"What happened?" Aelita asked, relieved to be away from the stares of her classmates.
"Well, we were just sitting there working when you started making noises." Ulrich responded, sitting on the bench next to her.
"What kind of noises?"
"Well… just quiet whines and moans." Ulrich spoke slowly; carefully.
"It didn't stay quiet for long." Interjected Odd, "Ms. Hertz noticed as soon as you started screaming." There was a slight smirk on his face and Aelita knew why; her disruption to the class meant that he had an extra day to revise for their test.
"And then I fell off my chair?" Aelita questioned, trying to discover how bad it had been.
"That's right." Ulrich said, "You were just screaming and shouting 'Jeremie'. We tried to wake you up, but you just swung out." He gave a hollow sort of laugh, "Now I know how Sissi felt when you slapped her."
The cool, refreshing wind blew around her as Aelita considered the situation. She felt much better now that she was outside, where everything seemed calm and normal. She had had quite a bad experience, although she wouldn't be surprised if most of the class thought she was insane; she voiced this fear to the others.
"Don't worry about it," Odd said simply, "you know you're sane."
"You've been through a lot-" Ulrich offered his own words of advice, "Well, we all have… but none of us have suffered as much as you. You've just got to keep your wits about you, keep your cool and you'll get through it."
Aelita thought about it; these nightmares, the constantly resurfacing voice inside her head… what if she was losing her sanity? She forced herself to calm down and think logically. She remembered what she had felt as she woke up from that dream; something so familiar and yet so alien… exactly how she had felt the last time she heard the voice.
"What if they're not really nightmares?" She said, feeling her own voice shake. She noticed Odd and Ulrich exchanging puzzled looks. "What if they're like those visions I had about my father, the ones that Xana sent me?" Ulrich sighed at this and exchanged another glance with Odd.
"Aelita." He began, placing his hand on her shoulder; something which irritated her considerably. "They can't be anything other than dreams; remember that your connection thingy with the supercomputer was broken when you got your memories back. How could Xana still be sending you visions?" She felt angry; he was talking down to her, as though she were a little child.
"I… don't know." Aelita admitted; it was technically impossible. "But they feel so real, they feel just like the visions did." She was trying you persuade herself that it was possible.
"Dreams can be very real sometimes." Ulrich said, patronisingly. Aelita pushed his hand away and stood up; she took a few steps, she didn't want to look at them, they didn't understand.
"Why don't you tell us what the dream was about?" Ulrich returned to his friendly, concerned voice. Aelita turned to look at him; she couldn't be angry, he was just trying to help.
"Well…" She began, but found it hard to continue, "They…" She couldn't do it, she couldn't even begin to explain, "I… I'd…"
"You'd rather not talk about it?" Butted in Odd; unable to keep a huge grin off his face.
Aelita simply nodded, but it made her smile. Ulrich seemed happy with this and gave Odd a subtle 'thumbs up' before getting to his feet.
"We'd better go," he said, "Ms. Hertz only gave Aelita permission to be out of class; she'll go mad if we skip the rest of the lesson." Odd straightened up too, he had been leaning on the back of the bench. "Make sure you get some rest." Ulrich said before he and Odd started a lazy walk back to the classrooms.
"Of course I will." Aelita said, giving a small wave as they left. She smiled broadly; she had no intention of getting any rest.
[*]
Aelita walked slowly up the dormitory stairs, she wondered if it had been long enough. She had only gone up here to make the others think she was returning to her room, she planned to give them enough time to dawdle back to class before she slipped out again.
'"Please just listen, I'm going to help you."' Jeremie's words came back to her, repeating themselves over in her head. But how could he help her?
"No!" She told herself sternly, speaking out loud to suppress her own thoughts. "They're just dreams, a collection of images from the subconscious mind during sleep; it's not real."
She had kept reassuring herself of this one fact; she had to make sure it was secure in her mind. They couldn't be anything but dreams, her connection to the supercomputer no longer existed… She was stuck on that fact; if it wasn't via a link to the supercomputer, then it had to be through some other means.
"No!" She almost shouted this time, but stopped herself; the dormitories seemed empty enough, but it was impossible to be sure. She had to stop trying to find ways to validate that theory; it was impossible and she knew it, she just had to block out those thoughts.
'Maybe you should be listening.' The voice was back. It spoke in its usual calm tone; but Aelita wasn't fooled, it still lied.
'Just leave.' She thought back at it; if someone saw her muttering to herself she'd be carted off to an institution. 'You are not real. I will not listen to you.'
'Please just listen, I am going to help you.'
'No, you are not. You just make things worse, giving me false hope.' Aelita thought as forcefully as she could. How did it dare use those words, after what it had said about Jeremie?
She stumbled. The conversation inside her own head was interrupted as she struggled to stay upright; she just managed it by grabbing hold of the banister. Straightening herself, she saw what had made her trip. She had reached the top of the stairs; her foot, expecting to find another step, had met with nothing but air and it had thrown her off balance.
She had reached the middle floor of the three storey building; the boy's dormitories. She expected that she had given enough time for Odd and Ulrich to make it back to class; but instead of going down the stairs, her feet took her through the double doors and onto the boy's corridor. Acutely aware that it would look bad if she were caught here, she made her way down the corridor; she went past Odd and Ulrich's room and continued until she reached one which she had visited many times before, often in the middle of the night.
[*]
Jeremie's door was unlocked and it swung open quietly. Like much of the school, it looked completely normal; nothing had moved since she had last been here, two days seemed like an extremely long time. Aelita wasn't sure what she had expected; but she felt her stomach squirm uncomfortably, tying a knot in itself. She closed the door behind her and felt a lot more at home, Jeremie's room always seemed like such a friendly place. Stacks of folders and computer magazines talking about everything from cleaning out a mouse all the way to quantum processors; 'the computer of the future' one title boasted; all of them were so familiar to Aelita. She and Jeremie had spent long hours in this room working on various projects from schoolwork to the latest plans for beating Xana; even before she was materialised, they would while away the hours simply talking at length about the real world; or else work together on her materialisation program.
The room brought back so many happy memories to her that for a long time she simply stood and let them wash over her. One particularly poignant memory was before she was materialised when she had asked Jeremie where babies came from; it seemed hilarious now, but Jeremie had gone the brightest shade of red she had ever seen before suggesting several reading references. Aelita couldn't help but laugh at it now, it was when everything seemed so innocent.
She took another look around the room as her memories faded and noticed something rather unusual poking out from under Jeremie's bed; a large brown envelope. She picked it up carefully; it was bulky and rather heavy. On the side where the address would go was simply written 'Aelita'.
She opened it slowly, though it was not sealed she still felt rather uncertain about looking at something which belonged to Jeremie. Then again, she reasoned, it was addressed to her. She sat down on the bed and pulled its contents out onto her lap, there were quite a few objects; the first was a handwritten letter, upon examination it appeared to be the transcript of Jeremie's emergency program message; the last part was missing from this as well, obscured by heavy scribbling in black ink. Underneath the transcript was a heavy book, this had to account for most of the weight of the parcel; the book was titled 'Aelita's Materialisation Log' and it contained detailed descriptions of the program, the problems they had faced and the various disastrous attempts at materialising her. Halfway through the log she found a page upon which was secured a single strand of pink hair and an excited note beneath it 'A real hair!' Aelita couldn't help but smile; she had been equally excited as Jeremie at the prospect of the program working and, though she couldn't remember the rest of that day, was equally disappointed to hear of the failure. The last object was another thick book, but this one had no title. When Aelita opened it she found no words, only pictures. The first was a copy of Odd's sketch drawing of the entire group that Jeremie had received for his birthday; the next page held the photos taken in a photo booth of Jeremie and herself on her first day with him. She felt a tear run down her face, but didn't wipe it away as she looked through all of the pictures of them being so happy.
A small cough startled her and the books fell to the floor. To her right she saw Jeremie's father standing in the doorway, she had been so immersed in the pictures that she hadn't even noticed the door opening.
"I'm sorry," Said Mr. Belpois apologetically as Aelita scrambled to retrieve the books, "I didn't mean to startle you."
"It's okay." Aelita responded, taking advantage of the fact that she wasn't facing him and using the moment to wipe her eyes. She slid the books back into the envelope before standing to face him. "I shouldn't really be here anyway, Mr. Belpois." She said it as politely as she could.
"Don't worry," he smiled warmly as he spoke, "I won't tell anyone; and you can call me Michael."
"Thanks," His smile was just like Jeremie's. "But why are you here?" The smile faded from Michael's face.
"I'm here to collect Jeremie's belongings."
"Oh," Aelita suddenly became aware of the parcel she was holding, "Do you mind if I keep this?" She asked holding out the parcel for his inspection.
"Sure." He said, taking only a fleeting glance at it.
"Thanks." This was followed by a long and awkward pause; Aelita would've simply left if it weren't for the fact that Michael was still in the doorway.
"It's terrible isn't it?" He said eventually, Aelita was momentarily confused. "Losing him like this and not even knowing what happened. I guess we're lucky that you found him when you did." Aelita suddenly felt herself fill with guilt; Jeremie's parents had lost their son and they didn't even know why, worse still, they didn't even know what Jeremie had really been like.
"It's a lie." She burst out, before any part of her mind could hold the words back.
"What?"
"Finding Jeremie in the forest and all that; it's just a cover story." It was too late to go back now, so she continued. "I want to tell you- I want to show you, if you'll come with me… I want you to know exactly how Jeremie died."