Aftershock

The sequence of 0s and 1s continues to leap out of the monitors and engrave themselves unto the Alexanders.

As of this moment, future Alexander got acquainted with the memories of his toddler years that he had long forgotten and got to relive the moments with his parents.

It was a lot more messy and disjointed than he remembered it to be. His mother was a self-absorbed artist and his father was a cheating drunk who forced programming into young Alexander to make money in something he failed in.

"I guess I filtered out the bad memories when I knew they left the world forever." 1988 and 2022 Alexander said together but in obviously different times. It was perfectly simultaneous but not in technicality.

"I guess grief really has fundamental effects on people."

They both grimaced in frustration at the thought that they would live and had lived a world where they hypnotized themselves into thinking that Oscar and Cynthia Creed were caring parents.

Eventually, past Alexander immersed himself in the wonders that the future beheld along with the maturity and knowledge that his future self had undergone.

"This is what the future holds." Both Alexanders had their eyes gleam in anticipation without much disturbance to whatever ritual that the sequential binary is imprinting unto them.

Time seemed irrelevant with the turn of events but it still had to fix itself regardless of the abnormality that a lucky, absentminded typer had awarded himself with.

They were not stupid and infinite monkeys who typed away and inadvertently rewrote Shakespeare's masterpiece but still could not comprehend its meaning.

They were just lucky humans that coded characters that coincidentally touched an aspect of existence that they could not fathom.

Essentially the same but different. Just as Alexander would laugh at the lucky monkey who wrote a literary masterpiece. There must be higher beings that would laugh at Alexander in the same way that he would laugh at the monkey.

The lucky monkey and Alexander grasped the achievement but had no relevant comprehension of it.

The benefits of luck are immense but the sacrifice to have those advantages must be in balance.

When a crazy scientist finally has proof that a monkey among infinite monkeys could type Hamlet, the experiments stop and all the other monkeys would be deemed useless. The others are left with unknown fates while the lucky monkey would be glorified by the scientific community.

Among the two Alexanders or maybe even all the humans that are coding nonsensically, the lucky one has already been decided.

The memorial link of the two Alexanders was abruptly cut off.

2022 Alexander did not affect much of the past, he only awoke and enlightened his young self, however, he had already changed that past's future. Which means he is the future Alexander no more.

In a way, it was the future Alexander who lost out in the end but he was still an Alexander Creed and he still won in technicality.

Young Alexander's final glimpse of his future self's fate is that the green 0s and 1s that danced from his monitor suddenly burst forth along with the black background.

An 11-year-old Alexander Creed got to see the future and merged with the experience that that self had undergone. However, he knows that that future would not be his but a very special experience to learn from.

1988, San Fernando, Los Angeles County, California. On the morning after the incident, Alexander awoke from his sleep and still reeling from the occurrence of the night.

The sense of disillusionment and doubts flood his mind but the terrible headache he's having is more than enough of a painful pinch to tell himself that he is not dreaming.

"No amount of painkillers is going to make this go away." Alexander caressed his temples but the bloated feeling still ensued. The heavy and expansive sensation is incredibly disconcerting that he could not help but envy those big-headed aliens.

"They must be used to having twice the brain matter in their craniums. At least that's how I imagined their anatomy would be." He grumbled as he could liken his situation to having two brains stuffed in a skull.

Having been stuffed with three and a half decades worth of experiences within a few hours is no easy matter.

Those reincarnation novels and animes had expounded on the concept but had not truly depicted it.

His alien ramblings are also a clear side effect from browsing the most recent memory where Alexander read an article about the US government admitting to people about the existence of extraterrestrials.

He has no perfect recollection of the content of the article but he could recall the major points that the writer wishes to convey.

Clearly, despite the immense pain, he had not developed any eidetic or photographic memory. It was the normal brain function that he was used to plus the inconvenient headache.

It was a stroke of fortune for Alexander that it was the weekend. He minimized his usage of brain power and saved himself from having to deal with noisy classmates and tedious subjects.

His grandfather and the nominal babysitter were also used to him being locked up in the room for an entire day during the grieving period. As such, they didn't insist much on dragging him to the table to eat.

They were understanding but it was too much that they didn't notice that their poor responsibility was almost delirious.

Alexander's young body also never bothered to pick up the food that they left by the door as the earthquakes in his head were still at their peak intensity and magnitudes.

He was extremely hungry for the whole day but his situation was too precarious to risk standing up and eating.

His bed had become the sponge that soaked up his sweat and the rate of exhaustion doubled up to what was normal.

It was intermittent fainting and waking up in migraines for the next couple of hours until he finally adapted.

The aching aftershocks often came up when least expected but they were tolerable enough for Alexander to be able to gorge on the nourishment that he missed.

He was in tears again. Not because of the loss of his parents and over-happiness from being able to map out the trajectories of the future. He was in tears from being able to live through that torture and filling his grumbling stomach.

Alexander had already suffered from the earthquakes of the head. He didn't want to suffer from the earthquakes of the gut. Admittedly, the stomach being the second brain had its factual merits.

At this moment, he also finally sympathized with the snotty eaters that Black Leg Sanji fed.