18th August 2019

Pictures. Pictures. Pictures.

That was what the rest of the PDF was filled with, momentarily confusing Renee. It had only been May 31st, and there was still two months of story left.

But as she kept scrolling, Renee only found a blueprint for her meditation stimulator, a detailed hand-drawn map of her Realm, maps of the astral planes, indicating where each Realm was. After which, she just found a series of blank pages.

With her patience rapidly draining out, Renee scrolled to the last page, to find the blueprint of a machine.

"The Portal Maker," it said.

Renee vaguely wondered what it was for. Why hadn't she left any more clues?

She got up and began to rummage through her room for any extra clues. After half an hour, Renee had to give up. Her room was now messy, but she didn't care. It confused her as to where the remaining story was.

Had she hidden the clues in other places of the house?

The ringing of her phone momentarily distracted Renee from her thoughts. She picked it up to see that Clover was calling her.

"Hey, Cloves-" Renee started cheerfully, but Clover cut her off.

"Renee! They've erased our memories!" She wailed.

Renee's eyes widened. They'd erased Clover's memories too?

"Did you get a letter from the -"

"Yes, I did! Something about how you had endangered my life or something..." Clover paused. "Hang on, I'll read out the letter..."

Renee's eyes darted to her own letter, which she'd left on her bedside table. Except that it had disappeared.

"It's gone!" Clover came back to the call, sounding anguished.

"Yes, mine disappeared too," Renee replied, puzzled.

"Woah, this is so creepy," Clover said. "They told me that I had serious injuries due to a car accident..."

"I know, I saw that too," Renee answered.

"And they told me that you were extremely depressed from what happened to Mike and that it wasn't safe for me to contact you..."

"What?!" Renee shouted.

"Yeah, something about how you were extremely violent...Oh, and I wasn't supposed to mention that to you," Clover adds.

"Me? Violent?" Renee yelped.

"Yeah, well, you do sound pretty violent to me," Clover pointed out, to which Renee made an impatient noise.

Violent? Was the ISA trying to tell everyone she was mentally deranged or something?

Were they trying to scare everyone away who'd tried to help her?

Anger rushed through her like boiling water at the thought of what the ISA had done.

They would surely pay for this, someday.

Renee forced herself to calm down, as she heard Clover talking to someone on her side. A minute later, Clover returned to the call, sounding strangely happy.

"Thanks for the flowers, Renee," Clover said. "That's so sweet of you."

"Flowers?" Renee asked, confused.

"Yeah, apparently you've sent me flowers, and a get well soon note," Clover said. "Oh, and there's an envelope here too."

An envelope? Maybe that was her next clue.

"I don't remember sending you this," Renee started awkwardly, but Clover just laughed.

"Of course, genius. Your memories have been erased." Clover reminded, and Renee could hear the envelope being ripped open.

"Ooh, you've written quite a bit. Hang on, I'll send you a picture." Clover said, and a minute later, Renee opened the message.

The letter wasn't too long like Clover had said.

Dear Cloves,

Unlike what the ISA said, I'm not mad or violent. I'm just a girl with a broken heart and minor memory problems. By the way, you're in the hospital because you've been stabbed, and not because of a car accident.

I promise to tell you the whole story once you're better. It's quite a lot to take in, but I'm definitely going to be needing your help very soon. I may not remember writing this letter, but I ask you to trust me anyway.

I hope you get well soon, Cloves. And please don't accept any flowers or anything from the MBTN group, for it could be dangerous.

Stay safe, Cloves.

Renee.

PS: Remind me to check www.MathHomework.com for easy solutions to math problems.

"Well," Clover said softly. "What do you think?"

"I think the website is what I need for now," Renee told her the whole thing about the EnglishHomework.com, and how it contained a part of the story.

"Wow, so your past self knew this was going to happen?" Clover said, sounding amazed.

"Yeah, and my past self has sent the flowers too." Renee found herself growing hopeful. "I'd been prepared for this."

"Do you know anything about this MBTN group?" Clover sounded worried.

"No idea. I haven't mentioned it anywhere." She answered.

"Okay," Clover replied. "Maybe the math homework website has the answers."

"Oh yeah!" Renee sat up immediately, as she lunged for her laptop.

"Listen, Renee, the doctor is here. I gotta go," Clover told her quickly. "I'll talk to you later."

"Bye, Cloves," Renee answered.

The MathHomework.com took a longer time to load. Meanwhile, Renee went through her pdf document, hoping to find more clues.

Instead, she found this peculiar handwriting on almost every part of the blueprints and maps.

This new handwriting was so much more neater than her untidy scrawl, with gentle slopes and long strokes. If Renee had looked closely, she would've assumed that it was printed.

Did that handwriting belong to Noah?

Noah.

No matter how hard Renee tried, she couldn't remember his face. She tried hard to picture him, the dark hair, the ocean blue eyes, but nothing struck her vividly. He sounded attractive, but Renee was worried that she wouldn't even remember his face.

In fact, it seemed like none of her memories had returned. Only the Realm felt familiar, but that was because it was a part of her imagination.

Would all her memories ever return?

The website had now loaded, this time containing the picture of a star-filled sky. Like before there was a link, and upon clicking it, it began to download another pdf document.

And the first page was addressed to her, like before.

Hey me-with-a-bit-of-the-memories,

I'm sorry for the scare. Noah just reminded me not to put everything in one pdf, because the ISA might find it easily and erase it. He's right, you know, they say that you're not supposed to put all your eggs in one basket.

Also, don't worry about your memories not returning, since they're all in your head. You just have to find a way to remove the Shield that Noah had put over it.

Well, here's the rest of the pdf, so you'd better enjoy it!

You know me,
Renee Durvont.
16th August 2019.

This document had 250 pages. Renee hoped that it didn't contain empty pages like the previous one.

That had been quite annoying.

Renee settled comfortably on her bed and began to read the next part of her story.

Hopefully, her memories would soon return.

*****