The Kutabuta Jungle spread wider than Anna had ever deemed possible while walking through it. In the middle of the jungle, a mammoth tree stood its ground. If she had to name it, it would be the King of the Jungle. And the amethyst rock behind her would be its Queen. She imagined them both reigning the jungle, keeping peace between its inhabitants and the balance between fauna and flora.

"Beautiful, right?" A familiar voice broke the silence.

All three of them turned around in shock. Jack dropped Lenora 2.0, Trish took a step back, and Anna felt a silence fall over her.

"Professor Janssens?" Jack squeaked.

"Hello, my boy," the professor smiled gently from behind his glasses. The same round ones he had worn since the day they all met. They had never looked too big for his face, but it seemed he had lost a few pounds since they last met. Then again, she kept seeing images she couldn't quite place in her memory, where he had looked as thin as he was now.

Like the view, these memories felt real, but they didn't make a lot of sense. Last time she saw the professor, they had gone out for Belgian 'Frieten'. He had been round in the face and he used to have a 'pouch'. Now, he looked lean, and older. His skin seemed to be too big for his body, and the shadows under his eyes spoke of long sleepless nights with too much stress.

Anna shook off her confusion, the same way she had shaken off her fatigue these past few days. Their adventure was getting to her.

"You still wear your hat," Jack suddenly said. He walked forward, reached for the Indiana Jones-like hat and touched it.

Professor Janssens let him, a soft, yet broken smile on his lips. "Yes, my boy. It's my favourite, it reminds me of family."

Anna had to swallow, still unable to speak. His 'family'. The word stung. If they were his family, then why did he leave?

"People said you died." Jack kept examining him, and kept touching his clothes, carefully. "You're not."

"I'm not," the professor shook his head, his smile fading. "Never was."

"How?" Trish kept her distance. "Why?"

"It's a long story. If you feel up to it, I'd like to explain." His voice was as soft as it had always been. "Come and sit. I bet you guys would love to take off those heavy bags."

In all the surprises, Anna had forgotten about her travel bag, but the professor was right, it would be nice to take some of that weight off her shoulders.

"How are you alive exactly? And why did you make us believe you were dead? We mourned you!" Trish said, a hard edge in her tone.

Her voice sounded cold, an unusual thing. So unusual that it made Anna's sight blurry. Suddenly Trish's hair was cut short and she was wearing a bandana instead of her baseball hat. Anna rubbed her eyes, when she opened them again, it was Trish again, her blonde ponytail swishing around from under her cap.

"Are you okay, Anna?" Her name made her look up. Professor Janssens was leaning towards her, his eyes filled with concern.

She nodded, although she wasn't entirely convinced that she was.

"What's going on?" Trish put her hand steady on her shoulder. "You're sweating."

She was.

"We're in a tropical climate," she answered.

Jack shook his head. "You don't have to pretend everything is fine with us, you know that, right?"

"I'm fine, really. Just tired," she explained. What else was she supposed to say? That she was seeing things, and not even the fun kind.

"You're remembering, aren't you?" Professor Janssens sounded so serious asking the question, Anna's back muscles tightened. "Is anyone else remembering things that don't make sense?"

He looked at the other two, his eyes steady and sure. He had always been so good at making them feel normal.

Trish froze. "The lion attack," she said, just above a whisper.

Anna's stomach turned. Flashes of pain and fear shot through her mind at the mention of that event. Cold sweat coated her face and back. The animal had bitten her ankle. Only, not a few days ago. She stumbled backwards, her breathing heavy as if that lion was standing right there in front of her.

"One of our torches exploded and caught fire," Jack said, confused. He took his torch from his pocket and examined it in detail. "But that didn't happen, right?"

Not now, Anna thought, but it had. She remembered now. The spare batteries of Jack's torch had overheated and had almost set part of the jungle afire. Maybe that's why she had the inexplicable feeling that they shouldn't bring too many batteries with them.

"Calm down, everyone," Professor Janssens said. "Whatever you think you're feeling now, isn't happening anymore. It happened years ago."

"Then we were in Brussels, continuing the research you died for," Trish said with a subtle accusatory undertone.

"Your feeling of time has been mended. Please, all three of you, sit down and let me explain. There is no reason to be scared. After all, it is you who made the decision to delete your memories."

Now he had their attention. He smiled, that kind, old man smile of his.

"Two and a half years ago, we travelled to the Kutabuta Jungle in search of the Poulapu Mountain. With all of our research, we found our way to this very room, against all odds. I call it the Steen Kamer, for obvious reasons." He proudly waited for a reaction that didn't come. He shook his head and continued. "Doesn't matter. All our research had led us to an even bigger discovery than any of us could have hoped for, but with big discoveries come big responsibilities."

Anna saw Trish roll her eyes at the misplaced Marvel reference, but Anna was already thinking about the important part of what the professor had said. "You're saying that we found 'magic'? That we found evidence of real communication between rocks and other living specimens?"

"Yes, Anna. We did," he nodded. His smile was so pure and light that a giggle escaped Anna's mouth.

"We found it?" Anna asked again, but louder. When he nodded again, her excitement grew exponentially, transcending all the confusion and panic she had been feeling. It was almost too grand to contain it in her chest. Happiness filled every cell of her body. She jumped forwards, into the professor's arms.

Even though she was probably still a little annoyed, Trish couldn't hold back a smile. Jack was already following Anna in their excitement.

"We found it, but we also found the reason why we never published any of this." Their excitement cooled down at his tone. "The reason why I stayed here, and all of you went back home." He swallowed and regret filled his eyes. "Just to retrace our steps again, and again, and again."

Reality sunk in. The reason why they had known which way to go. Why she remembered things that hadn't happened. They had done this already.

"How many times?" Jack asked, his voice strained.

The professor looked pained. "Eight times."

"Eight?" Trish asked with a shrill. "We have climbed this mountain eight times?"

While Jack was again ticking on Lenora 2.0, Trish repeatedly put her cap off and on and Anna was pacing around, trying to process.

"You have. All three of you." Professor Janssens took off his hat, revealing short greying hair. "That doe-,"

A loud boom interrupted the professor, making the mountain shudder under their feet. In a matter of seconds, all of them had scrambled together against the wall. From the smoke of the explosion came two military men, their guns pointed forward, in their direction.

Professor Janssens spread out his arms, protecting the three of them. "Who are you?"

"Finally, I have found your greatest secret." A new voice echoed from inside the tunnel they had come from. "I found it very annoying how you kept deleting all your findings, even though I was the one who funded it."

"Mr. Gallant?" Professor Janssens asked, unsure.

When the smoke cleared, a middle-aged man in expensive hiking gear stepped forward into the light of the descending sun. "Professor Janssens. How you deceived the world is beyond me. You did all of that, just to keep this ... rock ... from me? It must be special indeed. Oh, and kids," Mr. Gallant turned his attention to them. It made Anna restless, how absolutely unnerved the man looked. "Thank you for leading us the way."

Anna cursed under her breath; she knew she had been hearing footsteps in the jungle.

Mr. Gallant's faux smile made Anna want to crawl away. "Put some explosives on that big rock. Blow it to pieces, and bag it up," he ordered his men.

"You can't do that!" Professor Janssens took a step forward. "Please. Our research was not about magic, like the boards made it out to sound. We simply figured out how rocks communicate. They are just as alive as we are, you can't blow them up. You'd kill a living organism."

"Of course, we can."

"It's murder!" Anna shouted. Her heart was beating almost painfully against her chest. Her head ached, as if her mind was being overloaded. Yet, she all ignored it. She couldn't let them blow this place up like it was a construction site. It was like blowing up the Taj Mahal. "You can't!"

Their cries didn't reach those men's ears. They simply performed their task like it was nothing. Anna's heart broke, and something clicked inside her mind. This had already happened before, not with these exact people, but similar enough.

"That's why we deleted it from existence?" Trish mumbled at the exact same time Anna put the pieces together. They gave each other a look, all while Jack was working in overdrive on his device. Anna wondered if he had even realised there were other people present.

"Let us at least," help, she tried to say, but was cut short when the mountain seemed to shift under their feet. Rocks fell down, making them all dissemble. Anna had to dive to her left in order to survive a rather big boulder from crushing her. She landed on her shoulder, making her hiss. When the mountain moved again, she was certain the ground moved. With a loud cracking noise, the ground under her split. She tried to roll to the side but came out short. The ground disappeared, crumbled to rubble and she fell down with it towards the jungle ground a few hundred feet lower.