This chapter is a sneak peek for a story that I have been excited about for a long time. More information on that will be at the end!

Trigger warning - I was crying as I was writing the outline. Spoilers for TBM.

Story #40: Piper Receives Her Lost Student Memories

Piper isn't sure how long she's been sitting in her room. Her hands and clothes are still covered in sand and blood, torn from battle. Her face is numb, cheeks raw and eyes swollen. She thinks she left her weapons on the beach but can't bring herself to get up and see. She doesn't think anyone will take them. Maybe the Mist will cover it with sand.

Jason, impaled and dying. The imagine of his body in the maze and on the beach are burned in her mind.

If only she could go back and do something different. She should've fought harder. She should've gotten him out of there sooner. She should've at least accompanied Lester and Meg to return his body to New Rome.

It should've been her. Jason would've never let that happen but it should've been.

Piper looks up when she hears knocking on her door. Tears fall down her face when she moves her head. Piper wipes her cheeks, grains of sand scratching her face.

"Leave me alone, Dad," she says weakly.

Her dad tried to comfort her the best he could. It broke her heart even more when he saw Jason's body and presumed a surfing accident. He would attempt to empathize when he couldn't fully understand. Piper wished she could explain but she doesn't think she could get the words out anyways.

The door opens and Mellie hovers in holding a small cardboard box. It's more comforting that Mellie is around. It allows Piper to have someone who knows the story and truly knows Jason.

Piper stands up as Mellie sets the down on her dresser. She notices that it's covered in crooked take and layers of postage stickers.

"I hope you don't mind my intrusion but I got this for you," Mellie says. "Well, I didn't buy it for you but asked for it on your behalf, although you didn't really ask for it. You probably didn't know about it but anyways, here."

Piper looks at it and Mellie hands her Katoptris that she left on the beach. She pauses, hesitant to take it. Once she clasps it in her hand, Piper braces herself for visions and is relieved she still doesn't receive any. She doesn't know what she'd see and doesn't want to know. Besides, if it's going to be image that's already in her mind, there'd be no point in projecting it.

Piper slices the seams of the tape with Katoptris and opens the flaps. Instantly, a familiar stale scent hits her, nearly showing her a memory from the past. Piper looks inside the box and she sees dusty clothes she hasn't seen since her days at the Wilderness School.

"Your father asked me to try and get your belongings back after you left," Mellie says. "The box came a while ago but I didn't know if you'd want it back considering-"

"It's full of fake memories, isn't it?" Piper asks.

Mellie nods. Her lips are tightly pressed together. "I'm sorry for ever showing resentment towards Jason after your breakup. He's a good kid, a great one. Gleeson loves him."

Piper smiles a little. "I love him too."

"I don't think you'll ever not love him, no matter what."

"Thank you, Mellie."

Mellie nods as she leaves Piper, phasing through the door.

Piper picks up the box and dumps it on the floor. Dust fills the room and Piper coughs as she waves it away. She sits on the floor and starts sifting through everything. Pushing the clothes aside, she finds hair ties with some hair that she isn't sure is hers in it. Dried-up wildflowers that Jason gave her once upon a time. There are little trinkets like thimbles and paperclips that were more likely Leo's. Gods, and she just learned Leo was alive. She doesn't touch a granola bar, not even with Katoptris. Piper doesn't know how long that's been in there and she doesn't want to find out.

Then, she pauses. All the energy she had from looking at her belongings pauses.

Under her leggings, she catches the glossy reflection of some photos. Piper pulls them out and smiles as the fake memory fills her mind.

Piper, Jason, and Leo were asked to pose for brochure photos for the school after a prank gone wrong (or right, in their eyes). There they were with their fakest of fake smiles but they felt real to her, standing alongside the exterior of the school. They had to pretend to have fun as if they enjoyed the treacherous hell-hole of a school as Coach took their photos. The three of them hated the photos since they look like stock photos, but all secretly kept some, snagging the brochures whenever they'd pass the main office. A tear falls onto the photo, rolling down the glossy surface.

Piper can't help but wonder how everything would've gone if Jason was a real student at the school and all her fake memories were real. Would the memories even exist if he was there? Would they have all become friends, would they have fallen in love? Would all the events leading up to his death have happened? Would he have died?

So many questions but nobody to answer them. Last things, last memories are so strange. Most people never have a say or control over their last acts or how they remember things.

Jason will always have a spot in her heart, as Mellie said. She wonders if it was the same for him. It had to have been if he wanted her to live. Was it better to have all those fake memories or to have none?

Do you wonder what it would've been like if Jason was a student at the Wilderness School? You could check out my story:

The Lost Student - When Juno took Jason for her ultimate plan to unite the camps, she enrolled him as a student in the Wilderness School and planned to keep him there for months. Unbeknownst to Juno's plans, Jason bonds with Piper and Leo and the trio try to figure out what he's doing at the school (TLH AU)