Janet and Jane: The Case of the Amnesiacs: Part Five

      The Korbat and I walked through the winding hallways of the building - base, was what the Korbat said. I navigated it like I had for all of my life. It was almost routine for me. Second nate, I guess.

      That Korbat I mentioned earlier walked into a room. I followed her in. I stood by the doorway while the Korbat walked around the room gathering stuff. After about two minutes, she walked up to me and offered the items to me. I took them. They were pictures.

      "You stay here and take a look at them," the shadow Korbat said. "I'll be back in a couple minutes."

      The Korbat left. After she left, I said, "Alright." even though I was positive she didn't hear me.

      I sat down on the table that was in the room and went through the pictures. There were quite a few to go through. Some in various parts of Neopia, some with random Neopets, some I just didn't care to look at, etc. I did look at one picture the most out of all of them. It was of me, the Korbat, the Bori, and Natia, the Aisha. We all looked very happy.

      If only I could remember when this was taken.

      I decided to take a break from looking at photos. I would go see what that Korbat was doing, but she said she would be back in a couple minutes. Strange, since it seemed like it was a lot more than a couple minutes. Still, the Korbat told me to stay, so I decided to stay.

      After what I believed was twenty minutes, I decided to see where that Korbat went off to. I left the pictures on the table and left the room. Navigating the place was still fairly easy. Why, I did not know. I knew I've been here before. At least that was what the Korbat told me. How many times have I been here?

      For what felt like ten minutes, I finally found where the Korbat was. She was in a room with Natia and that Bori. They were talking and didn't notice me when I looked in. What were they talking about? Should I let them know I was close by? Should I listen to the conversation? Or should I go back to that room the Korbat told me to wait in?

      I decided to listen to the conversation.

      "She's getting better, that's for sure," the Bori said. He sounded hopeful.

      "But I want old Janet back!" Natia whined.

      "All of us want old Janet back," the Korbat sighed. "We can't rush this, Natia."

      "I know, Jane, but how long will it take?"

      The Korbat - Jane, that was what Natia said - seemed to pace the room they were in. By the way she was walking, she seemed uneasy. Why was she uneasy? I wanted to ask her, but I remained silent.

      "That's just it Natia," Jane said. "We don't know for sure. Usually, amnesia can last for a few days, most likely a week or two. Some cases have occurred where victims never get their memory back." That seriously scared me. The possibility of me never getting my memory back was a pretty scary thought.

      "What?" the alien Aisha shouted. "Never get her memory back?"

      "Relax. Relax. The chances of that are very small, and Janet's beginning to remember things. I don't think that'll happen, but it was worth sharing."

      "Let's change the subject," the Bori suggested. "What are we going to do about this Neopet going around Neopia Central attacking others?"

      "I was really hoping you wouldn't mention it, James." Jane sighed again. "I was planning on going out later tonight and maybe look for who was doing this. How's that?"

      "It's alright, but then what do we do with Janet?"

      "Maybe we should just leave her here. I know she's worried about all of this. I don't want her to be more worried than she already is."

      I understood why Jane wanted me to stay here, but I still wanted to help. It did involve me, after all. Even with my amnesia, I could help out, right? Right?I didn't know how I could help, but I knew I could.

      I would have asked Jane if I could help out, but I didn't want her to know that I was listening to their conversation. Besides, I knew what she would say. She would say, "I don't know. You still have amnesia and we don't want to make this entire thing be more confusing than it already is for you." Yeah, I was confused about all of this. Yeah, I was worried about this. That didn't mean I couldn't help out, though.

      Maybe she was right, though. I knew the Korbat was looking out for me. I couldn't even remember my name. It was true that I was remembering things, but I still had no clue who these Neopets were. I only had a vague idea of what was going on with this whole attacking Neopets thing.

      Even though I wanted to talk to everybody, I just walked back to the room I was supposed to wait in. I kinda ran around the halls because I didn't know how long it would take for the Korbat to come back. Luckily, I made it back to the room before she came back. Just in time, too - she walked in shortly after.

      "What took so long?" I asked.

      "It took longer than I thought it would. Sorry about that," the Korbat answered.

      "It's alright. So now what?"

      "Well, James, Natia, and I are going to go out for about an hour to see what we can learn about the attacks that have been going on."

      "Oh, can I come?"

      The Korbat looked surprised when I asked her that. She didn't know what to say at first. After a few seconds, she said, "I don't know about that, Janet. I just think you should stay here and get some mental rest. Do you understand?"

      I knew she was going to say something along those lines. I accepted that she wouldn't let me tag along and said, "I understand."

      "It's not that we don't want you to come with us. We really do. It's just that this could put some strain on you."

      "I get it. You don't have to explain this to me."

      "Thank you for understanding."

      The Korbat left the room. I stayed in the room for a while before I decided to get up and move around. While I waited, I looked at that one picture of me, the Korbat, the Bori, and the Aisha. I felt like I could remember what happened that day if I tried hard enough. Still, I didn't want to strain myself, so I didn't think so hard.

      It was eerily quiet when I left the room. I could only hear my footsteps and my breathing. It was like the other day when I roamed these halls for the first time ever since I got amnesia. This time, I knew I was alone (at least I hoped that I was), so I was a little more at ease.

      Hmm... Where to go, what to do. I was going to be here for a little while, so I would like something to keep me occupied. The best thing that I could think of is to look around. Was it the best thing to do while I was all alone? No, it certainly wasn't. Was it the only thing that I thought of? You bet.

      I passed by that room that had all those trinkets and things inside it. Should I go inside? I was pretty sure that it was safe, but then again, there were all sorts of sharp, pointy, and all around dangerous things. No matter, I was sure that I would be okay. What was the worse that could happen?

      Inside the room was pretty much how it was last time I was in the room - random things piled here and there, filing cabinets kept nice and neat, some things behind glass, etc. Still, even though I knew I was here before, it felt like it was the first time I was in this room. Why was I feeling like this? Something was different, I guess. Possibly.

      Indeed something was different. I looked at the mirror - the one that Natia accidentally cracked. The mirror had some more cracks in the glass. I could still see my reflection, but it was getting harder to distinguish myself with the mirror being one nudge away from being shards on the floor. How was the mirror even more cracked than it was?

      I felt compelled to examine my reflection closer. I walked closer to the mirror and looked at myself. Through the cracks, I saw myself. My body, my tail, my hair, but I focused more on my face. I knew there was a detective behind those eyes of mine, but I couldn't remember if that was even right. It was a gut feeling.

      After a few minutes of looking at my reflection, I decided to move away from the mirror and look around a bit more. My attention was grabbed by some things on a shelf by the mirror. I tried to get a better look, but the shelf was a little out of my sight and I was short. I needed something to stand on. There was a crate nearby, so that would be perfect. I pulled the crate by and stood on it. Now I could see what was on the shelf.

      There were some random trinkets sitting on the shelf. The first one I noticed was a sliver of metal that looked like a whistle. I grabbed it and blew into the whistle. It made no noise. Strange, was it broken? I shrugged and put it back on the shelf. Up next was a dagger. It looked worn. I didn't bother to grab it. There was an item that was about two feet from the dagger that I wanted to get a closer look at. Instead of moving the crate over like a normal Neopet, I just tried to lean over to get a better look.

      That didn't work out so well.

      I ended up falling off the crate belly first. The crate was sent flying in the other direction. I managed to get a look at what it did. The crate hit one of the legs of the mirror and the mirror began to rock. After about five seconds, the mirror finally fell forward. I heard a loud crash with the loud shatter of glass following.

      Great. I just broke a mirror! According to superstition, that was worth seven years of bad luck. Not that I believed in superstition, but I would certainly have some bad luck explaining this to Jane. She would not be happy. What was I going to tell her? What were you thinking, Janet?

      Hold on one minute...

      Janet. My name was Janet. My best friend's name was Jane. Natia was a friend of ours. James was an apprentice of ours. I had a glowing Miamouse named Supra. I was a detective who went on all sorts of crazy cases, made friends and enemies, and had fun doing it.

      My memory. It was back.

      I ended up jumping for joy, I was so happy (that was certainly the first time I did that (and it was certainly the last)). I was getting tired of forgetting names five minutes after I learned them. It was pretty annoying. Now I didn't have to worry about all of this. I knew what was going on.

      Now that I had my memory back, I could help out Jane. I went through one of the filing cabinet and pulled out a file that had today's date on the tab. I opened it up and looked through it. Not much new information - someone attacking Neopians, some losing memory, unknown motive, and that the name of the attacker was Jackie. I tried looking through more papers, but that was pretty much it. The only other thing in the file was a picture. The word, "Dee" was written in fancy cursive across the back. Wasn't Dee that Neopet who also had amnesia? I turned it around to look at the picture. I wasn't happy with the picture. I remembered Dee now.

      Her name wasn't Dee. It was Jackie. And she wasn't a victim - she was the culprit.

      To be continued…