August first has come.
I woke up feeling terrible.
Not because of the hospital, or the food, or the tests, or anything like that.
But because today was the final day of the trial.
The day Thomas's group was supposed to make their move.
Still, there was one bright part to the day.
I got discharged from the hospital.
It might have been the slowest week of my life. Counting down the days was probably the most exciting part of it.
Even though it was my last day there, no one came to visit except for my parents, who were there to pick me up.
But it was still kind of eventful.
I had to get all the final tests done first, and it wasn't just one thing. It was a whole series that took hours.
Memory recall.
Orientation questions.
Reaction checks.
Balance and coordination.
And another scan, because of how abnormal the last results were.
But all the tests came back normal, except for my memory being ridiculously good.
I'm going to brag about that until the day I die.
The doctors were still pretty unsettled by it, though.
They'd never seen anything like it.
I mean, my memory really is good.
Too good.
And I really shouldn't have recovered this well after what they saw while I was unconscious. I mean, just imagine scanning someone's brain and finding that the memory center had literally split open.
Gross.
Well, I'm normal now.
Or close enough.
After all the tests came back clean, Dr. Blanc called my parents in so he could speak to all of us one last time before I was released.
I didn't expect Dad to show up since it was still a little early in the day, but it seemed like he wanted to celebrate me getting out.
Mom was trying to act cheerful because I was finally going home.
Dad was more practical. He was already talking about how things were going to be different at home.
Whatever that meant.
Melanie was the only one who actually understood why I looked distracted.
She knew I wasn't really thinking about going home.
I wanted to watch the factory.
Dr. Blanc stood there with that same careful doctor look on his face and said, "■■■■■ is stable enough to go home, but if anything like this were to happen a third time, we would have to escalate hard."
That made Mom tense up instantly.
"W-what do you mean?"
"Twice in this short a period is already abnormal. A third event means this stops being something we monitor casually. At that point, we'd need to treat it as an ongoing neurological condition until proven otherwise."
Now she looked really worried.
So did Dad.
And honestly, I didn't like hearing that either.
A third one would be bad enough on its own, but if it happened again, they'd probably keep me for much longer. More tests. More monitoring. More people watching me every second. Maybe even specialists.
That could affect my whole life.
School.
Factory 24.
Everything.
So if another memory hits me, I might need to find some way to hide when it happens.
Though, with how random these have been, that doesn't seem very realistic.
———————————————————————
We got home around five p.m.
Being home again felt weird.
The house felt smaller than I remembered after being in the hospital for a week.
But I didn't really care about that.
What I cared about was Factory 24.
I needed a plan.
I gave it about thirty minutes before I decided to ask my parents if I could go play with my friends.
They immediately said no.
Expected.
Melanie even tried to convince them, but they wanted me home for at least the rest of the day after being hospitalized for a week.
Fair.
But it still sucked.
They already knew a lot about what was going on around me. They knew I was part of Factory 24, and they knew about my memory episodes too.
I also realized this might be used against me later when school starts.
If my grades slip, if I act distant, if I get obsessive again, they'll blame it on Factory 24.
And honestly, they won't be wrong.
After getting rejected, I tried to lie down for a while.
Didn't work.
I couldn't relax.
I needed a plan for how to deal with The Claim this time.
Just to get my mind off it for a little bit, I decided to finish writing yesterday's autobiography section.
That kept me busy for about an hour.
Then dinner was called.
Another great way to keep my mind off everything.
Dinner was awkward.
I hadn't been home in a week, so no one really knew what to say at first. Still, Mom tried to get a conversation started.
"How do you feel physically? I know you haven't really gotten much exercise this week."
"Umm... I feel fine, I think."
Damn.
That was dry.
Dad gave it a shot too.
"School is starting soon. How do you guys feel about it?"
"Normal, I guess. Now that I learned I have a perfect memory, I'm not really worried about tests."
Melanie immediately spoke up.
"Yeah, how is that fair? First your head splits open and now you get perfect memory!?"
"Well, I don't think my memory is perfect since the second stroke. Or the first. I can remember pretty much every detail of my life since I was five."
"That's even worse!"
I laughed.
She joined in.
That finally got the conversation rolling.
Then the doorbell rang.
Dad decided to ignore it at first, since we were still eating.
Ring.
Ring.
Ring.
Three in a row?
This solicitor must really need sales.
Dad finally got up to answer it.
We were still at the table, so at first we could only hear him.
"What are you kids doing here at this hour!? Don't you have a curfew? Go home. ■■■■■ can play with you tomorrow!"
Oh.
It was my friends.
The founders.
I got up and headed over to the door.
They looked panicked.
"What's going on?"
George immediately blurted it out.
"■■■■■! It's started already!"
Shit.
Dad was not happy.
"You interrupt our dinner to drag ■■■■■ away?"
"S-sorry, sir..."
None of them knew what to say.
So I had to think fast.
I can't leave now. My parents are watching. Meet me after curfew.
"Go home for now. We can talk tomorrow."
I put extra emphasis on tomorrow so Liam would get the hint.
And it looked like he did.
Once he realized what I meant, he grabbed the others and started pulling them away.
They all left.
"Jeez, you've got some noisy friends, ■■■■■," Mom said, laughing a little.
Melanie asked if she could go with them, but Dad refused her too.
———————————————————————
After dinner, Mom and Dad made me go to bed.
I waited a few hours until I finally heard Dad go to sleep.
I was about to go to Melanie's room and make sure she could leave with me when she beat me to it.
She rushed into my room looking way too excited.
"It's time."
"Why do you look so excited?"
"Hm? I'm not. I'm nervous."
"Oh. Let's get out of here."
Our rooms were both on the second floor, but mine had roof access through the window.
We climbed out onto the roof, then made our way across to the other side of the house where the porch awning was. Luckily, it was metal and strong enough to hold our weight. We used that to slide down a bit farther before we actually had to drop the rest of the way to the ground.
We landed fine.
Escape successful.
The only problem would be getting back into the house afterward.
That's a problem for future me.
We grabbed our bikes and headed to the intersection of 25th Street and 24th.
When we got there, only Liam was waiting.
So we had to stand there and wait for the others.
Liam said he hadn't seen anyone nearby for the last couple of hours.
"How long have you been here?" I asked.
"Since a little after we left your house."
"Dude, it's been hours. Don't you have a curfew?"
"Hm? No. My mom's not that strict."
Lucky.
As we were talking, Mel, Leo, and George all showed up.
Then Sarah.
"Sarah?"
"Hey, ■■■■■."
"What are you doing here?"
"I'm only here to scout for Null. I won't interfere with your guys' business."
I didn't buy that for a second.
She was probably there to destroy the factory if things went wrong.
"Your face shows you don't believe me, ■■■■■," she said. "I assure you, I'm just here to document things this time."
"Sure..."
We left it at that.
Then we biked over to Factory 24.
At the front gates, we saw nothing.
No people.
No movement.
Nothing.
"Are you sure they really started earlier?"
"Yeah..."
"How do you know?"
Leo answered.
"I was doing as you said, trying to get information on Thomas, when he and his group of sixteen members all started heading this way."
"Well, where are they!?"
"I-I don't know..."