Chapter 4: Ambiguous Circumstances

Jolyne and Anasui had an amazing night on November 9, 2011– at least when they were conscious.

When they were completely asleep – that is, dreaming – they had these...dreams. The weirdest fever dreams that they ever had, especially post-coitus. The weirdest part about it was that they had the exact same dream at the same time.

It started with Jolyne being in the prison that she always saw in the fake memories that she was having ever since she met Anasui, except this time, she was thrown into a concrete room with a small opening of bars, having been told that she was restricted to one meal a day, one shower a day, etc.

As she went over to her "one meal", worms, maggots, and centipedes spewed out of it.

Later in the fever dream, fictional characters were coming to life, but they were very distorted and creepy. In the dream, she made sense of it by believing that it was the effect of a Stand which she named Bohemian Rhapsody. Also, this Stand turned Anasui into a fictional character, forcing him to act out one of his favorite childhood stories.

Following that, she found herself turning into a snail. Of course, these were only the highlights of her experience that night. All in all, she experienced about four months' worth of events, all within the span of only 8 hours of sleep. It ended precisely as she expected, with her death to the black priest to protect the very boy that she had picked up the previous day in real time.

Everyone woke up at around the same time in shock. As a refresher, everyone was staying at the Fairfield Inn and Suites in Titusville on the way to visit the esteemed Dr. Jotaro Kujo. It was 7:00 AM, Eastern Standard Time. Toto's "Hold the Line" was playing on the radio in both rooms, as both radios were tuned to the same station, 98.9 FM.

Hermes, who was sleeping on the side of the room that was closer to the door, woke up, just like everyone, in extreme confusion.

"What the hell happened? That felt like four months!" she said in a tone akin to someone demanding to know what was going on. "I had memories that my sister was killed a couple years ago, but she's been alive for-freaking-ever. Maybe I just couldn't bear losing her. Also, I went to prison on purpose to avenge her."

As anyone would be, Hermes was suspicious that it was fate that all this would happen. Having watched The Matrix Reloaded in 2003, she believed that if she had a dream like that, it was bound to happen in real life, and there was nothing that anyone could do to stop it.

"Thank god that was all a dream. There was a crap-ton more, including meeting all of you, but I think we should talk about that over breakfast."

Weather, who had also been having the fever dream, replied with "I had the same dream too. It also felt like four months' worth of events. There is a chance that this could be a Stand attack. In which case, we need to be careful. Having the most powerful Stand here, if anyone is going to face them, it should be-"

Weather was then interrupted by Emporio, who proclaimed "I don't know what you are experiencing, but it is probably not a Stand attack. If it were, I would also have the same dream, as the user would be targeting all of us. To concur with Hermes, how about we talk about this over breakfast?"

Hermes and Weather silently nodded, realizing that this "boy" was not as naïve as most, but knew very well about Stands and their capabilities.

Emporio continued. "Just like I have not slept properly for years, I have not had a proper shower or bath for years. Luckily, this room has both, so we can do either. Sorry, Hermes, but since there are two of us, one of you, and zero room to get weird, I think that Weather and I should go in first."

"Sounds good." Replied Hermes.

Weather had a slight smirk on his face as he thought to himself, "Even if the water in the shower is too cold, I can make it just the right temperature using my Stand, which, I swear, is a gift from god himself. Honestly, I can't wait to get to the lab. Once I'm there, I can show them the weirdest ace up my sleeve!"

In the other room, Jolyne and Anasui had very much the same reaction to the "dream", except here, they were less concerned about a Stand attack. They just thought it was a weird dream, dismissed it as such, and moved on with their morning. Since they were the most involved non-married people on the planet, they showered together, and – of course – loved it.

Meanwhile, Emporio had the best bath that he ever had in his entire life. To think that he had settled for crap all his life (even though it wasn't that long).

After everyone had gone through with their routines, they all went downstairs to have a filling breakfast. Breakfast was free, as it was with many hotels in that day and age.

Now, it doesn't matter what everyone had, all that matters is that it was good. Everyone was feeling good about everything, especially Emporio, happy to, a) see all his friends alive and well again, this time without the influence of Pucci (even though part of him still doubted that it was really them and that he was in another universe entirely), and b) to be alive and well himself, having been the one to lead his friends to this new salvation.

After the relatively short awkward silence, Hermes was the first one to speak up.

"So, I had a very weird dream last night. We were all in this prison, and this black priest wanted us all dead because we were going after his plans to achieve 'heaven'. There were also all these other 'Stands' that you were talking about yesterday, and they were unbelievably surreal, like 'acid-trip surreal'."

Jolyne then cut in with "We had the same dream.", knowing the bizarre circumstances of the fact that she felt partially conscious in this dream, as if it were a memory.

"No kidding, it felt like it was a Stand attack, but it probably wasn't, because Emporio over here said that he didn't have the same dream." Said Weather.

Because he was the odd one out, everyone was intrigued by Emporio's situation, as Jolyne asked him "What dream did you have?"

Emporio knew that something weird was going on, and while he couldn't quite comprehend it, he told everyone what happened to him the previous night.

"I saw something that might sound even weirder to you, but to me, it was perfectly normal." Said Emporio, thinking that nobody would believe him. "You see, I come from a timeline where all of you died."

At this point, everyone was listening intently as Emporio continued.

"So, I saw all of you, dead and floating in the water. It was very saddening for me to have to remember that everyone that I know is dead, even if you are here and alive right now. Anyway, Jolyne quietly came back to life to reach out to me."

Emporio started sobbing, but it did not start raining, as for some strange reason, he had learned to control the copy of Weather Report that was inside of him.

"And then, she said, 'You did it. When you killed Pucci, the flow of time surpassed what had been overwritten, and everything came back here, except of course, him. It's us that you met today. It really is. Sure, we may not remember anything that happened, but that's probably for the better. I mean, we got turned into snails. SNAILS. Anyway, rest easy, kiddo, you've earned it.'"

Everyone was baffled. They knew that something strange had gone on, but they had no idea that Emporio experienced it well before they did.

"So that's what he was crying about." Thought Jolyne. "He was in the dream before we were. That's why he didn't have it again." This led her to being suspicious of a potential Stand attack. And then, she spoke up.

"You know what I think happened?" she intervened, chewing a Denver Omelet as she spoke. "You may have come from a previous version of this timeline after something happened to it. Before the timeline was changed, we were all prisoners and we all died horribly four months from now. Meeting you might be part of why those memories keep coming to us. It must be really complicated, so I probably shouldn't go into much detail."

Jolyne was confident that she was right. Again, she knew that weird things happened all the time, and they were mostly incomprehensible, so she never questioned them because she always found herself going in circles.

"So, Mickey Mouse being missing from a guidebook for Walt Disney World because he came to life and me complaining about it really happened?" asked Anasui, who was shocked beyond belief at this point.

"I believe that the answer is yes and no. Let's get going, it seems as if we have a long road ahead of us." Replied Weather, who was anxious to get back to the room at this point.

As everyone started heading back to their rooms to pack up and head out, Jolyne thought about the dream from the previous night. She wondered if the events she experienced within said dream really happened. Like anyone that tries to understand such a phenomenon, her head was spinning with questions.

"Was it really a dream?" she thought. "I felt like I was making conscious decisions. The dream wasn't telling me what to do. Did this really happen? Was it really a Stand attack? Who was the user? Should I care about these events at all? ARE WE ALL DEAD AND IN THE AFTERLIFE?! Okay, you are overthinking this. When you overthink things, you fail to understand."

Thirty minutes later, with everyone in the car, Jolyne was the last one to close her door as Anasui started the car and drove out onto Florida Route 50. Their next destination was the Kujo Mansion in Windermere, a suburb of Orlando.

However, Anasui noticed a low gas meter and realized that he would need to fill up on gas again. At least this time, they didn't just break down, and he could easily pull into a gas station.

Anasui and Jolyne stayed outside to fill up. Meanwhile, everyone else went inside the convenience store that you would usually find by a gas station so that they could get snacks for the road and what-not.

As he went inside to get himself some coffee, Weather contemplated whether his brother was such an evil man in this "alternate timeline". It just didn't seem like him to submit to such an evil being as DIO.

And then, it occurred to him: This was not his brother. The brother that he saw in his dream had a weak soul that was susceptible to permanently submitting to evil. Marco Pucci would at least realize the wrong in his ways and adapt. This alternate version, Enrico, believed that killing in the name of god was perfectly normal, even necessary. If this were an alternate timeline, then HE had to be the difference between their timelines.

Within two minutes, everyone had bought everything that they wanted. Weather bought his coffee, Hermes bought herself a bag of potato chips, and Emporio bought the chocolate milk that he had felt himself craving lately.

As they left the building, Hermes felt like she wanted to show off.

"Hey, guys." She said. "Check this out." After that, she put a KISS sticker on her bag of chips, duplicating it.

"Boom. Two for the price of one." She said flamboyantly.

As everyone got back in the car and onto the highway, Jolyne, who was riding shotgun, started making major realizations. Specifically, she concluded that the events that happened in her dreams the previous night were real, and that she had experienced them in real life, no matter how weird they were. This was because she felt genuine feelings when she was inside the dream.

"This WAS me." She thought. "These people…were my family, and they died for me. If that's so, then there must be a reason why we are all together right now."

There were other reasons for her belief that she lived through all the pain and suffering that she had dreamt of, but she could not possibly grasp them at that moment. Simply put, the dream felt less like a dream, and more like a memory of the past.

Emporio didn't know how to grasp it either. He could believe that all of his friends were dead, and that these were no more than shallow clones. Alternatively, he could believe that for WHATEVER reason that the universe up and did a complete one-eighty on everything, and that he was back in the original timeline, overwritten.

"No," he thought. "It has to be them. Time is cyclical. The flow of time exceeded Pucci's overwrite and came back here! Also, their Stands are the same, and Stands are the physical manifestation of one's soul. Therefore, their souls are the same. They are alive, they really are!"

He decided that he would take another sip of chocolate milk to ease his already sated mind, taking care to not accidentally grab Weather's coffee.

As the car left Titusville, everyone was happy. From Hermes, having met some new friends, to Weather, having met a member of the legendary Joestar family that his brother had always bragged about. Anasui was just happy to be with Jolyne, as always, and Jolyne was happy that a four-month-long adventure had come to an end in the span of a single night.

Finally, Emporio was happy that he could finally "grasp the ungraspable", and that everyone was beginning to remember each other. He just couldn't understand why that was happening, though. Was it him? Was it another Stand ability? Before all these questions disturbed his peace, he decided that now was not the time to ask them. He would ask them when they got to the Kujo Mansion.

TO BE CONTINUED|\|