It was near midnight when Billy heard the sound. He was scared of the dark, and was used to hearing such things. Billy had faint memories of hearing the sound before, sometime, someplace, but he just couldn’t place it. He rolled over in his covers, tried not to think of all the scary things his friends talked about from comics and video games, and then went back to bed.
The next morning, he woke up to his younger brother Matthew staring him in the face. “Come on, Billy,” he enthused after he knew his brother had woken, “It’s Monday!”
Billy slid out of bed. “Ugghh . . .” he mumbled, too low for anyone to hear, although his family already knew he didn’t enjoy school in the least bit. He reluctantly shoved his new, stiff clothes on and trudged down the stairs. It was a Monday morning, and Billy wasn’t too happy about it. He hated Mondays. Mondays signified the start of a new school week. His brother and mother were waiting for him as he rubbed his eyes and absent-mindedly walked down the stairs. As he touched the floor on the bottom, his hyper little brother ran up to him.
“Aren’t you excited? It’s Monday!” Matthew exclaimed. Billy didn’t answer, for he knew that Matthew was ready to support his argument that Mondays were great if he said anything bad about it. Besides, he didn’t like talking much. Only when it was needed or required.
“You should be excited, It’s Monday!” His mother teased. Billy rubbed his eyes again, for he couldn’t see very well when he first woke up. He ignored the members of his family because they knew very well that BIlly did not enjoy to talk and took that as an excuse to tease him like it was a daily routine. He ignored his brother and mom, poured himself a bowl of cereal, and sat down to eat. He chomped down the cereal as if it were a donut and he hadn’t eaten for 2 days.
“Wow! You’re really hungry, Billy,” His brother teased, even though there was nothing to tease about. His brother really needed to learn when to and when not to tease. He ate the cereal fast for two reasons, but he didn’t want to tell his family why. The first reason is that he needed to spend some time away from his family, because every morning and night was like this, and the second reason was that he wanted to finish the school day as fast as possible so he could get home and hopefully do what he wanted. He wanted to get away from the real world for a while and block program his new project online.
As Billy walked into school, his friend Jack spotted him from his locker and ran over to get him. “Hey, Billy, don’t forget today!”
Billy answered, “What?”
Jack scrunched his eyes in distaste, “You mean you really don’t know? You’re the one that set it up!”
Confused, Billy questioned again, “What did I set up?”
“All right,” Jack answered, “You really want to play this game? OK, you set up a time where we would work on the program together.”
“I have no memory of that,” Billy said, wondering if Jack was playing a trick on him. The bell rang, and Billy went on with his school day. When he entered the door of his house, His mother approached him.
“Where’s Jack? I thought he was coming home with you today.” His mother questioned him.
Oh, he thought, maybe I did do this after all.
“Jack went home sick,” he lied.
“Oh,” his mother said worriedly, “I hope he gets better.”
He walked up to his room and shut the door. Billy wondered what was going on. He had never had memory loss before. He had absolutely no idea if he had actually talked to Jack about this beforehand. It was completely unusual.
He started programming, using blocks to create his imagination on screen. Beautiful colors rose up and down on the screen, responding to the arrow keys and his orders through blocks.
At bedtime, Billy felt tired and worn out from all that programming he’d done.
His mother turned out the light. “Goodnight, Billy!” she exclaimed and shut the door. Billy rolled over in his bed, pulled the covers up to his neck, and shut his eyes.
He woke up later and checked his watch. It was 11 O'clock at night. He looked around his bedroom. It was dark, and there was nothing in his room. He wondered why he had woken up. THUMP! He heard from the hallway. It was the same sound he had heard the night before. Billy crept out of his bed, and tiptoed down the hallway. He turned a corner, saw a flash, and everything went white.
He heard a faint voice. “STAN! You have to stop banging your head on the doorway!”
“I-I-I’m s-s-sorry, teacher,” he heard another voice stutter.
“This is your FIFTH time on the job, and we’ve had to erase his memories EVERY NIGHT! He’s probably losing his normal memories as well as the memories of waking up! Do you know how crucial our jobs are to our purpose on Earth?” one said
“Y-y-y-yes t-t-teacher,” the other one replied.
“Now put him in his bed!” he heard. Billy’s eyes closed.
It was near midnight when Billy heard the sound. He was scared of the dark, and was used to hearing such things. Billy had faint memories of hearing the sound before, sometime, someplace, but he just couldn’t place it.