Gone too Soon
Hiro's Journal
Hiro Hamada – Captivity: Day 58
It seems like every time I think I've made sense of the portal, the variables change on me. I managed to go into the portal again. Last time I came out I pretended to have a seizure to make Inquisitor and his goons think that my containment device is still faulty. As expected I slipped back into this timeline mere seconds after I left it even though I spent considerably more time in the portal. Inquisitor doesn't suspect a thing. I wonder how long I'll be able to keep this from him. I'm still getting 'punished' for lack of performance and if I have to be brutally honest with myself, I'm not sure how much more of it I can take. They broke a couple of my fingers this time. Apparently I don't 'need' my pinkies but that is neither here nor there at his stage.
Tadashi clenched his fists and resisted the urge to run upstairs to check Hiro's hands. Hiro was closed up in his room working on something and Tadashi was in the kitchen reading the second journal he'd found. Reading the words written on those pages was the hardest thing he'd ever done in his life. Every entry, every piece of information that was revealed made him want to hunt Hiro's captors down and hurt them. He wanted to return every bit of pain they'd inflicted onto his baby brother with interest but something about the second journal wasn't quite right.
As I already mentioned before I got side tracked, I managed to go back into the portal. The ghost lines were still there. I was beginning to think I may have imagined them. I'm not always sure what's real anymore. Between the lab, the portal and the dreams, I'm losing track of my mind. Everything feels real. The heat, the cold, the pain, the loss, the loneliness... death… I'm just so tired of it all but I digress…
I've let my mind wander, yet again. I slipped back into the space between timelines and saw the ghost lines only this time they were more solid. The threads connected to my pinkie have also changed. I think they may be fading. Something, or more specifically 'someone' – namely me (if my theories are correct), appears to be shifting the very definition of reality. If this continues my very existence may be in jeopardy.
Those words shifted something in Tadashi's mind and flicked back to the beginning of the second journal staring at the words that had first raised his suspicions that something about this book wasn't quite right.
Hiro Hamada – Captivity: Day 53
Day 53…
Hiro had only been missing forty-four days when Tadashi and the gang had rescued him. The entry in the second journal was dated nine days thereafter. How was that even possible? Tadashi could only think of two possibilities and neither seemed all that plausible given the facts he currently held. One - Hiro had somehow gotten the dates wrong when he started the journals. Not very likely considering the fact Hiro had read the date off of a PC and the PC had no real reason to be setup with the wrong date. Two - The book he was holding had come from the future. Even though there was a time portal in play, all evidence indicated that it was being used to connect to the past, not to the future. Based on Hiro's calculations, the past was far simpler to link to than the future simply because it was already set whereas the future was as yet unwritten. The first possibility implied Hiro was not as smart as everyone thought he was and the second implied that the time-portal was being used for more than initially suspected. Neither possibility was very appealing but it was the second possibility that really chilled Tadashi to the bone. Hiro had been home for eight days…
Pushing the thought to the back of his mind once more, Tadashi turned the pages back to the entry he'd been reading.
I followed more of the ghost lines to see if my theory is correct. I saw Tadashi. He was hanging around the Lucky Cat café with the rest of the gang. I really miss them. It's been so long since I last spoke to them. I wish I could see them just one more time to tell them how much they all mean to me. If not for them I would have lost my mind a long time ago. Probably right after Tadashi's death. The last couple of years have been amazing. I'm glad I had the opportunity to experience friendship before… well, before all of this but I'm off topic again.
I saw Tadashi hanging out with the rest of the gang. I saw Aunt Cass serving donuts to customers. I saw Mochi curled up on my bed. I saw Baymax following Tadashi around. What I didn't see was… me.
Crash.
The chair Tadashi had been sitting on crashed to the ground as he launched into a dead sprint, heading straight upstairs towards Hiro's room. The diary entry's last words echoed through his mind taunting him, mocking him, driving him forward to prove them wrong. What I didn't see was… me. Those words couldn't be true. They had rescued Hiro. Hiro was here. He was safe and very much alive. The words in the diary were simply the musings of someone one the verge of giving up hope and not an actual indication of what the future held. It was a delusion. Not reality and Tadashi was going to prove it the only way he knew how. He was going to pinch Hiro.
Reaching the top of the stairs he rushed into the room and stumbled to a halt two steps in, taking in the room's contents. The room was exactly as he remembered it. The shutters were wide open, sunlight streaming across the room. The bed was, in typical Hiro fashion, only half made. A bunch of robot pieces were lying scattered about on the floor, Baymax was deactivated and stored in his charging station and Hiro's PC was turned off. Wait a minute… Baymax was DEACTIVATED and Hiro's PC was OFF and Hiro… Hiro was nowhere to be seen.
Hating the sense of dread that coursed through him Tadashi launched himself back into a dead run heading straight towards their shared bathroom. It couldn't be true. There was no way this could be happening. Not again. It simply wasn't possible. Panic driving him hard he yanked on the handle, pulling the door aggressively open only to stare in disbelief as the empty space within taunted him with a reality he did not wish to acknowledge.
Hiro was gone.
- BH6 - BH6 - BH6 –