Chapter Text
♫ I know this dream of life is never-ending, It goes around and round and round again ♫
My eyes suddenly shot open and I sucked in a huge gasp… I was, once again, in the roller coaster car of the Cyclone.
“What’s wrong, Penny, why are you gasping like that?” Ocean was sitting the front seat next to Constance, her body was twisted at an uncomfortable angle to look at me.
“I…uh,” I hadn’t really expected to come back to life, I didn’t think it was going to work. I had to get off the ride “I’m.. gonna have a seizure!”
The other choir kids and the carnie strapping us in turned to face me, shocked and in disbelief. I couldn’t back down now, I had to commit.
“L-Let me out now! Call the paramedics!” I pretended to start panicking, but truthfully I was scared. Just for another reason.
“Penny, we can get off if you’re scared of the roller coaster..” Constance smiled at me, with pity.
“Oh…. Yes please,” The carnie rolled his eyes and let all of us out of the ride. Apparently the whole town still knew that me and my brother, Ezra, use to fake seizures in Uranium’s Wal-Mart, I kind of thought people forgot. Sorry, Uranium City, but that was like 4 years ago.
“Penny, you messed up my schedule!” Ocean was stamping her foot on the ground and crossing her arms “But I get why you wanted to get off, I didn’t have a good feeling about that ride either”.
Was everyone being serious? They looked at me all annoyed like I didn’t just save their lives. Did they not remember? I looked around at my choirmates like a fish that just lost their gills! No one was looking at me anymore. Noel and Ocean were bickering about the next activity, Misha was on his phone, Constance was giving Ricky his crutches so that he could get out of the cart.
Was I completely alone in the memories of the warehouse? The memories of Virgil the Rat, Karnak, of the bonding that we’d all done? I just couldn’t believe it, it was all lost memories to them.
“Penny?” I was suddenly snapped back to reality as Noel looked at me all confused. “Are you okay? I was trying ask you what you thought about riding the Ferris Wheel but you totally zoned out.”
“Oh, yeah that’s fine..” I’d have to go along with the rest of their activities for now, I didn’t know what else I could do.
The rest of the day went on until 7:30, we had hit the Bumper Cars, the Ferris Wheel, the Shooting Gallery, (much to the dismay of Ocean), and the Gravitron.
“Constance, I know you wanted to go ride the Cyclone, but did you have another ride you wanted to go on?” Noel struggled with the Fall Fair folded pamphlets trying to help Constance find a ride.
“Another ride?!” Ocean shouted “It’s already 7:30 and none of us have had dinner yet! We have to go get food and quickly head home for school tomorrow.” She glared at Noel.
“Uh… we could go to my parents café for dinner,” Constance had a slight smile but her mind seemed to be elsewhere.
“That’s actually a good idea Constance!” Ocean smiled “Alright, everyone! We’re going to the Blackwood Cafe for dinner and then I’m driving you all home!”
Misha and Noel both groaned at Ocean’s suggestion of being everyone’s driver. Ocean had recently gotten her driver’s license and loved shoving it in everyone’s faces. But Ocean had been the one to drive them all there anyway so there wasn’t anything anyone could do about it.
As everyone had begun to head towards Ocean’s car Ocean suddenly stopped for a moment, “Constance…,” she looked her up and down “Where’s your uniform’s bow?”
“M…my bow? Oh, I probably didn’t tie it tight enough, must’ve fallen off somewhere and I didn’t notice..” Constance looked at the ground.
“Uh… okay.” Ocean continued walking and unlocked the car, “I have spare bows anyway, I’ll give you one before school tomorrow.”
Ocean got into the car and everyone took their seats as well. Constance was in the passenger seat. Misha, Noel, Ricky, and I were left to squeeze into the back seat. Ricky was at least kind enough to have squeezed further into Misha to leave me a little bit of extra room, unfortunately this meant Noel’s face was basically squished against the other window.
Before I knew it, we were at the Blackwood Cafe. I hadn’t had anytime to process the entire situation, truthfully I wasn’t sure I was really alive, but there was nothing I could do other than just go along with it.
“Hello, Mrs and Mr Blackwood,” the choir, minus Constance said.
They simply waved back from the kitchen and the counter.
A waiter came to our booth quickly and gave us menus. The Blackwood Cafe use to have the usual cafe kind of menu, but as their business expanded it became more of a diner, though they still call themselves a cafe, at least this is what I had heard from Constance.
“Would you guys like anything to drink?” They said.
“A Water,” Ocean started “And Ricky would also like a water.”
“A Lemonade for me,” Noel sighed.
“Coke,” Misha said flatly.
“Raspberry Iced Tea, please,” Constance smiled
“And you?” the waiter looked at me expectantly.
“Um…a water as well, thank you”
Maybe the warehouse was a daydream, maybe I just hallucinated something because I never took the medicine that the great Saint Cassian student psychiatrist (and priest) gave me, maybe I just needed to get sent to the loony bin, and according to the girls at my school, a conversion camp.
“You guys are all aware that we have another rehearsal tomorrow afterschool right?” Ocean stated.
The group collectively groaned.
“Why do we need ‘nother rehearsal? We just did singing competition,” Misha questioned.
“I guess I shouldn’t expect someone like you to understand, I mean the only reason you joined the chamber choir was because you stole all that communion wine.” Ocean hissed
“It was my cousin’s birthday! In my country, it is sacred tradition to take drink on birthday!” Misha shouted.
“He had to get his stomach pumped!” Ocean scolded.
I couldn’t help but feel that overwhelming feeling of déjà vu, it was just like the warehouse, but somehow we were all alive. It’s true that none of them really know me, and they knew me even less in death, but somehow I felt like these people were my family.
“Penny… are you alright?” I heard Constance’s timid voice ask me, as I looked up I saw the entire table staring at me, as well as the waiter. They were acting like I started dancing naked on this table!
“Yeah, I’m fine why do you ask?”
“We’ve been waiting for you to order for two minutes, but you haven’t been paying attention.” Ocean stated
“Oh, sorry! I’ll just have the tuna salad, please..”
“It’s no problem, I’ll have everything out for you all in a minute,” the waiter smiled and walked away.
“Penny, you’ve been spacing out all day, what’s wrong?” Noel asked anxiously, he began to pick at his nail polish.
“I’m alright just a little out of it today, that’s all.”
“I bet you forgot to take your medicine this morning, doesn’t your bipolar disorder cause stuff like this?” Ocean blurted out with no remorse.
I mean she was right, I don’t take the medicine, haven’t been for a while even though I was supposed to. I wouldn’t let her know that though “I didn’t forget, just tired today, I think the performance gave me a headache.”
The table was very awkward for the rest of dinner time, it was so quiet I hear a pin drop and roll! I mean does bringing up a disorder really make everyone as mute as a mouse? (excluding Ricky, that’s not his fault) It’s not like I’m slowly dying because of it!
Eventually, we all finished our food and had to head home, Constance was already home since her family lived above the Blackwood Cafe so she just waved us goodbye. Ocean had elected Ricky as her passenger up front this time. Ricky didn’t seem all that thrilled.
Ocean decided to drop me off first as I lived the Saint Cassian Catholic School dorms. I quickly headed to the top floor of the building which held all the dorms, unlocked my door and flopped on my bed.
“What am I gonna do?” That’s all I could say myself in the moment, I had just come back to life somehow, all of us had come back to life, but no one knew it but me.
This may not be the best way to go about it, but there was really nothing I could do, if I told them about it I’d probably get sent back the great Saint Cassian psychiatrist for another bottle of pills, and being doped up to my gills just to get away from issues wasn’t all that alluring right now.
So all I could do was go to sleep and wait for the sunrise to begin another day.