Chapter 2: Several Weeks Earlier, Back at Jonas's Old Home
Part 1
"Mommy? Where's Jonas?" Lily inquired her mother worriedly. "Lily! What could you possibly be doing awake at this hour? It's 3A.M.!" Mother scolded. "But Mother, this is IMPORTANT!" Lily retorted "I had gotten up to get a drink of water, but when I walked past J-J-Jonas's room, he, he wasn't THERE! And neither was G-G-Gabe! And I looked all over the house and they weren't anywhere!" Mother suddenly sat up in her bed, her face white. "Are you sure this wasn't just a scary dream, sweetheart?" "YES! It was REAL!" Mother got up, waking Father, as he had amazingly slept through Lily's shouting. "Dear, it's Jonas- he's missing, along with Gabriel!"
The three scattered about the house, looking all around, calling "JONAS?" After a long half-hour of searching they gave up looking around the house. "Maybe he went over to The Giver for some reason. Where else could he be?" Mother said, voicing the thoughts of the rest of the family. "Yes, maybe, but we mustn't check now, being that it is 3:30 in the morning," Father reasoned. "But, but..." Lily was cut off by her mother "Honey, it won't help us to go to the Giver if he is still sleeping, and it would be very rude to wake him, wouldn't it? Now go along to bed and we'll talk more in the morning." "Fine." Lily stomped up the stairs to her bedroom. Several hours later, the family had gotten up earlier than usual so that Lily would be to school on time despite their trip to the Giver. When they arrived at his house, the woman at the desk told them that they were not allowed to enter the Giver's room, but that she would ask him to come out to talk. She also said that she was pretty sure that Jonas had left for home the night before, and that she never saw him return. Sure enough, when The Giver came out he said he had no idea where Jonas was, and that he didn't know why Gabe would be gone too. "Thank you," the family said, holding back tears. When they got home they knew that they had to just pretend nothing was wrong and go about as usual, and maybe Jonas would be back later in the day. Lily saw Asher and asked him if he had seen Jonas. Asher said no, he had not seen him since class the day before. The days went on and the family painfully adjusted to living without Gabe or Jonas. They had almost completely returned to normal when one night, while they all slept...
Part 2
At Asher's house, Asher is asleep. He begins to dream a very strange about things completely unfamiliar to him
Asher looked up. He saw small, featherlike specks of a cold substance, falling towards him. He looks back down and sees that he is sitting in a-he wasn't quite sure what it is, and it had a strange but amazingly beautiful quality to it that he couldn't describe-which is perched atop a giant mound covered in a slick very light shaded sheet, going down and down hundreds of yards. Something, he didn't know what, made him start to slide down the mound. He wasn't sure whether he liked the exhilaration of the ride, because the bitingly cold wind pierced through his jacket like needles. He wanted to slow down, but his odd vehicle wanted otherwise. It sped up, accelerating faster and faster, faster than he had ever gone before, even when he used to race his friends on the road after school. He saw the end of the mound coming up, but then he noticed a small lump in the snow. It was already too late to jump out, and he had no idea how to steer the vehicle, although even if he had it was too late. He hit the bump at top speed, and went flying into the air. A string on the vehicle had caught onto his leg, making it so that he couldn't separate himself from the heavy platform like vehicle in time. He hit the ground hard, hitting the slick and also very solid sheet knee first. He heard a loud crack coming from…himself. It took a moment, but suddenly a terribly agony surged forward into his senses, a feeling worse than any other pain he had ever felt in his life multiplied by 100. He screamed a terrible shout of pain. He looked down and nearly barfed when he saw the awful, gory mess of bloody, destroyed bone and muscle that was his leg. He was lost, alone, confused and had no way to escape from the terrible dream. He lay there in pain for what felt like an eternity, before finally he awoke. But this was only for a moment before he was overcome by another memory. He was riding on a strange creature quite like his old comfort animal from when he was a small Seven, which his dream-self knew to be a horse. He and the…horse?...walked through the expanse of flowers and grass over to a small river, from which he and the horse drank clear, refreshing water. Asher felt a strange bond with the animal as they sat by the stream. His dream self knew it as love. He finally woke up, more permanently now, but was overcome by the knowledge of things he had never before experienced. Hunger, pain, sadness, love, and all of the things around him had the same quality as the vehicle he had ridden on in that unbearable dream. He looked at his clock. The time said 7:30! Why hadn't his parents woke him up? School started in 20 minutes! But as he walked past his parent's bedroom he saw them both there, crying in their sleep, and knew that he wasn't the only one who was having the terrible dreams.
He walked downstairs, and saw that no one was outside. Something was wrong. Very wrong. Then he saw the Receiver of Memory, not Jonas but the elderly man who he was trained by. Asher stepped outside. The Receiver saw him and walked over. "I see that luckily at least one person in our community has arisen. I believe that you have had some dreams of very new experiences and suddenly gained much knowledge, am I correct?" "Yes" Asher replied. "Do you have any questions about them?" "Yes, many" "I am here to answer them." "What is the strange quality that everything seems to now have? And what is the white feathery powder that fell from the sky? And the large mound and the vehicle I rode down it?" "The quality is called color. It is what we all saw before they erased it from our memories when they converted to Sameness." "And the feathery stuff?" "Snow, a kind of frozen rain that fell from the sky in blizzards, also from before Sameness. All of the things you saw were from before Sameness. The vehicle was called a sled and you would use it to ride down a mound, which was called a hill, when the hill was covered in snow." "That sounds like it might be fun, if it didn't end in a broken leg."
"Yes, it is fun. Follow me." "Where are we going? What if my parents wake up?" "Oh, yes, I forgot. Leave a note telling them that you will be back soon. We are going to a place that your good friend Jonas was quite familiar with, for things good and bad." Asher left a note like the Receiver told him to, and then followed him down the road. When they reached the Annex room, they entered, and Asher, like Jonas had been, was amazed at the books. "Okay," said the Receiver, "Lie down right here on the bed, and I will give you a memory of the sledding, but without the crash. It is much like the one I gave your friend on his first day of training." So Asher lay down and as the Receiver put his hands on Asher's back, Asher was swept into a memory of sledding.
He was sitting on top of a sled, and this time, he knew what was going to happen, and that it wouldn't end badly. Now that he was familiar with the sled, not lost in confusion, he tried to figure out how to use the strings to steer. Once he thought he knew how to do it, he took his legs and pushed off. The sled went quickly down the hill, and Asher loved the exhilaration that the speed and cold brought him. He tried out his new steering skills as he went down. He reached the bottom of the hill, and he then started to slow down as the snow piled up in front of him.
"That was awesome! Can we do it again?" Asked Asher giddily. The Receiver smiled. "Yes, you can, you must just call it back like you would with any other memory." "Cool!" Asher replied, grinning. "Now," said the Receiver, "Would you like to help me explain and help the community with their new emotions and knowledge? You seem to have taken all of this quite well, but others, they will not." "Sure!" "Okay, well, we better get started. First stop, your house." "Let's go!"
{Author's note: still looking for feedback on my writing, please comment! In the next chapter we go back to where Jonas and Gabe are with Anne, and they (or Jonas at least, Gabe would but he can't, uuhhh, talk yet) tell their long but still interesting story.