Tuesday, 25th March, 2104


I should be finishing today's chores.

I should be helping the guys with their lives of being holograms and such. But no.

I'm in the wardrobe, staring at that stupid, stupid crate.

Worse still, I'm holding one of its contents in my hand and dare I say it: it looks freakishly similar to the mystery bottles Em and I found in the junk room.

The same bottles that weren't accepted in any of the antique stores we'd been to three months ago.

Same curves. Same grooves. Hell, even the liquid inside them looks similar in colour. The only difference between them is the labelling. Nectar has no label, the junk room bottles have red and white paper with frustrating calligraphy that I can't quite make out.

Good god, what is even in this bottle?

Nectar, I argue, Nectar.

Well yeah, but why did dad never allow me to drink it? I could drink it and he'd never know.

No. Why would I? Dad said not to.

Look, it was only for a period of time when he said 'no'. He even mentioned on my birthday last year that from now on I could drink it.

I'm not gonna.

Knock knock knock.

"Cora? Are you there?"

I shove the bottle I'm holding into my hoodie pocket and close my wardrobe before opening my bedroom door.

"Oh hey Edd."

"We didn't see you much around the house while Em and Laurie are gone, so we'd been wondering where you were and if you're okay."

"It's all good Edd. I'm better than fine, I'm good."

"Great to hear," he smiles, "Hey, Laurie and her Legion buddies did some mobile coding during a break at her school and now I can draw on one of her holos with a virtual pen and an old version of Flash.

I think I'm really starting to underestimate what my sister can do with a computer. Especially since she got her way into Legion. Then again, she's sixteen…

"So I was thinking - do you wanna doodle together for a bit or something?"

He mustn't see the journal.

"I would, but I only have old sketchbooks from my great-great-granddad on the shelves. There's one that's unfinished and I'm not sure if he'd appreciate me using it if he knew…"

"Don't be silly, I'm sure he'd appreciate someone continuing a legacy in some way."

I suppress as much of my simultaneous internal laughter and screaming as I can with a smile.

"Sure."


I don't know how many pages of the sketchbook I fill in under an hour or so, but Edd's supportive nevertheless.

"You're quite good at this, actually!"

"Really?"

"It doesn't hurt to enjoy what you make, Cora. As long as you're happy with it, then you're another step in ruling the world."

Funny, I thought it would be Tord using that kind of language. Don't know why. Probably because my Oma from dad's side talks like that. Still. Thinking on Edd's words somehow warms me up inside.

Glancing from the paper to Edd's holo canvas, I notice that we're kinda drawing similar subjects as we go along: cartoons and shows we've seen, favourite video games, stuff inspired by music tastes, drawing over article images (including one of Sidney and making him a literal Bee Elvis), time travelling stuff… It goes on and on.

Occasionally, we compare each other's work (with me hiding the cover of the sketchbook) and even do little art challenges he recalled from his early internet days: drawing certain expressions, each other, thumbnails…

We're not even talking that much. Yet the silence is satisfying, with only the scratches of pens on paper and screen.

I think I kinda like this.

"Good god, it's been ages since I've decently drawn something," Edd sighs in relief, "I mean, it's not as if I've drawn or animated nothing before, but… I've missed this."

"I can imagine," I doodle a very toony tabby cat next to a badly done Portal gun, "You and the others must've been bored as hell living here before we all met."

"Actually… I don't think we were."

"Huh?"

"Cora, it's weird but… I don't think we were roaming this place for nearly a hundred years. We had lives of our own, a house we shared for a while, then later we had families, kids even. I don't exactly know or remember how that translates into how we got all pixelly, but… Maybe it does. The past few decades just feel like a really long and exciting dream. But I know somehow we're not monsters or whatever. We're still just human."

Weird.

"...Edd?"

"Yeah?"

"What exactly were you and the others doing in the dream-like… I dunno, state, or place or whatnot? If you can remember, that is."

"Do you know what an RPG is?"

"Well, yeah. Played a bunch: Undertale, Deltarune, Mother 3, a bunch of indie ones and fangames… My older brother and sister had to make an RPG demo for a high school assignment once."

"Well, it was all like that, but in first-person and kinda… Better, I guess? I remember feeling like the star of my own video game - I could go almost anywhere, do anything; the other guys were there too and I think they felt the same way and were doing the same kinda things till we found ourselves in this place… Err, probably a few months ago."

"So it's more like an RPG from the perspective of hyperrealistic VR?"

"Yes! That's it! The only issue we had with it was after a while, nothing felt a hundred percent real. Say, if I got a sword from my inventory and held it in my hand, I'd feel its weight and texture, but it would feel… Off. Everything felt that way after a while."

"Everything? Seriously?"

"Yeah. No joke. Even holding this pen, something just feels awfully fake about it. The only way I haven't gotten used to it is from sheer spite. It doesn't help that when I tried to go to my old house- I mean, our old house… I either failed to get there or if I did, it looked… Corrupted."

"Corrupted?"

"As in some computer virus destroyed the place to glitch Hell. God, it's been so long that I'm not sure if I would even recognise my own home if it weren't glitchy."

Glitchy hologram pseudo-ghosts who know they're human somehow…

Oh my god. Emily!


2nd February 2104 - Journal Entry penned by Emily Kalasiah Brock:

We found the source of the 'ghostly' activity - I think my new theory may have a chance of standing up somehow. For though I don't believe in supernatural ghosts, these four are certainly ghost-like. At least, in a digital, hologram-type manner. Not that my parents would listen - the moment they'd hear about any type of ghosts in this place I'd just be ripped out from here.

Wherever there's holograms walking around the place like this, I'm sure there's a source to them. They're too human to be sentient artificial intelligence - that doesn't even exist or had the chance to since the Deviance Incident of 2065.

If you were to ask me to be outlandish in my theory - I would say that these four men are locked away somewhere. Somewhere where time would reverse their age instead of forward it, keeping them young, somewhere far away yet so near to us, somewhere… Where death should've come for them, but didn't. The only thing in this case to keep them away from death would be some sort of technology that the 21st Century never knew about, as it would've been brought back in time.

But this is only me stretching my imagination for now. However, who knows what the future holds. Only God does. I could be right, I could be wrong. Maybe half-way?

I wonder what Cora and Laurie will think when they read this.


"Cora?"

Shivers run down my neck as I shake back to reality.

"Yeah Edd? Sorry, I wasn't listening. Just zoned out for a bit."

"Tord's called me to test out some code: some of it's about the cold-feeling patch since I just got one in my chest."

"Your chest?!"

"It'll be fine! I'll be right back, okay?"

"Okay, sure, go ahead…"

As he leaves, I'm still reeling from thinking of Emily's journal entry a few months ago. God, I could do with a drink…

As if by natural reflex, I pull the bottle of Nectar from my hoodie pocket and twist the lid open, cracking the seal. The liquid inside bubbles madly to the near-surface, making a hissing sound as it does so. Good god, is this what it's like for the people who've received deliveries?

Drink it.

Drink. It.

Drink. It.


Cold. Sweet. I swear my mum is an alchemist for brewing and making this for mass deliveries.

There's explosions in my tongue and throat as I swallow, but I'm not sure if I care.

It's so goddamn delicious.

"Cough cough cough-"

Good god, there's an awful buzzing in my nose and what the hell did I just drink?!

"Cora? Cora are you alright-"

"Y-yeah Edd, I'm- cough cough- I'm fine…"

"Wait a minute, what are you drinking?"

Crap.


"So… This 'Nectar' that your dad's been selling all over England, practically. He'd gotten you and your siblings to deliver the stuff? Like a mafia family business sort of deal?"

"I-I wouldn't call it a mafia business- cough cough- but yeah, that's what's been happening to me and my siblings since we all hit twelve years old. I'm the one doing the most deliveries since Jaxx, Ell and Ed are in university now and Laurie's had a late start, lucky thing," I let out a solid ten seconds of coughing after as Edd winces.

"If I could help you out, I would."

"Th-thanks for the thought. Ugh, I think I'm better now…"

"Erm… Just wondering: did you ever drink the Nectar before today?"

I shake my head.

"Dad never let us when we were working, but when Jaxx and the twins left for uni, he let them have it. Actually, he also gave me permission to drink it if I wanted to from when I turned eighteen almost two years ago, but I haven't till now."

Edd scribbles down some notes onto a clean Flash canvas and frowns.

"When's your birthday?"

"Thirteenth July. I share it with Emily. Why ask?"

"…I'm wondering, Cora."

"About what? You're not… Mad at me, are you?"

"No, no," he waves it off, "of course not. I'm just… Thinking. Of something. More than I probably would be."

"Edd, what do you mean?"

"Cora… Is your dad hiding something?"

"Excuse me?"

"L-look, I'm not trying to offend you. Just… There's a lot which doesn't make sense about your whole Nectar-delivery thing."

"No offense taken."

"Thanks. Here, I do know one thing: no regular dad hides secrets till his kids leave the nest of their own will - even if it is a family business. Unless they're really terrible secrets which make an emergency exit from the shadows, it doesn't make sense."

"It's not that surprising, honestly. Dad does this sort of thing a lot with us. I'm still asking myself how we've managed to stay together for so long. I mean, my older siblings have already moved out far away from him doing their own thing. They hate his guts for some reason. He's… alright, I guess, but there's some things which I don't like seeing from him."

"God, Cora." Edd's eyes narrow. "It's so weird. Your dad's clearly hiding something if he hasn't let you drink the stuff you work with until recently.

The air turns cold.

"I wish I knew what it is. I feel like there's more to this than what I'm seeing, but… I don't want to overthink it and get things wrong. Maybe it's too open to guess right now."

I stare at the bottle of bubbling liquid in my hands, recapped since my first taste.

Who knows what'll happen when I see dad again.

"I wouldn't know where to start looking for answers, Edd."

"Hey, if you want… I can try to help you with it."

"Pardon?"

"I mean, how hard can it be? We could, erm… We could search through your family history, figure out when the business started and maybe take a few guesses on why your dad never told you. If you're up for it."

"Edd, are you serious?"

"Yeah." He smiles for the first time since he came back into the room, "Research isn't my biggest strength but it'd be good to find out what the deal is. I might not always understand, but I still want to help. At least to make a start."

"Do you want the others involved?"

"I think it'll be better if it's just us taking a shot first. Wouldn't want to worry the others yet."

You'd be one to talk if you knew.

"Sounds… Fair."

"You gonna finish that bottle?"

"Hmm? Oh, this? Ah, why not."

I open it again and start to drink.

Baby sips, baby sips…

Huh. Guess it's not that bad.


Author's Note:

Uggggh. It's been a rough day today. Uni hasn't been kind, but neither have my own god-awful procrastination habits and my own intensity to everything. This week is gonna be a week of asking for extensions and working my butt off to finish assignments.

So, we're here. Mid-act break. I'm definitely not gonna upload next fortnight into June, but I'm thinking to take the whole month off to rest and play catch-up. Chapter Thirteen is hard to write and rewrite, but I'm sure I can make it.

As for dates, don't expect to see a chapter upload on the 11th and possibly 25th of June. 9th of July looks like a much more likely release date for the second half of Act Two.

If anything happens, I'll see what I can do. In the meantime, stay safe everyone, and good luck on finishing projects you're struggling with!

I think we all need it.