The ride back to Junker’s house is a silent journey. Yume spends the majority staring at the scepter Hypatia gave her, unable to figure out what she meant. How could this answer her questions? It’s obvious the hole near the tip is made for a node, but how this will solve her riddled mind is above her understanding.

As they reach the door to his workshop, Junker hops off Rosie and presses in a few digits on a pin-pad to open it. Rosie slips in before it can open all the way and coils up on a large cushion in one of the corners.

Junker can’t take anymore silence. “Yume, ogling at that isn’t going to help you much.”

“Well, I don’t know how this works! What do I do?”

“Ah, okay me personally, I hate these things. Makes me feel sick every time.” He hesitates for a moment and then continues. “If this is going to help you sort some things out, though, I can show you what to do.”

He extends and arm out and opens his palm, gesturing Yume to place the scepter in his hand. Yume looks a bit concerned, but places it there regardless.

“This is a memory hook. A truly horrific tool that we adopted from The Chamber. In the wrong hands, it is a vile torture device.”

Yume smiles eagerly. “Memory Hook? Huh, sounds cool.”

“Don’t take this lightly, Yume. I need you to understand the danger before I tell you about its purpose for you.”

“Oh, come on, what could this little thing do?” Yume says as she snatches it out of his hand and waves it around the room.

“Yume, STOP!” Junker scolds her, while grabbing it out of her hand.

The smile on her face vanishes and Junker grimaces at her.

“Memory hooks were used by The Chamber to eradicate memories. They call them hooks because they grab your most cherished moments and steal them from you. Once they take away your story, they write their own.”

“Junk…I’m sorry, I didn’t know” She says in a miniscule voice.

“I know that. I wouldn’t be trying to scare you if this weren’t truly important.” He says while setting the scepter back into her hand.

Yume holds it and feels the weight of its implications. From what she was just told, it sounds as though they were used to change one’s past. ‘Change’ might be an understatement, what they did was like a film being edited. Sliced and spliced to suit a narrative. She wonders how this device could possibly help her here.

“So why did Hypatia give this to me? What am I supposed to do with this?’

“We’ll get there! I didn’t explain everything yet. The Stars repurposed this device for a reason.”

Yume nods, wishing he would just get to the point.

“During the process of stealing one’s past, The Chamber loves to prolong the torment.” Junker sighs. “They plug in to your node and find the memories that you love the most, play them back for you over and over, all while altering their contents.”

Yume scratches her head. “But wouldn’t they lose their feelings towards the memory? If it’s being changed, wouldn’t they just forget it ever happened the original way?”

“Not quite, they are left with lingering emotions. A yearning for something they can never find. The pathways written in their brains that trigger those memories are still there, but the memory is gone. It’s down-right cruel.”

“Jesus, that’s depressing.”

“Yeah, well, what I was getting at is that The Stars repurposed that feature. The better parts of it that is.”

“What parts of that are better?”

“Access to one’s memories. ‘Course they used to use it on the Lunarites, but you’re obviously not going to do that.”

“Yeah, clearly.” She laughs.

Junker moves further into the shop and starts to look through his drawers. He grabs a set of pliers and motions for Yume to sit down in the chair where she received her arm.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m going to show you why Hypatia gave this to you. Let me see your bracelet, darlin’!”

Yume reluctantly lifts her arm out towards Junker, and he slips it off her wrist. He starts to tinker with it on the tray, pulling out each node and lining them up. Not wanting to stand through another Junk-lecture, she takes a seat in the chair, preparing for another long-winded explanation.

“If your dad left you something to find, it’s going to be on one of these.” Junker holds the scepter in one hand and motions towards the tray with the other. “Take your pick.”

Yume looks over at the tray and inspects the assortment of nodes. She knew which one she wanted before she even looked. The green one is the only piece of significance to her on the entire bracelet. It reminded her father of her eyes. Surely this had to be it.

“The green one, Junk, that’s gotta be it.”

“Alright! Well grab ahold of this and pop it in there.”

He hands her the scepter and then the green node. She pauses for a moment and lets anxiety take over. What the hell am I doing? she thinks, I have no idea what’s on this. Junker can see the fear in her eyes. She sets the node back on the tray.

“Yume, you don’t have to do this.” He says, trying to comfort her.

Hearing Junk say this strikes a nerve. Junker’s attempt at comfort is perceived as coddling to her. I’m not weak, ricochets around inside her head. She rebelliously snatches the node off the tray and pushes it into the scepter without a second thought. Junker’s jaw drops and if he had eyebrows, they would be raised as high as they could go.

“YUME!” Junker yells out at her in shock, but it’s too late.

She is gone. Her view of the front yard twists and warps away into nothingness. She gets up out of the chair and looks down. The chair is gone and all around her is dark. It’s not just dark, it’s void of everything; there’s no sensation at all.

She tries to walk around and realizes the floor has become liquid. It’s near impossible to tell how deep as it’s the exact temperature of her body. Eventually it covers her shoulders, and then creeps up to her chin. She attempts to swim up, but she can’t gain any distance.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

She can’t control her desire to breathe any longer and she gasps beneath the liquid. It fills her lungs. It’s quite shocking at first, but it isn’t killing her. In fact, it feels good. Really good. She floats around aimlessly for a few moments, feeling complete bliss.

She loses sense of if her eyes are open or closed. It’s starting to feel as though her body is melting away, becoming one with the liquid. She transitions to a state of pure consciousness. No form or function, just a soul gliding through space.

A subtle noise echoes around the area. It sounds like a leaking faucet; one drop falling into a pool over and over. It’s metronomic and soothing, something to grasp onto in the emptiness of her surroundings.

Eventually a small white orb starts to flash through the emptiness. It’s bouncing around ever so slightly yet staying in a fixed location. Yume starts to move towards it, feeling an intense yearning for it. Each pulse pulls on the nostalgic threads of her childhood.

As she moves closer, a strange noise begins to fill the area. It’s like thousands of voices speaking all at once, completely unintelligible chatter warbling around her. Just before she reaches it, the clashing voices slip away, leaving just one speaking.

It’s the voice of her Father, Adam. He’s talking to Yume’s mother, Yua, about something. It sounds quite serious by the tone of his voice. The sound is now all-enveloping and completely immerses her. It feels as though she is speaking his words now.

A split second later, Yume open’s her eyes. The vast emptiness immediately changes into blinding light, revealing she is back in her dormitory. The strangest feeling comes over her though, as she is not in control of the movement of her eyes. These aren’t in fact her eyes, but the eyes of her father.

Standing before him is her mother. It’s a bit of a shock for her to see her again, she is overcome with joy. She forgets for a moment that this is not her present, but a window into the past. She tries to reach out to touch her. No luck. She has no control over this world, she is but a passenger along for its ride.

Yume’s new body, Adam, finally speaks. “Yua, I need your help.”

Tears streaming down her cheeks, she responds. “Baby, I don’t know if I’m strong enough to go through with this.”

“So, you’d rather give up? You’d rather die? We’ve come so far, my love, I beg you, please find the strength.” Adam says, as he stands up and paces along the wall.

“I don’t want to die. I need to be here, for Yume.” She sobs.

Adam stops pacing and walks back to Yua. “Then I need you to do this. It’s the only way.”

“How do you know it will work? How can you so easily risk my future like this?”

“I don’t know if it will work. I can’t even tell you the probability, but I know it’s not zero. That’s a hell of a lot better than certain death.” He puts his arm on Yua. “Nothing about this is easy, but this is the only shot we have.”

“Adam, I am so scared.”

“Me too, baby, me too.” He says as they hold each other.

They sit there for a few minutes, rocking back and forth between bouts of hysterical tears. Adam moves back a bit and kisses her forehead before getting up. He extends his arms down to help her up as well. She stares at him, with her eyes flickering as she can’t decide which pupil to stare at.

“What do I need to do for this to work?” She asks hesitantly.

“You need to have an outburst. Scream at me until the bots get here.”

Yua looks up at him, eyes glinting from tears. “It’s so hard to yell at you. I can’t”

“I know it’s going to be tough. It’s not going to work unless it’s believable though.”

She deflates. “I understand.”

“Once they get here, you need to tell them what I told you to say.”

“It’s been so long since we planned this, what do I tell them?”

He grabs on to her hand. “Tell them that I told you what happens when you call a GuideBot. Tell them I told you that you’re going to be sacrificed and consumed.”

“Okay. I think I can do it.” She sighs. “Adam?”

“Yes, Yua?”

“I love you, so, so much. This hurts more than I can describe.”

Tears are rolling off Adam’s face. “I love you too.”

Yua wipes at her drenched cheeks. “Just promise me you’ll get to Yume after you go up there.”

“I promise.”

“You won’t be able to check in on me once I’m back.” She starts to choke up again. “I don’t want you to see me like that. It won’t be safe.”

“I know.” He says, getting choked up again as well. “So, I guess this is goodbye for now?”

There’s no hope in fighting off their emotions now. They embrace each other once more and the waterworks start back up. Their collective howling slowly tapers off and the vision of the past dissolves back into emptiness.

The darkness consumes Yume once again. Before she can process what she’s seen, her surroundings are pulled off of her like a blanket. Suddenly, she’s back inside her body, in Junker’s workshop again. She gasps for air and jolts up, feeling her body drenched in sweat and the remnants of tears dried on her face.

She desperately runs her hands all around her body, ensuring that she is in fact herself again. Her legs are trembling from what she just saw. Another monumental pillar of her past illuminated by blinding light. It’s hard for her to digest all of what happened back then.

Junker giggles at Yume. “Well…? What did you see?! Your daddy leave you a nice message?”

“Not exactly…” She pulls her legs close to her chest and holds herself, trying to stop them from shaking.

Yume is completely lost in thought. What exactly was that, she thinks to herself. It sounded as though they were planning her rehabilitation visit before it happened. It throws her for a loop. She had always thought she got sent there because of her dad, not because she planned to go there.

When her mother returned from the clinic, she was completely changed. She had no empathy or love for her father. The slightest mention of his existence resulted in an angry outburst and punishment from her mother. Her mind starts to wander further. It’s almost as if she forgot who she was.

“Junk, I think my mom got memory hooked by The Chamber.”

“Uh, what’d you say?” He asks, alarmed.

“I saw them planning it in there. He had her throw him under the bus so that she’d get sent to a rehab clinic. I think they altered her memory there. They made her hate him.”

“Oh, God, darlin’, that’s not exactly the cheerful trip down memory lane I was expecting.”

“No, it wasn’t, but I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I! If you feel like sharing, maybe I can help decipher it.”

“A lot was discussed. They talked about this being the only shot. He instructed her lie to the bots to get sent there on purpose. She told them that Adam told her what the GuideBots do to people.” She starts to shake again. “They comforted each other after deciding to go through with it. She said that she’ll be a different person afterwards. She wasn’t wrong; she was never the same. She hated my dad after going there.”

“Wow, I don’t even know where to begin with this.”

“Yeah, I don’t either. I mean, why would you want to go to rehab on purpose?”

“You remember what I said from earlier, about the graduation rate?”

“Yeah, ninety-nine percent or whatever?”

“Bingo, ninety-nine percent. That leaves one percent.”

“Uh-huh.”

“The one percent get brought to the top. The Chamber only takes the most obedient people up there to work for them. I have never heard of this happening before, but maybe, just maybe, they would pass someone if they were hooked into obedience.”

“So, this was all some grand scheme to get my mom to live?”

“Darlin’, us in the pit learned long ago to let go of hope. It would kill me seein’ you get all worked up for something unrealistic.”

“Junk, I’m not going to argue about what’s realistic with someone who rides a giant centipede and drinks magic healing potions.”

Junker heartily laughs. “You got a point there!”

“I need to know if she’s still alive. If she is, she’s the last family I have.”

Junker crosses his arms and sighs quietly to himself, ignoring her statement. “Maybe you can find something out on those other nodes?”

“You think there’s more stuff on the others?”

“I find it hard to believe he gave you all of them nothing!”

Yume looks over to the remainder of the tray’s arrangement. There’s five onyx, one ruby, and three opal-colored nodes still left to choose from. She wavers her hand over the ruby one, and then decides to take a stab at one of the onyx.

“Wish me luck.”

“Good luck, dear.”

Without much hesitation she grabs the scepter and inserts the node into the chamber. She clenches her eyes closed, bracing herself for the journey through the dark pool. A few silent moments pass, and she thinks she’s leaving her body again. Then she hears Junker start to move around.

She opens one eye and looks down at the scepter. The node is in, yet she’s still in her body.

“What the hell? Nothing happened!”

“Huh…well try a different one!”

Yume grabs another onyx node and replaces the first one. She clenches her eyes again, tighter this time. She lets out a defeated sigh and opens her eyes. Nothing happened. Same as the one before.

“Really?” Junker asks.

Yume grabs another. A few moments later she grabs another one, and then finally she grabs the last onyx node. All of them duds. She gets a bit frustrated and pools all of the onyx nodes together and tosses them onto the tray.

“Let’s give a new color a shot, eh?” Junker hands her an opal node.

“Yeah, we’ll see if these are empty too.” She rolls her eyes.

Yume pushes the opal node into the chamber and clasps the scepter. She immediately falls limp into the chair. This is not a dud…she thinks happily as she drifts away. The surroundings of the shop fade away into darkness.

She does not fight the liquid surrounding her body this time around. She dives into it the moment she feels the ground dissipate and takes a deep breath in. She’s more experienced now and waits for the light to start blinking. As she nears its center, she hears her father speak again.

“Tomorrow, we will enter the pinnacle. Is everyone squared away?”