Juncture 4.7

~24 hours remaining~

My eyes flew open, and I heaved in a gasp. My lungs filled with slightly chilly morning air. I blinked. I could breathe. I could see. There was no ash.

My next realization was an obvious one; I was lying down.

It had worked! I had figured out - through unfortunately perilous trial-and-error – how my TA worked. All I had to do was die and I would get sent back to a point where I could actually do something about it. I wasn’t sure why I couldn’t do anything different in school, but as I windmilled my arms and gulped the fresh air I noticed that I wasn’t held back by those limitations.

I could go back and do what I want. A small section of my brain noted that it would be prudent for me to carry around a gun at all times, in case I needed to reset something, but the rest of my brain quickly shushed that part into submission.

I got off of the cot, and got dressed quickly. I walked out and quickly found Jake.

I knew that the first two places we would look wouldn’t have any of the scrolls we were looking for, but the last one might. I found Jake chatting with Julius, no doubt asking about where we should be going. I walked behind him and tapped him on his enrobed shoulder.

“I know the next place we have to look,” I interrupted them with. Julius gave me a quizzical look, no doubt because to him I was speaking fluent gibberish, and Jake turned.

“What?” he asked succinctly.

“I’ll explain while we walk. The first two places Julius will suggest don’t have anything. Or at least, anything for us. The scrolls we’re looking for, I mean.” I answered. Wow I was having issues talking. Death sort of messes with your head, you know?

“Marc. Julius lives here. He knows more than you about Pompeii.” Jake said in response.

“We already looked through them. Or, sorry, I remember us looking through them. It’s my TA, again, I’ll explain later. So we looked through the first two places, then I came back to try and save Julius from the explosion. He didn’t go. So I reset myself. It wasn’t fun.” I paused to take a deep breath. “Now we’re back here and I know that the scrolls aren’t in the first two places. So just follow me, okay?”

Jake blinked at me with a blank look on his face. He opened his mouth, then closed it; then flapped it back and forth a couple of times.

“You… can time travel? By yourself?” he asked.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Yes. Kind of. Sort of, it’s hard to explain. Just come on already!” I turned, then thought of something, and turned around again. “First, ask Julius if he can pack us some lunch. It’s delicious.”

…

~17 hours remaining~

We went to the collector’s house again, only this time he was there. Fortunately, Jake managed to convince him that it was of the utmost importance that we find the scrolls. The collector, Alma, had me drag out a large chest, which she rummaged through quickly. She pulled out around twenty different scrolls and four limestone tablets, being careful to not let any of the dripping gold circles on her person catch on the thin, waxy paper.

She handed them to us, and we sat there, on the floor of the foyer of her house, looking for the symbols that would designate the document as important. I didn’t find anything on the first two I looked at, but struck pay dirt on the third.

The odd sigil that the Sybil used was on the bottom of the scroll, underneath what I saw as hundreds of super-small, super-thin Latin writing. It probably wasn’t that much, but it was a whole lot of words.

“I found one,” I said to Jake. He looked up, a look of fierce concentration perplexing the right half of his face.

“Good. I’ve found four, and gone through… six total,” he paused to count. “As soon as we finish the rest of these we can get the hell out of Pompeii.”

~15 hours remaining~

We had found nine scrolls total, and one tablet, and managed to lug them back to the inn. I ate while Jake was up to something in the room he had slept in. Julius had a late lunch prepared for us, and since Jake passed through the front room without stopping, I got to eat his plate too.

~14 hours remaining~

I was holding onto a half-eaten turkey leg, slowly chewing through the mouthful of meat I had just bitten off when Jake burst out the door. He was carrying one of the scrolls, and he brought it over to Julius, who read it, an expression of horror making itself apparent. He gave the scroll back to Jake with shaky hands, and sat down on the closest stool.

Next, Jake came over to me.

“Grab the bag of scrolls, we’re heading out.”

“What about Julius? What did you just show him?” I asked.

“The Sybil’s prediction for Vesuvius’ eruption. He should be getting everyone he’s close to and getting out as soon as possible,” he said. “People take her seriously around here.”

I dropped the rest of the turkey leg onto the plate on the counter I was sitting at and stood up. Julius looked at me, his eyes full of grief. I couldn’t say anything, so I gave him a wan, sad smile.

~1 hour remaining~

We were almost back at the office. The sky wasn’t quite as dark as it was when I died, but it was still a bloody red. I was barely able to leave everyone else in Pompeii, but there was no way that I would have been able to save all of them. I gave one last look back, then walked through the doorway.

I never went back.