It was immediately clear that there was something wrong about this memory. I was once again looking out of a young man’s eyes, presumably his. Everything about the memory was cloudy and distorted as if I were looking through dirty water streaked lenses. Where before I could feel the things in Jack’s hands as if I were holding them myself, in this memory, I could barely tell that the object under his right hand was a computer mouse.

His face was glued to the enormous screen just inches from his bespectacled face. The memory was too blurry for me to make out what was happening on the screen, but the way that the whole thing was made up of constantly moving and changing colors made it obvious that he was playing some sort of video game.

All of a sudden he burst out yelling, “No. No. No! NO! NO! Why the hell did you just do that Mike?! You’ve screwed the pooch. Look, they’re swarming now. We’re fucked, totally fucked. Shit! I’m down! I’m­­—ah hell, you’re all down now too. Damnit Mike we’re going to have to start all over again. But I gotta dip, it’s almost midnight here and I gotta be at work at 6.”

“Alright. Sorry about that Caleb.” I heard through the headset he was wearing. “I’ve never done this one before, I was just trying to clear the room.”

“It’s cool man. Just don’t do that shit again, we were almost there. Same time tomorrow?” he asked. After a chorus of affirmations, he continued. “Aight, peace out killas. Do work!” With that, Caleb hit some random combination of keys and the huge monitor went black as he stood up.

“Aaaaahhhh fuck.” He said to himself stretching. Absently, he reached up and grabbed the string above his head, giving it a little tug plunging the already dim room into total darkness and flopped face first into bed.

For 20 minutes I waited, the frustration and impatience building up until I was about to flip out. If Jack put me in this memory just to “watch” him sleep in the past so he could get rid of me and sleep in the present, I swear I’m going to kill him.

The dull and convoluted thoughts flying around in his head as he drifted off to sleep were vague and difficult to make any sense of. Suddenly everything went black and empty for a few seconds. Then it seemed as if the world exploded in color and clarity as he sat up and opened his eyes.

*Whattheholyfuckinghell* I heard run through his head. It was the clearest thought I had experienced from him throughout this whole memory, and it shocked me into realizing that all of his thoughts were now coming in loud and clear.

“Qui êtes-vous et que faites-vous ici ?’’

The sudden foreign question from behind Jack startled me into taking note of our surroundings. If the voice had startled me, our surroundings left me utterly confused as Caleb stood up. One minute we were in his darkened bedroom, the next we were in a clearing in a heavily forested area. The man who had spoken was in the shadows at the edge of the clearing.

As Caleb turned around to address the stranger, he looked up at the sky and cursed. *I’m going to kill those motherfuckers.* ran clearly through his head. *I’m missing work, have no clue where the hell I am and now some random dude is speaking gibberish at me.*

“I’m sorry,” he said out loud, “I didn’t catch that, man. What did you say?”

“Catch what man? There are more of you out here? Which way did he go?” the stranger turned and seemed to speak quickly and quietly to someone behind him. The man’s accent was clearly foreign, probably from somewhere in Europe.

“No, no, no,” Caleb said quickly, “Damn colloquialisms. Sorry, it’s just a turn of phrase for ‘I didn’t understand what you said’.”

“I… see…” he said clearly still a bit confused. “Well I asked you who you are and why you are trespassing on my lands.”

“Oh. I’m incredibly sorry. I think my friends were playing a prank on me. I went to bed in my room last night and woke up here just a minute ago.”

“I see…” the stranger said. “What is your name?”

“My apologies, my name is…” here Caleb hesitated for a moment as a thought ran through his head. *Is that a spear in his hand?* “Jack” he finished nervously. “If you could just point me in the direction of the road, I should be able to find my way back to town.”

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“That is unnecessary,” the stranger said. “You will travel with us. My estate is on the way.” As he finished, the stranger stepped into the clearing, finally illuminating him clearly.

“Us?” Caleb asked, *That is a fucking spear. Who the hell walks around the woods with a huge ass spear like that?* “I only see you.”

“That is because my men are very good at what they do, and what they do is remain unseen.”

As the stranger with the spear approached Caleb warily, two more men followed him out of the shadows. Caleb took a quick step back as soon as he noticed them. “Damn,” Caleb said laughing nervously, “You weren’t kidding, I had no idea they were even there.”

“Come along now Jack. We have a long walk ahead of us if we are to get there before dark.” The man said, nodding in the direction behind us.

“Before dark?!” Caleb exclaimed incredulously. “It’s like...” he looked up at the position of the sun in the sky again “noon, I think. I can’t be out of touch for so long, someone’s going to start worrying about me. Could I use one of your phones so I can have someone come out to pick me up?”

The stranger stopped walking and looked at Caleb in confusion. “Most of the time you speak perfect English and I can understand you. Other times I hear the English words but what you say makes no sense to me. What is a phone and why should you want someone to pick you up. Can you not walk on your own?”

“Haha very funny guys. Seriously though, I really can’t be AWOL all day. I understand you LARPers are dedicated to your craft but I’ve already missed half a day at work, surely one of you guys have your phone nearby. I promise I won’t report you to your guild for having tech at hand.”

“Again with the gibberish. Whatever these phones are we do not have any. Have you been hit in the head to jumble your words? Come along now, we are wasting the light.” When he reached the edge of the clearing, he turned back noticing that Caleb still hadn’t begun to move. “This is no longer a polite request. You are trespassing in the Ducal hunting reserve; you will come with us so I may pass judgement upon you.” As he finished speaking one of the silent bowmen gave Caleb a none too gentle shove and forced him to move or risk further impetus from the pointy end of a long knife that the other was now brandishing. We walked for the rest of the day in near silence. None of them spoke directly to Caleb again, but they conversed quietly amongst themselves in the foreign language again. It sounded a lot like the French from the first memory, at least in the rhythm and cadence of the words. Just as the sun was setting, we left the forest and I could make out a large structure on a hill not too far from the edge. With the backdrop of the setting sun, it was a dark and imposing looking structure, definitely like something straight out of my history books.

The memory ended before we reached the bottom of the hill it was on and I was suddenly back in the cockpit of the cargo plane. There was something covering the window of the cockpit and Diego had replaced Jack, lounging with his feet propped up on the back of the pilot’s seat.

“You’re awake.” Diego said simply.

“Where’s Jack?” I asked. “For that matter where are we?” The cargo plane was silent and definitely no longer in the air, but I could tell we were still moving. There was an odd rolling motion to it that just didn’t sit right in the pit of my stomach.

“He’s probably off hob nobbin’ with the big wigs on this boat. And if I had to guess, we’re probably somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic.” Diego replied. “Seemed like the fellas operating this rig were a bit surprised and none too happy to see us.”

I stood up, suddenly feeling all of the stiffness from sitting in one position for hours. I stretched my cramped muscles and opened the door revealing the empty cargo hold. “Where did they take all of the others?” I asked.

“They’ve probably got them all locked up in the brig.” He replied. “Not two minutes after we hit the deck, the ships entire marine detachment was storming up the cargo ramp. They must have been surprised by our appearance, but they were certainly quick about regaining control of the situation.”

“What did Jack do?”

“He walked out of the cockpit, looking all high and mighty like usual, waved me into the cockpit and said ‘Secure the prisoners’ to the marines like this was a normal occurrence and got off the plane.” Diego said. “That was about an hour ago and I haven’t seen him since.”

By this time, I was walking down the ramp to see where we were for myself, all the while reaching along the link trying to find where Jack was and what he was thinking. We were in some sort of enclosed hangar bay on the ship and some of Jack’s men were lounging around resting or checking their gear. All under the watchful eyes of a detachment of British Royal Marines. I could tell Jack wasn’t too far away but it didn’t seem like he was in this area, and he had done a remarkable job of walling off his thoughts from me. I could only get a vague sense of irritation through the link.

“I thought the Royal Marines only went where the Royal family went.” I remarked, finally spotting Jimmy and Louis near the front of their plane, heads bent over something they were doing on the deck.

“Me too.” Diego replied as I worked my way towards the only other familiar faces here. “Must mean someone important is on board.”