Parker appeared in the corridor just outside of The Regale. From the sounds of it, everyone was gathered to eat dinner. He wondered what time it was, not sure how long he’d been gone.

He made his way into The Regale and saw that his table was uncharacteristically quiet. Alexis and Caleb both hung their heads as he approached. “What’s wrong?” he asked, forgetting what had happened the last time Lara took him like this. “Where’s Hailee?”

“She took her…” Caleb muttered.

“What?” Parker asked.

Caleb stood up and slammed his hands down on the table. “Lara took her!” Parker reached his hand out to put it on Caleb’s shoulder but slapped it away. “Where were you?” he snapped.

“Caleb…” Parker started to say. “Lara didn’t take her. She took me. I’ve been with Lara since I disappeared.”

Caleb stood in stunned silence. Tears welled in his eyes as he stared at Parker. “Then who…? She had to be taken. No one knows where she is!”

“It was Master Terra, wasn’t it?” Alexis asked.

Parker slowly nodded his head. “Yeah, I remember Master Sora telling—” Parker stopped talking. Alexis stared at him, realizing that Parker remembered this from his other life.

Caleb scrunched his face up, confused. “What do you mean remember? Did you not just walk in here?”

“I just meant that…” Parker trailed off, struggling to keep up the lie.

“You meant what you said. So explain it.” Caleb was angry, but managed to keep his voice down. Most of the people around them were already staring.

“Let’s go somewhere else,” Parker said. Caleb glared at him for a moment and reluctantly started to follow as Parker walked out of The Regale.

When they made it to the corridor, Caleb grabbed Parker by the arm and yanked him back. “Talk!”

Parker immediately used his Space Imperial so they could have some true privacy. “There’s a lot to explain. You need to just listen, take everything in, and decompress for a minute because when I say a lot, I mean, A LOT!”

Caleb turned his eyes to Alexis and she very subtly nodded her head. He listened as Parker explained everything. Every painstaking detail. Parker left out the details about Hailee dying, but he could tell that a part of Caleb knew somehow. When he finally finished, the three of them stood there in uncomfortable silence.

“We’re going to stop all of that from happening,” Parker said in as confident a voice as he could muster.

“But… how?” was all Caleb could say.

“I don’t know yet, but we’ll figure it out. I know more than both of them do, so I know we can figure it out if we work together.” Parker didn’t know why, but it seemed that Caleb believed him right away. Maybe because Alexis vouched for him? All he could think was, if things were reversed, would he believe one of their future selves?

———

A week passed by with no signs of Lara. Parker did his best to blend in during classes but it grew tougher and tougher each day. He was getting closer to being back to normal but not quite there.

“So, what did you do last time she got taken?” Alexis asked while they were working on some homework in the library.

“I started practicing like Lara needed me to. But she didn’t tell me that this time because she saw how much more advanced I am than she thought I was so there’s no way to know what she’s going to do now…”

Caleb tossed his pencil down. “Man, why can’t you just remember the answers to all of this homework? You’ve done it already!”

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Parker laughed. “Dude, tell me about it. I’m over here doing it for the second time.”

“So, what do we do now?” Alexis asked.

“I need to be able to sense cores better. That’s the one thing that hasn’t come back like the others.”

“What do you mean ‘sense cores’?” Caleb asked.

“I can tell where people are based on their core rhythm. The core is what makes you you. Everyone’s core has its own frequency. So, if I know your core’s frequency, I can find you anywhere which comes in handy when I need to teleport to you. So far, I can only seem to sense within the school. I need to expand that.”

“What’s a core frequency sound like?” Caleb asked.

“Does it sound like a heartbeat?” Alexis questioned. She started tapping her finger on the table to a rhythm.

“That’s my core’s frequency,” Parker pointed out. “That’s exactly what it is, Lex.”

“So, these heartbeats that have filled my head for years are actually the sounds of other peoples’ cores?” Parker nodded, confirming her question. “I’ve just learned to tune them out. Honestly, I wasn’t even sure that it wasn’t just something that everyone heard.”

Caleb looked at her incredulously. “You’ve just been hearing everyone’s ‘heart beats’ for however long and you just thought that was normal?! What is wrong with you, girl?” Everyone started to laugh.

“But yes, I need to work on being able to sense cores from further away. That being said, Lara’s is the only one I know specifically that’s not already within this school, so I need your help with this one.”

“How can we help?” Caleb asked.

“Well, I can teleport just fine. Or at least I assume I can teleport the three of us fine. Actually, I just need to teleport one of you at a time. I’m going to teleport to some random place and drop you off, then teleport the other to another random place and then teleport myself to a third random place and see if I can find you.”

Caleb blinked slowly, staring at him. “That has to be, hands down, the stupidest thing you’ve ever said.”

“What?” Parker asked, his voice raised an octave.

“Let’s recap here numbnuts, you are struggling to sense cores that are outside of this castle, correct?” Parker nods. “You want to teleport us to some random location, that even you don’t know, correct?” Parker nods again. “You then want to teleport back to the castle, correct?” Parker nods a third time, not sure what the issue is. “You then want to try to sense our core from here?”

“Sounds right,” Parker confirmed. “I don’t see—” he stopped himself as he realized it.

Caleb bopped Parker on the forehead with the palm of his hand. “There it is!” he exclaimed.

“It’s okay Parker,” Alexis tried to console him. “We’ll think of something.”

They brainstormed for a little while and came up with an idea. Parker would teleport them to a new location, they would then just keep walking away from each other until he could no longer sense their cores to get a gauge on how far apart they could be.

The rest of their day seemed to drag by as they finished their homework in the library. The sun had set and it was time to make their way down to The Regale for dinner. They sat down at their table, looking sadly at the empty seat that Hailee should be sitting in. The meal passed by in silence. Right when they were about to get up to go back to their common room, Master Sora appeared over Caleb’s shoulder.

“How are you three holding up?” the master asked. Their silence answered his question.

———

The next thing Parker knew, he was standing on a pier in the dark. He could feel the unevenness of the wood under his feet. A cold breeze blew past him as he listened to the water coming up on shore and then leaving. Lara’s core pulsed in his ears.

“May I help you?” he asked into the darkness around him. There was a light hanging on a pole at the end of the pier, but aside from that, the only light source was the thin crescent moon high up overhead.

“I…” Lara started to say, struggling to get the rest of her sentence out. “I need your help…”

Parker had to take a breath and let out the air of superiority that was growing in his ego. “What made you decide that?” Parker knew she was going to need his help. He didn’t know how, but he did know that Master Terra had figured out a way to hide their cores from them.

“He has her, doesn’t he?” her voice quivered as she spoke. “He has her and he’s concealing their cores somehow. I’ve never had trouble sensing my daughter before.” Lara took a deep breath. “So, will you help me find them?”

When she asked, it made Parker remember how differently this had gone than the last time. He let the question hang in the air for a moment before responding. “Of course I will.” Parker could tell that she couldn’t believe his answer.

“Why so willing?” she asked, almost accusatorial.

“Hailee is one of my best friends, I can’t lose her again.” He said it without thinking.

Lara’s eyes widened. “You did not just say that…” her voice trailed off.

Parker could see the fear in her eyes and a high-pitched bell-like sound resonated through Parker’s ears as his mind raced back to the horrible memory he had. He didn’t know what to do because he had no idea what she was about to do. He hesitated for a moment and when he saw that she was frozen in spot, he said, “We can stop it from happening…”