The blue box appeared in front of me once again, just like when I woke up in the morning. I could feel some sort of pain building inside my skull. It was as if someone had chiseled a spike into my head and was now heating it to a red-hot glow. My hands went to my head, hoping that if I found the right spot to press or touch, I could relieve the pain in some way. It was worse than when Domingo shoved his hand into my head and ripped out my eye. I could feel myself starting to float away into the nothingness that always seemed to protect me from the pain, but then something new happened. The pain floated away with a part of my trying to keep it contained, and I stayed behind.

  A different, lesser pain appeared. It did not feel so horrible that I thought my head was about to explode, but it was worse than any headache I had ever had before what came before it. It did not take long before it also seemed to detach from me and float off into the darkness around me. It was like I had 2 shining stars of pain rotating around me. They were feeding me trickles of the pain that was isolated within, but it was a small fraction of what I had been feeling before. It made it so that I could still function and was not curled up on the ground, smashing my head to try to get the pain to stop.

  I had no idea what was happening within my own head to be causing such horrible sensations, but if I had been healed from the bullet wound like Vic had been saying, then could it somehow be the Infinity System itself?

  I had no idea what these blue screens were that seemed to appear out of nowhere. I could see them, but somehow it was a different way of seeing than how my eyes saw. I had seen three of them so far; the first one had appeared when I was waking up, but there was no pain associated with it. I had seen two more screens, and both of them hurt my head. I wish I could read what was on the screens so I might know more about what was happening. Maybe the text on the screens made it clear what was happening to me.

  Vic had been looking at me silently for a while now. I tried to remember the last thing that he had said. Everything he had said was crystal clear in my mind. I did not know what to think of how well I could remember everything that had happened to me since I had woken up. I could remember things about my childhood and Time Out with some degree of clarity, but this was on a whole different level. I am pretty sure I could repeat what he said backwards without missing a single word. So I tried doing it in my head.

  A third screen of blue and a third source of pain. The third star had formed even quicker this time, only forcing me to feel the full degree of the pain for a few seconds. I could not imagine what torment I would have to live with if I did not have a way of creating these stars in the void around me.

  Having all these things within my mind was incredibly interesting and very concerning, but the look on Vic’s face was not simple. At first, he was just looking at me like he expected a response to this revelation that he hated the Falcons, but as time had progressed, there was far more concern and a small amount of intrigue about what was happening to me as I silently reacted to the screens appearing in front of me and the pain associated with them.

  I decided to be honest with him about what was happening. It seemed like he understood the brain to an incredible level; maybe he could help me figure out what was happening with me.

  “I keep seeing these blue screens with words on them. They keep appearing right in front of me, but not in front of me at the same time. I don’t really know how to describe them.”

  Vic’s eyes opened with excitement.

  “Are you talking about that?” Vic was pointing to one of the walls that I had only glanced over before. He was indeed correct; there were several pictures on the wall depicting the screen I had been seeing.

  “Can you tell me what they are saying? I have been wondering all this time what the text on these screens was telling you.”

  I shook my head. For some reason, I felt a large amount of shame for not being able to read the screens like he was asking me to do.

  “Don’t know how to read the words. I was starting to learn in school, but then I was taken to Time Out, and I can’t remember all the letters anymore.”

  I can remember how proud I was when I brought a book that I had borrowed from school and could read Grandma the whole thing without any help at all. I was the first boy in the class who was allowed to bring a book home. It was a special treat that was only done if you could read the whole thing. Annabell did it before me, but she does not count because she already knew how to read before we got to school. That seemed like cheating somehow.

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  That pride had turned to shame now. I did not know how important reading was until I became older, and I was even worse at it than I was when I was six years old.

  Vic could see that he had touched on a sore topic when he saw my face fall as I responded to him.

  “Look, kid, what was it again, Jaun? I have been looking after you for a year, hoping that you would be my salvation. I am not going to abandon you now that you have regained your faculties. I will teach you how to read if you want. How old are you anyway?”

  I sat there and had to think back to all the hints that I had gotten. I had no real clue. I did not even know what the date was.

  “I don’t know. My birthday is July 25th. I think I might be 12 or 13. Time is hard to keep track of when you are hidden away.”

  Vic smiled at me.

  “Well, happy birthday. It is August 1st today. So you actually just turned 13. It is hard to imagine that, considering how small you are, you have not had an easy life where you had an opportunity to grow. I wish I could say that was going to change now, but I don’t have anything much more to offer. I can at least teach you how to read, though.”

  I could see some shame in Vic's expression at not being able to supply for me. I felt like we were closer to being the same than we were to being different.

  I did not know where to start, but I did know that while the stars full of pain were still affecting me, I wanted to know what could cause such horrible pain about the Infinity System, and how I could make it stop. Vic was the only person I could ask, and, from my less-than-expert opinion, he might know the most about the top than anyone else I am likely to find anytime soon.

  “Why does it hurt so much when the blue windows appear?”

  Vic looked at me like an interesting test subject. I know he had said he had left academics a long time ago because it no longer interested him, but it was clear to me that the spark of curiosity that had driven him to research in the beginning was still in him. The fact that he did not know what was happening with me was probably a good chunk of why he had stuck around and taken care of me for so long. Now that he finally had more confidence that I could supply him with answers, he was even more interested.

  “I don’t know what is happening with you, but I will help you figure it out. It does not make sense given all the public information about the Infinity System. Not that there is Shit all that they make public. It is advertised as being painless.”

  I wanted to take a second to catch my bearings after the intensity of our conversation so far. The simple fact that I was now 13 years old was hard for me to wrap my mind around, and that was not the only world-shaking revelation during this conversation.

  I walked over to the wall of images, a screen hovering in front of my face. Some of them were just the screen with a bunch of gibberish written on them to signify writing, while others were the screen visible in front with the background of what I was actually seeing in the moment, and others were actually showing a third-person perspective with me interacting with the world around me while a screen was hovering in front of my face. I could see far more than I was expecting, maybe 25, attached to the wall. I could see some of the images depicted me cowering in pain. Looking down at the piles of other drawings lining the floor, it was clear that these were not the only images that I depicted in the drawing. There were far more that never got added to the walls.

  I had one question that seemed to be boiling up from the bottom of my subconscious. How many times had the screens appeared in front of me for the last year? What did it all mean? I started feeling frantic, seeing how much pain was depicted in some of the images. Was I going to have to live with this for the rest of my life, or would I find a solution once I could read the words on the screens?

  As I started flipping through the pieces of paper on the floor faster and faster, Vic saw what I was doing.

  “If you are trying to count, there are 107 pictures in which you depicted the blue screen that seems to follow you wherever you go. After the first couple, I started to suspect something was different about you. The depiction of a different perception from other people’s was too static and consistent for it to be a delusion. It seemed like something was appearing in your brain and trying to give you information no one else could see.

  I am not some hermit without an understanding of what is happening in the rest of the world, so of course, I knew about the Infinity system. I had always wondered how people using it could see the progress that they were making. I had my answer now, but I still had endless questions about what was being said. Once we get you reading, my internal fascination with this system will finally have its first scraps of food in a long time.”

  Hearing Vic talk about food made me realize I hadn't eaten, and my body was telling me it needed food rather urgently. I could not see a scrap of food anywhere in the room we had been conversing in. Now that I had started listening to my body again, I noticed I was also incredibly thirsty.

  “Do you have anything to eat or drink? I think I am the hungriest I have ever been in my whole life.”

  Vic looked at me with some guilt.

  “Sorry, I just went on a scavenging run, but I only found a few handfuls that I finished on the way back here.”

  I was not sure why I felt betrayed. Vic had been keeping me alive for almost a year, but I did feel a ping of anger. I knew it was unfair, but it was still there.

  “I guess I will need to go out and find something myself. Let's see if this map is telling the truth about where the best places to find food are.”

  I grabbed a copy of the map by the door and finally stepped out of the room we were in. It was time to see what freedom felt like after so long.