't see everything.
They don't see how easy it is for something like this to turn into something else.
Something worse.
The hierarchy is the part that bothers me the most.
Not because it exists—but because no one questions it.
We vote on decisions.
Everyone gets a say.
That's how it's supposed to work.
But most of the time, people just follow what we say.
Not because they have to.
Because they trust us.
And if we're divided?
We flip a coin.
That's how fragile the system actually is.
We didn't build this.
We just happened to be there first.
And now we're responsible for it.
Whether we want to be or not.
———————————————————————
The founders.
My group.
We've all changed.
Some more than others.
Melanie.
She's in eighth grade now.
She doesn't come around much anymore.
She has her own group, her own life.
We only really see her when something big happens, or when she decides to show up.
George.
Still George.
He's calmed down a little, but not by much.
He's on the track team.
Basketball too.
He's always moving.
Always doing something.
And when he's at the factory, he's trying to drag someone into playing with him.
He once tried to design a flag for Factory 24.
We shut that down fast.
Leo.
Smart.
Really smart.
Smarter than me, even.
And I've had two lives.
He thinks through everything.
Breaks things down.
Finds the most logical path forward.
When we don't know what to do, we look at him.
He's also gotten into reading more.
A lot more.
Mel.
She's changed the most.
She's confident now.
Talks easily.
Moves like she belongs.
At least… until she meets someone new.
Then she snaps right back to how she used to be.
Quiet.
Careful.
Like she's afraid of saying the wrong thing.
But at the factory?
She's different.
Everyone knows her.
Everyone likes her.
She fits there.
She always has.
And then there's them.
Elaine.
Sarah.
Liam.
Elaine.
She's popular now.
One of those people everyone notices.
She acts like nothing matters.
Like everything's a joke.
But it's fake.
You can tell.
There's something underneath that she doesn't let anyone see.
She found out she was banned from Factory 24 a few years ago.
She pretended not to care.
But she did.
You could see it.
She's not the same as she was in first grade.
But she's not better either.
Just… different.
Sarah.
After she stopped being friends with Elaine, she started coming to the factory more.
She found a new group.
New people.
But personality-wise?
She hasn't changed much.
Still calm.
Still quiet.
Still watching everything.
It makes me wonder what actually happened between them.
What caused that split.
Liam.
That damn snitch.
He's hard to read.
Always has been.
He blends in.
Moves quietly.
Knows how people think.
Leo is logically smart.
Liam is socially smart.
And that might be more dangerous.
Over time, he learned how to pick locks.
Eventually, he managed to unlock the main doors.
Even the front gate.
That changed everything.
We didn't need the hole in the fence anymore.
We patched it up.
Cleaned things up.
Made it look more… official.
Now he's one of the core members.
Not a leader.
But always there.
Always involved.
Always watching.
That's everything.
Five years.
Summed up.
Things are stable.
For now.
———————————————————————
That didn't last.
Three days.
That's all it took.
Three days after I wrote that.
Last night, I had a dream.
But it didn't feel like a dream.
It felt real.
Too real.
I was back in my past life.
Younger.
Eight.
Maybe nine.
And it moved fast.
Like a timelapse.
I saw everything.
Finding the factory.
Watching it grow.
More people.
More structure.
More control.
It looked exactly like what we have now.
At first, I felt relieved.
Finally.
A real memory.
Something clear.
Something complete.
But then I realized something.
If this is the part of my past coming back now…
Then it's not random.
It means something.
It means…
Something is about to happen.