…
…
Um...
Wake up, please!
Jeremie…
Jeremie, wake up!
Wake up…!
I open my eyes to stare a pink-haired girl in the face. "Jeremie! Wha…what are you doing out here?!" she demands. I give her a questioning look.
"Who...Jeremie?" I ask. "Who's that?" She gives me a look that describes confusion in some way, then she relaxes. "Aw, you're just playing with me, Jeremie." "I'm serious. Who are you, and who am I?" I am getting tired of repeating myself. "You...you don't remember me?" She tears up at this. I shake my head no.
"I'm drawing a...a...what do you call it? A nothing?" "You mean you're drawing a blank." A loud ringing fills my ears. Terrified, I leap away and cower behind a tree. The girl pulls something out of her pocket and begins to speak into it. "Yeah, I found Jeremie, but there's something wrong with him. He doesn't remember me, or his name, or anything." She pauses. "Lyoko? I'll ask him."
"Jeremie, do you remember Lyoko?" she asks, turning to me. I think hard, trying to pull the answer out of my memories, but nothing comes. Only fragments of a certain sign are shown to me. Suddenly, a large lab is revealed to my weary brain. I am sitting in a gigantic chair in front of a big screen. I can't remember what it is called. There's another pink-haired girl. She looks dead, but she opens her eyes and looks at me in the memory. "Who...who are you? Where...am I?" she asks me, a deeply confused look in her eyes.
I make a connection between the two-those girls were one and the same. But...I still don't know her name... "Um. Do you have anything to do with it?" I ask carefully. A smile stretches across her face. "He knows that I have something to do with it..." But her smile fades. "Yet, he doesn't seem to remember anything else." Pause. "Ok. I'll bring him back with me. Ok. Bye." She turns the thing off and sticks it in her pocket.
"I...is it going to make that sound again?" She shakes her head no. "No. I promise." "Who are you...can you tell me your name?" I question, warily walking over to her side. The girl nods. "My name is Aelita."
Her name triggers a reaction in my mind. A memory pops up, showing the girl Aelita in the bottom of a cylinder-like device, curled up. She opens her eyes and looks around. Another memory, of her in a shiny room and her hand on a black switch. Yet another memory, of her and me...I was walking her someplace. "Ae...lita..." I repeat, enthralled. "I…I…sorta remember. But not all the way."
"And you…your name is Jeremie." Aelita smiles warmly. Another reaction in my mind…the scar on my hand throbs, as does my overheated mind. I glance at it, only receiving the first two letters of its symbol. X…and A. X and A? What were these two letters? For some reason, it made me shudder. There was something about that scar on my hand that got me nervous.