Chapter 19

Max awoke to the sound of an alarm….

An alarm…. not his alarm. He knew that much as the cheery tunes of some annoying pop band came rampaging through his ears instead of the horrible crackling sound his alarm usually made, ever since he took his Lugar to one of its speakers. However as Max got up and stared daggers at the alarm radio, the feeling of oddness about it, about the fact that the alarm in front of him was certainly not his, seemed to fade away. He also didn't find it odd that he was sitting in bed in a kid's room surrounded by 5 other beds.

Oh yeah, my brothers beds… and why did I think I had shot my alarm clock?

Max thought this as he looked back at his alarm, still assaulting him with the sounds from some pop station his younger brother Jake liked. He reflected that if he did own a gun, a broken speaker would be the minimum amount of damage this thing would receive.

Letting the thought drop Max walked out and down stairs. With the bedroom empty, he expected the kitchen to be the usual war zone that flared up twice a day. However when Max got to the room, he found the place vacant.

"What? Did I over sleep?" Max said, staring around and getting a sinking feeling in his stomach. He didn't want to be late for school and having to explain a detention to his parents did not sit well with him.

Max checked the time and saw he was up at the normal time. He then made make a quick run around the house to see if anyone was around. The living room, bedrooms, even the garden were completely empty.

"What's going on?" Max said, wondering if his whole family was playing some elaborator prank on him.

Deciding he should just head to school now before he missed first lesson, Max grabbed his bag and ran out the door.

Just as suddenly, he was at school. He didn't actually remember going through the walk, but that hardly seemed important. The important thing was all the other students. Or to be more accurate, the lack of them.

The usual crowd of students hanging outside the main building or walking in were gone. The whole area was filled a horrible silence save the hurried steps Max made as he walked up the stairs through the main doors. Maybe there's an event or something I've forgotten.

Max hurried down the hallways, suddenly getting more and more anxious as he looked through each passing door and saw another empty room.

Is this an off school day? Max thought has he finally reached his class room and saw the same collection of unused school desks in front of him.

"By the Fluffy One, What is going on?" Max alarm, feeling paranoia kicking in.

Just as Max thought he might just leave the school and go back home, he saw a note on the main teachers desk. A note to him

Max. Please go to room 67B.

And that was it. Just instructions to go to one of the senior years rooms. He had no idea why, but since Max had nothing better to do, he decided to walk over there and see if anyone was still in the school.

And then Max was outside the room. Again, Max couldn't remember actually walking to the other side of the school. He was just there. And again Max didn't see anything wrong with that. Mostly because he was distracted by the sound of steps coming from inside the room.

Somebody's here in school? Great. Can see what's going, Max thought.

Opening the door, Max was met with…

"Hello there little buddy" Sam said happily. He stood there, in his usual ill-fitting blue suit and fedora, reaching up to the board at the front of the class, appearing to have finished writing some notes for one of the classes.

"Sam!" Max yelled happily as he ran forward… and then stopped.

Sam? Who was Sam?

And then it clicked. Not like a sudden realisation of something forgotten being remember, but as if Max had known who Sam was, but hadn't expected him here. And why would he. This was his school, back on... back on.

… B'eel? That was it. His home planet. B'eel. Why had that come so hard to him?

"Um" Max said, suddenly looking down and noticing himself. He was a teenager. And that was fine… but actually now that he thought about it, it wasn't fine. He wasn't a teenage. He was a fully grown and mature kick ass Freelance Policeman… right?

"Did you want to take a seat Max? The Sergeant will be here soon" Sam said easily, suddenly ignoring Max and going back to his writing on the board.

Max was completely lost. Without knowing why, and head still spinning with questions, Max took his seat in the middle of the room, facing Sam like he was actually a teacher. And Sam didn't seem to really notice Max was there after his comment.

"Um, Sam. What's going-" Max stared before Sam held up his hand and said in a commanding voice only a teacher could manage.

"I will thank you to be quiet in class Maxwell. Just wait for the Sergeant to arrive." Sam said before ignoring Max once again and continuing to write.

Max just shut his mouth, an automatic response drilled in from years of school.

There was silence again as Max, dumbfounded, sat in the middle of a class room designed to hold around 3 dozen students with Sam writing notes on the board in front of him, seeming to be off in his own little world. This awkward situation continued for what seemed like a few hours before Max heard the door to the class room open.

At the door stood Lagomorph. A Lagomorph dressed in a long black coat covering his whole body, including most of his face. With a pair of sun glasses on Max could barely make out anything of the guy in front of him.

He didn't' say anything. Not even as Max looked at him expectantly. The Sergeant, as Max guessed, just stood beside the door, hands in the pockets of his jacket.

"Um…(cough). Hello? Are you here for me?" Max said, uneasily.

The figure just shook his head and pointed over to Sam, who was still ignoring everything around him. Max looked on at Sam, wondering why he was even here, sitting in this chair, in this room, in this building… on this planet, when…

Max let out a startled scream as something shot through his leg. The sudden shock of it and his instant reflex to grab at his leg caused him to violently topple out of his desk. Max slammed hard onto the wooden floor of the class room, panting hard and looking down at his leg. An arrow was sticking through the limb, the head poking through and covered with blood.

Max stared, unable to speak as a pool of blood slowly began to growing from his useless and twitching appendage. He didn't feel any pain, but a horrible numbing sensation, as if the limb had been severed.

"What?" Max said in a calm tiny voice, as if not fully registering what had happened to him. "What's going on?"

He looked up as the Sergeant walked up next to him and casually discarded the coat and glasses, showing…

"Cocky?!" Max shouted, a sudden jolt of fear and anger flaring up. And it was Cocky. He was standing there, as is nothing had happened, wearing those same black feathers on his back, black leather pants and finally that single nipple ring on full display to the world.

"Cocky" Max repeated, the anger winning and drowning out the fear "Do you have a death wish?!"

Cocky, as is just noticing Max looked… regretful. He didn't seem to be particularly bothered to have shot Max and instead just shook his head as he reloaded his crossbow.

"Sorry mate but you were being unreasonable"

"What?!" Max shouted again, now confusion bubbling up, swaying the anger. And something else seemed to be itching at the back of his mind, something small but seemingly important.

… deja vu?

Yes, Max thought suddenly. He remembered Cocky saying that before. It had been…

And then it hit Max. As he looked up at Cocky in sudden realisation and then over to Sam, still oblivious everything around him. Still back turned.

Again Cocky gave that sad shake of his head, as if he had been tasked with a regrettable but ultimately necessary job. He promptly turned from Max, crossbow reloaded and walked over to Sam.

"No…. not again. Please" Max said in a pitiful whimper. "Please not again"

Cocky, ignoring the quiet begging from Max, walked calming up behind Sam and took aim. Just as the tip of the crossbow touched the back of Sam's neck, Cocky turned back to Max

"Game OVER, mate"

"NO!" Max screamed, leaping out of his chair in the Freelance police office and collided with a swarm of yellow post stick notes. Breathing heavily, Max looked around at his surrounds, memories of his dream slowly coming into focus and then, like all dreams, slowly float away into the mists of his subconscious. The details on Max waking up, walking around his childhood house, going to school. All of it faded into fuzzy memory. The last part though. That was still in sharp and horrible focus.

It took Max a good minute of heavily breathing and staring at every familiar object in the office, as if cementing the fact he was now awake and what had happened had not in fact happened.

… except it had. Not nearly like what Max remembered it, but the final point was still true. Sam was gone. And apparently, his subconscious was all too happy to remind him of that fact. Anger at those old memories and the dream, distorting them into some kind of joke at his expense flared up in Max. In one mighty swing, he slammed his hand down onto the table… and utterly failed to cause any noticeable damage to the table and promptly broke one of his fingers due to the poor angle of the swing.

"ARGH!" Max scream, flailing backwards and landing back into the office chair. As soon as he sat back he tried to nurse his hand and took note of the damage.

"Argh" Max said again, only through clenched teeth. "Curse you Sam for going for the mahogany…" Max muttered weakly, remembering Sam specifically buying that desk just to stop Max from chewing it like he did the previous.

Max, taking track of the time and seeing he had only been asleep for a couple hours, decided to make a start on the hunt for this Jumba guy. He had no plans on going back to sleep after what he just saw.

Probably dear Walter screwing around with me, Max thought bitterly. He had no idea what his other personality was capable of, to him directly, but it wouldn't surprise him to find out he was right.

With that thought bouncing around his head Max head out into the night.