Nethersky - Chapter 10

After neatly pushing the metal chair back in place underneath the desk, Yuning used his new set of memories as a guide to take him to where the phone was located.

For a while, Yuning wasn’t even sure if his double owned a phone because when he had first explored the apartment, he didn’t come across any landlines. This worried him quite a bit, cause come on, he would need a phone.

However, after seeing a snippet of a memory, this concern was discarded. Plus, there was the fact that it made no sense for Yuning’s other self not to have one.

So he scoured through his memories for a while and got a flash of his double talking on what seemed to be an advanced form of a cell phone. Sadly, the vision only told Yuning what he was looking for when he needed to know the where.

Knowing that Yuning once again searched his mind until he found a memory of his double taking off the device and putting it away inside the white nightstand that was next to his bed.

As he walked over towards it, he couldn’t help but think how similar the two of them were in this aspect. The nightstand was the place where he used to store his gadgets for the night as well.

Yuning remembered the time when he thought he lost his brand new Pear phone only to find it stashed underneath all his junk a week later after he bought a new one.

Shaking his head at his wastefulness, he pulled open the nightstand’s top drawer and started to rummage through it. Like his own one, there were all sorts of clutter inside it, from syringe boxes to skin creams.

‘Why the hell would he need so many skin creams?’ Yuning wondered while picking up one of the bottles and examining it.

As Yuning did so, he felt himself being drawn into another memory, similar to what he experienced before when he was exploring the apartment.

One minute he was staring at a small bottle in his room; the next, he was in a doctor’s office watching a past memory play out with his double in one of the leading roles.

~~~~

‘”Doctor! Please tell me what’s wrong with my son!” begged an older woman, standing next to an examination table her child was sitting on.

“Mrs. Xao, please calm down. After running some tests, we discovered that your son developed a small side effect from the medicine.”

“A small side effect!? Are you crazy? How is this a small side effect?” questioned Mrs. Xao, worriedly glancing over at her son, who was covered in giant red rashes. “What kind of small side effect could cause my baby’s face, arms, and legs to be covered in blisters?”

“It’s called skin sensitivity, Mrs. Xao, and in your boy’s case, it’s sensitivity to the sun. It’s a common side effect of the cancer medicine your son is on. We will give him some medicine to make the blisters go away, but from now on, when he goes outside, he needs to be covered or wearing sunscreen. Do you understand?”

Nodding her head, Mrs. Xao said, “Yes, I understand. Can you recommend to me some good brands to use?”

“Sure, I will write down some for…”

~~~~

Even before the doctor in the memory could finish his sentence, Yuning was already out of his trance and was looking at the skin cream with new eyes.

‘No wonder this body’s complexion was like a vampire’s; any direct sunlight would destroy it.’ Yuning thought as he read the bottle’s label. ‘Although it’s good that I found out about it, or else I probably would have burnt to ash if I went out without knowing.’

Putting the bottle down on top of the nightstand as a reminder, Yuning continued rummaging through the drawer until he found the cell phone. As he lifted the circular silver band, he couldn’t help but think about how much phones had changed since his time.

They were no longer the handheld devices that they used to be; now, they were wearable. How weird was that?

These wearable devices were called HaloScreen, and it needed DNA to activate and used body heat to charge.

The HaloScreen creator understood that people like to use their phones for almost everything, from personal to private. With that understanding, if a person were to lose their phone, then they might as well have lost all their information.

So with the knowledge that every person’s DNA is different but is accessible to someone who really wants it, they made it so that only the skin cells can be used.

Yuning thought it was quite ingenious; it would definitely stop snooping significant others that wanted to spy or phone theft attempts.

Putting the silver band on his arm, Yuning waited a couple of seconds as he saw in the memory before pressing the power button. What happened next was like something out of a sci-fi movie.

Although he was expecting it, having a transparent screen pop up out of the device made him smile with amazement. But he couldn’t help it; it looked like something out of Star Wars.

Shaking his head at his silliness, tapped open the phone book icon and scrolled through the numbers until he found the one that was his doctor’s.

Pressing the green button next to his name, Yuning waited for his video call to go through, only to be stopped by a prerecorded voice.

“Your call can’t go through as dialed! Your service has been canceled! To renew your phone service, please call 1- 800-xxx-xxx-xxxx!”

‘Why would the service be canceled?’ Yuning wondered, confusion etched onto his face.

Yuning knew that the previous owner wouldn’t have canceled it. He had a little sister to take care of, so he would want to make sure he could contact her and the school she goes to.

Suddenly, while he wondered about it, another memory flashed through his mind, and he knew the reason.

It seemed that the freelance company was helping him with more than just providing free internet and a computer. From what the memory showed, the company was providing him with cell service as well.

Lifting a hand to his forehead, Yuning closed his eyes and silently sighed. He really wished his other self was here; that way, he could berate him for his stupidity.

Like how he was supposed to take care of his sister for him when he got rid of everything that would make it easy for him to do so. Yuning was never a violent person, but he sure did feel like throttling someone right now.

‘Alright, Yuning, calm down, and think. Where can I go to use the internet?’

As soon as the question crossed his mind, a metaphorical lightbulb lit up above his head, giving him the answer.

Yuning remembered that when he was watching his other self’s memories in the white room. And there was a memory where his double wanted to find a way to kill himself without leaving a trace.

To not leave one, he went to a net cafe that was just down the street from and used one of the computers from there. Looking over the memory some more, Yuning saw that the price for using a computer was relatively affordable, so he didn’t have to worry about money.

With him not having internet or phone usage, having another option that was cheap and close by was wonderful.

Gazing at the clock, Yuning saw that if he rushed and got dressed, he would have more than enough time to go out and come back before his instant sister came home.

He might be able to do a little food shopping as well while he was out. With the knowledge that he had no time to waste, he rushed into the bathroom so he could take a shower.