#(Unable to Ghost) Roxy Jacobs

[escapethewitch]

Tags

[randomwritingsofluna]

Dice.

Explanation of the World

Strange, powerful things are amidst the world. Some give you the chance to save yourself from death. Some are possessed by ancient beings wanting to cause chaos. Some are letters delivered to you from points of time telling you to go places. Others are attractions with vengeful beings protecting the innocent and punishing those they deem to be guilty. Some are more docile, like eggs hatching creatures that shouldn’t be possible. This is a story of one of those items. Similar to the first, except instead of saving someone from death, it allows the user to relive one moment of their life, but unbeknownst to the user, they must then live their life all over again to that point, unable to change anything that happens.

End Explanation of the World

I decided to go on a walk, expecting nothing out of the ordinary, just a way to clear my head and maybe reduce all the stress I’ve been under. And while I was walking, the most extraordinary thing happened! And by extraordinary, I really mean absolutely nothing out of the ordinary happened and I went home, with my head a little less foggy, not much but it was something. My back was hurting was mainly the reason I went home, that and I started to get lost in thought a bit too much and was starting to daydream while walking. I barely felt my phone as my mom called, wondering when I was going to be home and how I was doing. I must’ve been a sight to see. Wandering aimlessly, a blank look on my face, and probably almost falling over due to the fact that I have very little balance. But I got to thinking about my friends from Missouri before I moved.

It’s been five years since I’ve seen them. I had to leave the last day of my 7th grade year, immediately after school let out. Seems like it’s been even longer, especially when I spent two years not in contact with my best friend of almost 9 years now. Makes me feel old, knowing that almost half my life I’ve been friends with him and I can still remember clear as day the first day of 4th grade when our friendship started.

I’d relive that day in a heartbeat, just to see him again. Even though I’ll be seeing him again soon. Though so much has changed. Not just appearances, but our lives. We both went through some things that shaped us to who we are now. I might have gone through some more extreme things, but that doesn’t mean the things he went through aren’t as important. Just means we’ve had to grow in different ways at different times and will continue to do so. Though he also planted the seeds for a lot of things I now enjoy and I’ve done the same.

  One of these seeds is Dungeons & Dragons. I often will go online looking at different dice, table mats, expansion books, and anything else I can find. Sometimes I’ll go to some stores and look around. This is where the story truly begins.

A few days after my walk, I went out again. I had been looking around a game shop and saw a 20-sided die that called to me. The die was an obsidian black, with marble white numbers. Seeing as it was in the bin for bargain dice, where you could find an assortment of dice that never really went together. Usually they were pretty ugly, but not this one. I picked it up and brought it to the counter. “Excuse me,” I said trying to get the cashier’s attention, “Why was this die in the bargain bin?”

 “Huh?” the man working the cashier had a blank on his face then realized what I meant, “Oh! I couldn’t tell you honestly. I just put the stuff out,” he joked. It got a small, if a little forced, laugh out of me. “If that’s everything for you, that will be ten cents.” I handed him a dime and headed out of the store with a new-found die.

The entire way back home I had been thinking of which dice set I should use it with. I started thinking out loud, “Well there’s the red dice, it could be my two favorite colors together. Though it might like good with the purple set. The black set wouldn’t work, those dice aren’t dark enough and the etching color on the dice wouldn’t match. Don’t need a black and blue set, that’s just bad jokes waiting to happen. My green set would look horrible with this one.”

My mom became curious about my ramblings because I was walking around the die in my hand, fidgeting around to calm my anxiety from the conversation with the cashier, “What are you saying?”

“I’m just trying to figure out what dice I want to use my new one with! Think I’ve figured it out though!” I replied, deciding upon the purple.

“All right. Glad you figured it out.” With that, I walked back to my room, ready to put the new die in with the bag of purple dice. Upon entering my room, I bent down to grab my bag holding all the bags of my dice, when I dropped the obsidian die on the floor. I looked over as it left my hand and hit the ground. Then with a hiss, I heard an eerie, ghost-like voice say, “Your wish is granted.” Before I could question what was happening, I felt pain shoot throughout my body, as the world seemed to get bigger.

 “Wait a minute,” I thought, “The world isn’t getting bigger, I’m getting smaller!” I only realized this because I looked down at my hands and watched as they started getting smaller.  The ring that was on my finger was gone, the clothes I was once wearing were also gone, I was now wearing something I might’ve worn from elementary school, they were too small to be the ones from. I then reached for my glasses, expecting the frames on my face, but instead found the wire glasses I used to wear. I blinked a few times and saw that I was no longer in my room, well I was in my room, except it was the wrong room. It was my old room.

I looked around a little more before my eyes felt like they were going stiff and I slowly felt myself lose control over my body. I was back in Missouri, with my green and blue walls, getting ready for school. I became a spectator in my own body, watching as I moved despite my best efforts to stop and look around. Whatever I was doing, I was clearly in a hurry to do it, I seemed excited about something. Eventually, my little body finished getting ready, for whatever and I headed outside with my sister, who looked so much younger that I wanted to cry. Then my mom brought us outside and started taking pictures of us with our backpacks. “First day of school, that explains some excitement. But what year is this?” I thought to myself, though I don’t think the younger me could even hear my thoughts.

Finally, I started moving again, heading down the road to the school at the end of the road. “Okay, this helps with some idea of a time frame. It’s either 3rd or 4th grade, though overall it doesn’t help me know what to expect.” My question of what grade I was in at the time was answered by my mom who asked if I was ready for 4th grade. Things started clicking into place.

 It was the first day of 4th grade, meaning a lot of things. One, the only friend I had nearby was my sister. Two, I was about to make some more friends. Three, I was going to make a best friend. Four, apparently that die “granted my wish” of wanting to go back to 4th grade to see my friend again.

I walked into the school and sat down in the cafeteria, where the principal introduced herself, I groaned at having to see her again. She was a nutjob and I was not looking forward to dealing with her again, even if it was only for a day. At one point in the future, she would lock a parent in her office and block the door, refusing to let her leave during some argument. Police ended up getting called and had to settle the situation. Like I said, nutjob.

 After we were all dismissed, I walked with the rest of my class to the classroom where I would spend the rest of my year. I had seen her at my previous elementary school before, but I left before I ever possibly had her class. Her name was Mrs. McQuarry, actually her name was Roxie, but I wasn’t allowed to call her that. She introduced herself and told us a bit about what we were going to be doing all year. It was certainly surreal being back at a small table with other kids, having an idea of how they were going to be when they were older, who I would still talk to, who I wouldn’t, yet none of them knew. I wouldn’t be able to tell them either. Having looked around the room every so often, I got glimpses of my future best friend, each time wanting to run up to him. But still unable.

The day went on, I felt excited, waiting to meet him all over again. Knowing that my nine-year old self had no idea the kind of person he was about to meet and become friends with. Finally, lunch came. If you could make excitement into a liquid and pour it out of someone, I would’ve filled a swimming pool at least. I sat down at the table for my class, sitting near the end because I was too shy to be around anyone. I then heard an all too familiar voice, “Is someone sitting here?” I turned around, shaking my head to the boy who was extremely tall to me, at the time, and watched as he sat down. “I’m Jacob, thanks for letting me sit here.”

I wished so badly I could’ve moved on my own, wanting to reach out and scream, hugging him tightly, saying how much I had missed him. Instead I introduced myself and initiated the conversation that would lead to our friendship. I had never felt so powerless as I tried moving my arms, my lips, anything to try and tell him what I really wanted to. But I couldn’t. I had to watch with excitement, for seeing my friend after five long years, and sadness, for being unable to do anything to tell how him how much I’ve missed him. The day continued on and our friendship grew more and more.

 After lunch came recess, where we didn’t really play on the playground. Instead we got to know each other more. He told me things I already knew, things I know that would change, and some that would never change. I felt like I was meeting up with an old friend who had amnesia and I was paralyzed.

When school was over, I told my mom about my day, how I made a new friend who was into almost all the same things as me, how much I enjoyed the day and how excited I was for tomorrow. In truth, I just wanted to go back to my life and be in control, talk to the Jacob who knew me, the one who was going to hug me back and still be much taller than me despite all the time passed.

I expected when I went to bed that night to wake up again in my room, a senior in high school, continuing on with my school life. Instead, I woke up to the second day of 4th grade. Then the third, then a week, then a month. I was well beyond worrying, if I had any control over my body, I would’ve been screaming to find out how to get back to where I was in life before all of this. Instead, I had to watch my life like I was watching a movie I had seen before, unable to change things when I knew they would go wrong. A year passed. I was in 5th grade and I had given up any hope of ever leaving of this endless time loop. I had to relive some of the best and worst parts of my life.

The best parts sometimes wanted to make me cry. A few of them had my dad in them, though in my time he passed away my junior year, every time I saw him, I wanted to hug him more than I wanted to hug Jacob. Every time there was an argument, I wanted to work it out. Any time he said he was going somewhere and wondered if I wanted to go, I wanted to go just to spend a bit more time with him. But I wasn’t allowed to it seemed.

 The worst parts always made me cry, or at least the closest I could come to it. One of the worst parts about being stuck in your own body unable to move, knowing what’s going to happen, is there’s no one there to comfort you specifically. I had to comfort myself, use comfort that I knew would come, or try and suppress it. Memories that I once had locked away were revealed to me again, meaning I would once again experience the trauma that came with it.

 More and more years passed. I eventually reached the age of eighteen again. I may have been eighteen when I left, but mentally I had aged another nine years and was technically twenty-seven. The day when I bought that accursed die came closer and closer. I had years to wonder what would happen and I still wasn’t sure on what would happen.

Would I be free? Would I experience it over and over again? Would I still drop the die and instead have that version go through what I just went through? And what would happen if I was freed? Who would actually believe that I went through this?

 Eventually the day came. When I walked into the store, I was screaming to just walk out and not even bother with the dice. You’d think after nine years, I would’ve learned that screaming at myself when I’m not in control will get me nowhere. But I’m stubborn. I still bought the die and I still brought it home.

As I got closer and closer to the moment of dropping the die, I felt strange, I tried looking at my hand and noticed my eyes moved towards my hand as I lifted it up for apparently no reason. “Perhaps I can stop this! I just have to catch that die before it falls or not drop it at all!” I thought, though the other me never heard. Walking through the door to my room, I realized it was now or never. If I didn’t stop that die from falling, this would happen all over again possibly.

I bent down and I felt the die slip from my hands. I screamed, “No!” Instead of my body not reacting, I turned towards the die and fell on my chest and stomach, catching it. My mom then came rushing into my room wondering what happened and if I was okay. With tears in my eyes, I looked for a safe place to put the die so it wouldn’t fall and settling on a place on my bookshelf, I hugged her tightly.

“Not that I’m against you hugging me, but it’s a little tight. Did something happen?” she asked, the look of worry written all over her face. I was too busy crying to say anything. I just nodded my head as I buried my head in the top of her shoulder, not wanting to discuss everything that had happened. “Do you want to talk about it?” I shook my head no, still buried in her shoulder. “Okay. As long as you’re okay, that’s all that matters.”

After a few minutes I let go of her and told her that I was fine and had just been daydreaming and got lost in it. Told her it was “kind of like a nightmare.” But once I calmed down a bit and looked around, moving almost every muscle in my body just because I could now. I then grabbed the die and headed outside, grabbing my hatchet, some lighter fluid, and a lighter. I spent almost half an hour chopping down branches off of trees, not wanting it to be noticeable that I cut something down with the intent to burn. I went back inside and gathered some paper to help with the kindling I chopped earlier. Heading back outside, with paper in hand and the firepit prepped, I set down some of the paper after crumpling it and placed it in the firepit strategically to get the flames to spread for a bigger fire. I had some extra kindling that would help keep the fire hot and if need be I could always sneak a log from the log pile for the winter.

 Once I felt that the fire was hot enough, I threw the die into the flames. It was either this or return it for ten cents and let it continue possibly wreaking havoc on people. I watched as the flames overtook the die until it started breaking apart, turning into ash. Once the fire died down and the embers cooled, I cleaned the firepit up and buried the ashes in a shallow grave in some random spot in the backyard. Leaving no indication that I buried it there, I walked back to the house ready to clean myself off, make some tea, and forget the whole ordeal ever happe