DISCLAIMER: I do not own Choices. This fun game belongs to Pixelberry! :)
Chapter One: The Beginning
Jake didn't have much time, and his past self – whom he called McKenzie in his mind because the situation was already crazy enough without having two Jakes in the same room – wasn't helping, refusing to believe that he had traveled back in time, even after Jake had told him many things that nobody else knew.
Because the enemy had destroyed many of the labs on the islands, Jake had to resort to using a prototype of a future gun instead of the real thing, and he had figured out from the notes placed with the prototype that it could only send him back in time temporarily. When the power ran out, his body would be back in his own time.
At least, it was just his body. Grace, during her time in captivity, had found a device in another lab that could transfer memories between two people if they had similar DNA. It had a slight chance of working if the two people were parent and child; a stronger chance of working if they were siblings; and it was one hundred percent effective if the two people in question were identical twins – or, in Jake and McKenzie's case, exactly the same person. Jake had asked Grace how she had known all those things.
She had pretended not to hear him.
But her pretending not to hear him was better than his own past self pretending not to hear him, or, at least, pretending not to understand him. Because McKenzie did understand what Jake was telling him. He could lie to anybody in the entire world – except to Jake.
Crossing his arms disbelievingly, McKenzie scoffed, "And why should I believe you? Besides the fact that you could be lying, meddling with time is the number no-no in all those cheesy time travel movies. This is… different."
Jake looked at his past self, seeing the tough-guy act for what it was – a way to protect himself from the rest of the world. But Jake couldn't protect McKenzie from the terrible truth because there was somebody else he had to protect above all others.
"Different doesn't mean wrong. Not in this case, anyway. I had to do this. You have to believe me," said Jake urgently, taking a side glance at the draining battery of his future gun prototype. "It's the only way to prevent it."
"Prevent what?"
In a moment, the terrible time he had come from flashed before Jake's eyes, and he only said one word in response.
"Everything."
And something in Jake's voice seemed to reach McKenzie.
"Okay, then," he said gruffly. "Just do it before I change my mind."
Following the sounds of talking and laughter, Jake arrived at the pool, where he realized that he had traveled back to Raj's feast – the one he and Quinn had put together, with MC's help, to unite their group. He had been skeptical the first time around, but not this time. This time, he would help.
Jake looked around. It was strange to see them so healthy and so young. Grace was still cheerful; Aleister was still aloof; Craig was still playful…
…and Michelle still had her hands.
Michelle, who Jake had thought was a spoiled little rich girl, had come to him and Estela one day and had asked to be trained in fighting, saying that MC had told her that they were the people to ask. Jake hadn't wanted to do it, thinking she was too straight-laced to be able to do any real damage, but Estela had seen something in her eyes that made her say yes.
She was the dark horse in their little band – the one who looked like she wouldn't get her hands dirty, but could fight like a lioness if cornered. But one day, she was caught, and her hands…
Jake didn't want to think about what happened to her hands.
Eventually, she escaped. She had learned from Estela how to navigate in the forest in the dark, and she made her way back to their sorry hideout, just in time to see Raj spread out on a couch with a near-fatal injury. Their remaining friends surrounded him, not knowing what had to be done.
She knew. Michelle, who had wanted to be a doctor her whole life, who had studied for hours and hours every night to be a doctor, knew. But her hands…
Tears streaming down her cheeks, she barked out medical commands that nobody else could understand. She had to stop several times and think, and use simpler words, so that they could understand what she meant. In the dim light, she tried to verbally point out things only she knew the names of, describing with all her might, comparing arteries and nerves and veins to string and spiderwebs and whatever else she could think of to describe to make things as clear for them as possible. But time was of the essence, and no matter what they did, the delays between directions and actions were too much.
Raj bled out and died.
Sean and MC turned to her, ashamed that they couldn't understand in time, that they couldn't see what she saw; the minute differences in flesh and blood and bone that were so clear to her and so unknown to them. But Michelle hardly noticed them, throwing herself over her friend's body and sobbing that it was her fault; that she, who had studied all her life to be a doctor, couldn't save him. She cried over his body the whole night, gently carried away by Sean only after she was too exhausted to resist.
Michelle was never really the same after that.
Shaking his head, Jake tried to think of other things, looking around for a distraction.
And, as if he were in a sappy movie, time seemed to stop when he turned and saw MC.
Because she was standing. Smiling.
Whole.
(End of Chapter One.) (Originally posted on T-02/04/17.) (F-15/06/18.)
Chapter One notes: (B01-C07.) This is the first chapter of my first ever Choices fanfic! It is SUPER weird for me to write a fanfic without weeks of planning and a color-coded outline to keep everything on track, so I hope this made sense! This chapter takes place during Book One, Chapter Seven. To be more specific, it's right before they sit down to eat together during Raj's feast. The part about Michelle's hands was actually supposed to be a little more descriptive, but I thought that might be too much for the first chapter… Also, these three lines ("It's the only way to prevent it." "Prevent what?" "Everything.") are from the television show Heroes :D
About my main Pixelberry fanfic: Hello! :) If you like Pixelberry's Hollywood U or Pixelberry's Red Carpet Diaries, then I encourage you to read my MC/Hunt fanfic "NYTMC 1: Not Your Typical Meet-Cute." It currently has 219,000 words (64 chapters), and it is written from Thomas Hunt's perspective :D
(Thanks for reading! :D Reviews make me smile! ^_^)
