~Chapter 7~
It took them quite awhile to tie the present me to a picture of me that had been painted years ago. Couldn't blame them. I'd lost my hairstyle, gotten a haircut, outgrew my old school uniform, and had changed physically over the years. I was no longer the little weakling that was in the picture. Now I was a feisty vixen.
I resisted the urge to smile at their profuse confusion. If I didn't have my hangover, I probably would've cracked up.
"W-Wait, that's impossible!" Mina declared. "You don't look anything like that picture!"
I rolled my eyes and made makeshift pigtails, struggling to tie some of my hair into two buns, the way I used to style my hair. I remember someone phrasing it as "meatball-head". Despite the absence of length, I looked halfway similar to that painting. "If this doesn't convince you, nothing will."
Immediately after I said that, the girls' jaws seemed to plummet earthward. So then it was true. Everything was about me being Serena Tsukino, the friend they had been looking for, was crystal clear. And now it was time I learned about them.
"So, now that this is all cleared up, who are you?" I asked as I straightened my hair back out.
Some of the girls looked shocked. The ones who didn't look shocked looked baffled.
"Wait...you don't know?" the brunette questioned, almost as if I was joking around with them.
I shrugged nonchalantly. In truth, I was kind of eager to know. I could hardly remember a thing before probably...three years ago maybe?
I heard someone in the back whisper into the brunette's ear, "She doesn't remember us..."
"Wha-! I'm Lita, remember? You know, Lita...the good cook? And remember Amy? She's the brains of the group. A-and what about Mina? And Rei?" Her voice sounded pretty desperate.
"Yes, and what about Luna and Artemis?" Amy added.
Rei and Mina nodded in agreement.
From the looks of things, and from the way they sounded, I was someone really important. But I honestly couldn't remember them. I mean, Lita the cook? Amy the brain? Didn't give me much to go on... Part of me wished I could remember something. But it was weird... How could someone who originally looked so familiar tell you who they were, and you still didn't know? How was that possible? It was like I had abandoned all of my memories. Well, maybe not. Could've been fellow dancers.
"Okay, wait. When did we meet exactly? Because if I was acting all weird and goofy, then I was drunk and so I wouldn't have remembered you," I explained.
"Drunk?" one of them mumbled.
I perked an eyebrow. "You aren't from around here, are you?" It was more of a statement than a fact, because everyone who lived even remotely near me knew how often I got drunk. It wasn't uncommon to see me roaming the sidewalks, doing strange things and saying strange things and probably thinking strange things. Point was, anyone and everyone knew how easily it was to look out their windows or their cars and see me doing or saying whatever. Which had to mean that these girls weren't from around here, and therefore...therefore they couldn't know me. But somehow they did? That...that didn't make any sense whatsoever! Okay, wait a second. There had to be some kind of logical explanation for this mess.
"We aren't. And neither are you, Serena," Rei said, stepping in front of the group. "Don't you remember anything?"
I shook my head and shrugged again. "Only memories I have are of here."
She sighed heavily and tried to "jog my memory" by telling me stories. "Alright. Your name is Serena Tsukino. You had two parents and a little brother. One day, you met a black cat with a crescent moon on her forehead. That cat was named Luna. Thanks to her, you met each of us. Soon we became your best friends. You would sometimes spend hours talking to us about Andrew, who used to work at an arcade you loved. You were such a crybaby back then. But you were also really fun to be around. One day you met a guy named...I hate to bring him up, but...Darien. You met Darien. At first you two were the worst of enemies, but that all changed over the course of time. Soon you two were boyfriend and girlfriend. You were really happy when you were with each other. And then he broke up with you. After that, you stopped coming to our study meetings. You started smoking. When we learned about it, we were so worried. We called you and sent you text messages and even e-mailed you. You never responded to any of them. Not long after that, you ran away. Your parents called the police and a huge search went out for you, but no one could find you. The search was called off after a few days, and they told us you were probably dead. You parents didn't give up and tried to look for you on their own. But after a whole year had gone by, and you still hadn't turned up, they stopped looking for you. Then we took over. Darien joined us and went throughout three states looking for you. Usually one of us would stay put while the others searched, just in case you came back. But you never did. So we decided to look in the one place we were sure you would never be in. And so here we are, four years later, and you don't even remember us..."
I stayed quiet. The story was entertaining, to say the least. But for all I knew, these girls could be making it all up. Sure was one heck of a story though. Compliments to the creators. I had been here for as long as I could remember, which according to Rei, wasn't very much. It felt like I'd been here my whole life, not just four measly years. This place was my home, my sanctuary. Why did they want to take that from me? And there were so many flaws with their crazy story! Like for instance, a cat helped me make friends? Sounded more like a children's book! In logic, they were lying. But it would sort of explain why they were familiar. Anyway, it probably didn't matter. And honestly, I didn't want to leave this place. If, per chance, the story was somehow true, then I didn't want to go back to my parents and brother. And whoever this "Darien" character was. I'd never had a boyfriend. The only guy friend I'd ever had was Kent.
"Well?" Mina chimed. "Don't you remember us?"
"I think I know what's going on now," I replied.
Seeing their eyes filled with hope only proved it.
"Yeah," I said. "You guys were up all night drinking, so now you're drunk this morning." I turned to Summer, hoping they would disband and move on soon. "Hey, Summer, do you have any beers left?"
She lightly chuckled. "You still have a hangover, I'm not giving you a beer."
So what if I still had a hangover? It was just one little beer can. Wouldn't hurt anything. Besides, it was easy to maintain a nice figure when you exercised by dancing too much. How could you dance too much? Easy. Get drunk and you'll have no clue what you're doing. The fun and benefit outweighed the pain of a hangover. Or at least that was how I saw it.
"Hey, isn't there supposed to be another contest tonight? Why don't you just go to that?" she suggested.
I knew she was referring to the drinking contest a little ways down from her apartment. It would be held at a bar that I really liked. I could never remember their names though. There were so many throughout this portion of town, and I'd been to all of them. It was weird that I still couldn't remember their names. Oh well, not important.
"Yeah, I've already signed up. That ten grand is all mine now!"
She giggled. "Godspeed to any who challenge the unbeatable Serena."
I grinned proudly, remembering all my previous wins. Five times in a row, that was my record. This would be my sixth win. And this time the purse was ten thousand dollars.
"Hey, you guys want to come?" she asked the girls, who for some reason hadn't left yet.
"Come to where?" Mina asked.
I pulled out a cigarette and lighted it despite Summer's rule about not smoking in front of guests. They had been here too long now, and since they seemed to know me, they were more considered my guests than hers. So technically I could break that rule. Besides, I was preparing for major money. I needed her to cut me some slack. It wasn't easy, drinking all that...whatever they were serving there. Truth be told, some contests served beer, others served rum, and some vodka. There were lots of different alcoholic beverages, and the goal was to drink as many cups of that beverage as you could before throwing up or passing out. You could get as drunk as you wanted, but the rules clearly stated that if you threw up or spit out any amount of that particular drink, you were immediately disqualified. I had no problem with that since I was usually the one who could take more alcohol than anyone else, drunk or not.
And I made hefty earnings from winning those contests. Now I could buy my own drinks and cigarettes. Summer, Kent, and Betch could keep their money.
"To the Drinking Fountain. That's where Serena's going to compete," I heard Summer tell them.
"What kind of contest is it?" Amy asked.
She laughed heartily, as if it was the funniest thing in the world that they should ask what kind of contest I was competing in. "The kind she excels in."
"Which would be what?" Lita threw in.
I interrupted, felling kind of left out. Not to mention awkward that people were talking about me like I wasn't there. "It's a drinking contest. I've already won five in a row. This will be my sixth win."
"Better be careful about that. You don't even know who you're up against, do you?" Summer said, as if that was going to shatter my title.
"Doesn't matter. They've just chosen to enter Serena's arena. They're the ones who should be worried," I countered.
Miss Goody-Two-Shoes decided to step in again. "Wait, isn't that a little unhealthy?"
We both pretty much laughed our heads off at that comment. This was me we were talking about. I wasn't just some second-rate nobody. I was known around bars everywhere as the best drinker out there. I could hold in ten times more alcohol than any normal human being. I was the real deal. I might as well have invented drinking contests, I was just that good at them! Unless they were superhuman, or unless influenced by some paranormal phenomena, the other contenders had no hope of a chance against me. I didn't know if I had trained my body, or if I was just like that, but either way, I was unbeatable when it came to drinking. No one, and I mean no one, could outdo me on my turf. And drinking was definitely my turf.
I couldn't remember what I used to be like. I didn't know I used to never even think of drinking or smoking or running away or cutting. I think the one thing that kept me from recalling anything from my rough past was what had taken place sometime last year: I had worked so hard to forget everything that once I'd forgotten, I could no longer remember any of it. So I really did know Mina and the rest. I really had a little brother. I used to have a boyfriend. I used to love an arcade. And I used to have a cat named Luna. But it had been either erased or eternally banished from my mind. And the worst part was, I didn't even know it.
"Why are you laughing?" Amy asked. "The Serena we knew would never drink!"
I calmed myself down by taking another whiff of nicotine before answering. "Yeah, and the way it sounds in your little story tells me the Serena you knew wouldn't smoke, either."
"That's right! She wouldn't!" Mina said. "But for some reason, she did..."
Rei pulled a cell phone out of Lita's pocket, telling her she was borrowing it. Lita nodded, seeming to know what she needed it for.
I didn't understand these girls. They were so serious. I never had to be serious about anything. What was being serious like? All I did was get drunk and smoke. I could never get pensive, let alone serious. But these girls...they knew me. How? Where did I meet them? They couldn't be drunk because they obviously knew what they were doing. Why were they tracking me down? And...who were they?
Wait... I think...didn't I see them before in a few of my dreams? No wonder they looked so familiar... Either I had an ability to see the future, or these girls were people I used to know. In my dreams, in this one recurring dream I had when I finally passed out each night, these girls were always beside me. They were often mentioning something about the "Negaverse". What was that? Was it symbolic for something?
"Hey, its Rei. I'm borrow Lita's phone, if you're wondering, but listen up. We've found Serena," Rei's voice pierced into my thoughts. "We need you to come down here as soon as you can. We're in the one place you'll never think to find her. No, no. Not there. Um, we're in Selton. Yeah. Okay. Alright. Then come to this one bar called the Drinking Fountain. ... Yeah, you don't want to know. At least not over the phone. I think it's best for both you and Serena if you came to see for yourself."
And in my dream, Rei was...well, a pest really. She always aggravated me. But somehow we remained good friends. And Lita...something about her... In my dreams, she could do some neck-breaking karate. And in my dreams, she was a good ice skater. And Rei was a good skier. And Amy, yes, she always made an A. I remember...she had a little blue computer... And Mina...and something about "Sailor V"? Agh! I don't remember! I needed to remember more of my dreams since they kept appearing in them. Until then, I would keep an eye on them. I would watch them carefully, starting after the contest, and see what they knew. It might bring something back to me. It might help me remember something that felt important. I would wait and see what happened before I made any judgments or decisions about them.
"Are you ready?" the bartender asked. "The contest will begin...NOW!"
Each of the contestants, including me, took our first cup of vodka and started chugging it down as fast as possible. Four more cups lay waiting in front of us. Someone else finished their first one before me, but I was the second to finish and I quickly grabbed another one. Not long after, I heard others set their empty cups down to pick up a new one. I was halfway finished with my second cup when one of the contestants, a man probably around his early thirties, burst out laughing at absolutely nothing. Talk about not being able to tolerate alcohol... Why did he even sign up?
Cheers were heard as the supporters ushered their favorite people to keep drinking. Bets were being made, tension was rising. And unfortunately, I had many supporters roaring my name, shouting things about me needed to drink faster. I was going as fast as I could! I would choke to death if I went any faster!
Glug, glug, glug... All the contestants were rushing themselves, and that was why most of them wouldn't stand a chance against me. They thought it was about speed when it was really about how much you were able to drink. I wasn't drunk yet, and neither was any of the others, except that one weird guy who was already drunk...
It wasn't until a fourth cup that another person broke out in laughter, falling to the floor and pointing to people's faces and then laughing at them. The crowd found it funny and laughed at his laughter. It helped that another one was pretty much out. It didn't help that the first person was still drinking, probably forgetting that this was a contest.
I continued on and on, until two more people, around the seventh cup, started dancing with one and other, whooping and singing the whole time.
I had to admit, I was getting full on vodka after my tenth cup... I knew it was part of the contest, but Summer was right. The others were tougher than I took them for. It didn't mean they would win, but...still... Soon I would need a bathroom break, and if I got drunk before then I could possibly end up peeing in the stationary closet. Or worse, behind the counter... But I was sure that by the fifteenth or sixteenth cup, they would give us all a break and let us use the bathroom. I just had to wait until then.
I paused for a second after my twelfth cup of vodka to take a bit of a breather. Gulping down twelve cups straight was kind of exhausting. But I had to keep going or else I might as well give up the ten grand that was rightfully mine. And so help me, I was working hard to earn it! I picked up my thirteenth cup and started chugging down some more alcohol.
And I was starting to feel weird. I was sure everyone was by now. It was quite a bit of alcohol we were consuming.
When another person got drunk, after the first two had already passed out, people started getting pumped and roared our names. I couldn't tell who was on my side and who was against me, so I tried to zoom in on Summer's cheering. I was even more motivated when I heard, "C'MON, SERENA! YOU CAN DO IT! IT'S NOT MUCH LONGER! HANG IN THERE AND DRINK AS MUCH AS YOU CAN! YOU CAN BEAT THESE GUYS! THEY'RE NO MATCH FOR THE UNBEATABLE SERENA, REMEMBER? SHOW THESE MORONS WHAT YOU'RE MADE OF, SERENA!" Man, Summer was really going at it. I couldn't let her down.
I put down my cup only for a second so I could breathe again before continuing to pack the liquid away where it belonged, right into my iron belly!
I felt my mind and vision going fuzzy by my nineteenth cup and I knew it would only be a matter of time. It was a good thing these were just little cups, and not those huge mugs they served in beer competitions.
Almost all the competitors went under on the nineteenth cup, and it left me with only two survivors left. I could win this thing, I really could. Their cheeks were growing about as red as mine, so it wouldn't be long. I just had to hang in there and remember that ten thousand dollar prize!
We all took up our twentieth cup, the bartender refilling the empty cups as they came. We began finishing our contest. One of the two other people fainted, but he would be fine other than the hangover he would have when he woke up.
I myself was already on the verge of going crazy, as I always did when I got drunk. My thoughts were turning all weird. I wanted to laugh so badly, but I didn't. Well, I tried not to, but I ended up laughing anyway.
And by the twenty-fifth cup, it only got worse. By now both of us were so drunk we couldn't tell what we were really doing. The bartenders had a hard time getting us to sit down and settle the score, because we were tied right now. But we kept getting up and doing stupid things, like trying to figure skate, with both of us falling and tripping over one another. Eventually I climbed on top of the guy and asked him to give me a piggyback ride, which he did. It lasted until he fell down and dumped me off of him. Everyone was waiting to see who would pass out or throw up first.
I got tried of him and pulled Mina toward me, forcing her to dance with me. As we were dancing, Mina dancing rather awkwardly and me dancing pretty gracefully and sexily, I couldn't resist singing my own little song, then moving on to a real song. It was Unbreakable by Fireflight. As I sang, everyone started either singing with me or dancing with me.
"Where are the peo-ple that ac-cuse me? The ones that beat me down and bru-ise me?" I sang. "They hide just out of sight, can't face me in that light... They'll re-turn but I'll be stro-onger!"
Soon half the bar was singing along, including Summer. "God I want to dream a-gain! Take me where I've never been!
"I wan-na go there! This time I'm not scared!
"Now I am unbreakable! It's unmistakable!
"No one can touch me! Nothing can stop me!
"Sometimes it's hard to just keep go-ing... But faith is moving without know-ing...
"Can I trust what I can't see? To reach my destiny? I want to take con-trol but I know be-et-ter!
"God I want to dream a-gain! Take me where I've never been!
"I wan-na go there! This time I'm not scared!
"Now I am unbreakable! It's unmistakable!
"No one can touch me! Nothing can stop me!
"Forget the fear, it's just a crutch that tries to hold you back and turn your dreams to dust... All you need to is just...
"TRU-U-U-U-U-UST!
"God I want to dream a-gain! Take me where I've never been!
"I wan-na go there! This time I'm not scared!
"Now I am unbreakable! It's unmistakable!
"No one can touch me! Nothing can stop me!
"God I want to dream a-gain! Take me where I've never been!
"I wan-na go there! This time I'm not scared!
"Now I am unbreakable! It's unmistakable!
"No one can touch me! Nothing can stop me!"
I ended the song with a ton of laughter at nothing in particular.
But I would probably never know if I was laughing at anything or nothing.
