The middle of the night

May was a good sleeper. He rarely had dreams. And unless it was truly big, he could sleep through anything. In all of his sixteen years, there had never been a night, as far as he could remember, that he woke in the middle of.

Tonight was a first.

The night was a familiar dark, and also an unfamiliar dark. He could make out the contours of the room, the sharp corners and the straight walls were all the usual dark shadows oozing with clarity. And then, floating atop the familiarity, was a layer of unfamiliarity - dark shadows that were something else entirely, from somewhere else entirely.

'What happened,' he asked himself.

His mother, bless the wonderful and beautiful woman, always said he talked too much with himself. Most wouldn't be able to accept, let alone understand, that. And so, he kept it to a minimum. Never when outside. And rarely even within the safe confines of his room. But he couldn't stop himself when he was stressed or distracted over something.

'Breathe,' he told himself, trying to imagine his face in his head. 'Remember professor Laferty's lessons. Ride the slow breaths. Reach for the calm.'

He wasn't in the best class of the year, and wasn't the best student even in his class. But the lessons he concentrated on and grasped, he didn't forget. Professor Laferty's lessons were etched deep enough into memory that they were unforgettable.

He felt the calm wash over him. And as he eased into it, the clock turned backward, taking him along. Wasn't too long ago, he was asleep, when it began. A sharp click, almost inaudible, but very visible. The night split like glass shattering under the sharp prod of a heavy blade. For a moment, all of time itself was frozen, and with it all of the world as well. And in that brief moment, everything changed.

Something slipped into him. Like a seed, was planted in his soul. And while the time remained frozen, the seed rapidly germinated and bloomed into a flowering plant. As the first flower blossomed, something in him had cracked, and time began to flow again. In that moment, he had awoken.

As he opened his eyes to the familiar darkness of his room, he felt profoundly alone. The kind of aloneness that grabbed at him and threatened to drag him down deeper into solitude if he so much as allowed it half a chance. He was no stranger to aloneness, but that was a more innocent kind of aloneness birthing from having to suppress the oddities his mother had pointed out in him, and was nothing in comparison. This new aloneness was like a savage, hungry monster, salivating in his face. It was also enlightening, in the way that it made him aware of having missed something.

Returning to the frozen moment, he looked carefully. Not just at himself, but also around. A sharp click. The night split. Something slipped in. And someone rushed past.

The moment he saw that someone, there was a burst of light. The unfamiliar darkness turned into blinding light. And all the unfathomable shadows turned into actors on a stage. What they were trying to tell him was a story. He was overwhelmed, and it was all too much, but he managed to grasp the gist of it. A war was coming. An attack on the academy. That someone who rushed past him, had seen the war. Had survived the attack on the academy, and had participated in the war. He was a returner. As he returned, bringing along his future self, the returner had somehow awakened May.

Time flowed again as May returned to the familiar darkness. His head was splitting. His eyes throbbing. There was a faint ringing in his ears. And his body was swaying even though he was lying on his back on the bed. He needed a distraction, and there was nothing better than reminding himself where he was.

This was his dorm on the third floor of the Wingers hostel. There were nine hostels in the academy. As was inevitable, the hostels were always battling for the crown of the Best Hostel of the Year. Wingers was almost always in the middle. He had been allotted the dorm at the start of the second year, that was four months ago. Thus it made sense that he was completely aware of every corner and every scratch on every wall. The familiarity was always comforting, soothing like a cool balm whenever he was in distress. Right now though, the charm felt too weak.

The distraction wasn't enough. He could only face the throbbing head on.

He tried processing all of the information inside his head, but that made the throbbing worse. Reluctantly, and in great pain, he lifted himself off of the bed, dragged himself over to the study table, turned on the table lamp, and laid open a notebook. The printed lines on the pages were squiggly and wobbly like a drunkard on his feet. Despite his best effort, he couldn't see the lines clearly. How then could he write legibly? Still, he persisted.

Slowly, and deliberately, he wrote into the notebook.

[ Returner. War. An attack on academy. I awakened. ]

He felt the weakness coming onto him. He was spent. And was now collapsing under the overwhelming pain. He managed to write one last character, before falling as if dead onto the table.

[ ? ]