Free Flashback by Simon Rose

real,” said Max. “I could feel the table underneath me and the restraints holding me down. They were as real as this couch, as real as you are!”
    He grabbed Deanna’s hand tightly.
    “It was nothing like a dream or a vision, nothing like them at all!” Max added, starting to panic. “I really felt the needle going in!”
    “Are you certain?” Deanna asked, looking alarmed. “That’s really unusual.”
    “You have to send me back again.”
    “I don’t know, Max,” Deanna protested. “You really freaked me out just now. I’ve never experienced anything like that before.”
    “I need to get further back into David’s memories,” insisted Max, “before the shock of his death. Can you do that?”
    “Of course I can,” Deanna confirmed, before adding hesitantly, “but are you sure?”
    “It’s the only way,” replied Max. “David’s murder is obviously too much of a barrier. You have to try and deliver me to an earlier point in his life.”
    “Okay, Max, if you say so,” Deanna agreed, “but I’m definitely waking you up at the first sign of trouble. Agreed?”
    Max nodded and settled down on the couch, before Deanna repeated her instructions. Once again, Max drifted into semi-consciousness, but he didn’t appear further back in David’s memories. Instead, Max was walking along a dark tunnel, at the end of which was a brilliant white light. Max could see eerie, shifting shapes in the brightness, but couldn’t quite bring them into focus. Then he heard someone speak to him.
    “It isn’t your time. You must go back.”
    Max didn’t recognize the soothing voice. Yet at the same time he sensed an odd connection to the speaker that he couldn’t explain.
    “What is this place?” said Max. “Where am I?”
    The voice simply repeated the words.
    “It isn’t your time. You must go back, but to the beginning. You must put things right.”
    Then suddenly the light vanished and Max was back, but not to where he’d expected to be.
     
     
     
     
     
     

Chapter Ten
Being David
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    MAX WAS STANDING in a beautiful sitting room, containing luxurious sofas and elegant furniture, some of which looked antique. A polished black grand piano stood in front of a large window, outside of which lay a wide gravel driveway framed by rows of tall cedars. On the wall to his right a shelf was filled with framed photographs. One showed David Dexter and his classmates wearing their school uniforms with the school building behind them. A polished trophy stood next to the picture. Max crept over to the shelf. It was a rather nondescript metal cup, but on the plinth underneath was written “First Place - Piano Competition”, along with something in Latin that Max couldn’t understand.
    This was unbelievable. Had Deanna really sent him back into the past? Max heard a noise from upstairs. David’s parents! On the shelf, there were several pictures of Mr. and Mrs. Dexter and at one end of the shelf were two photographs of David. In the first one, he was on a boat standing beside a suntanned middle-aged man who was holding an enormous fish. The palm trees in the background indicated a tropical location. Max recognized the boat and the accompanying scenery from his visions. In the second photograph, David was at a ski resort standing next to a girl with shoulder-length blonde hair. Then in the glass of the frame, Max saw his own reflection.
    He started to hyperventilate and felt like he was going to throw up. Across from the bottom of the staircase, the door to the bathroom was slightly ajar. He darted over, closed the bathroom door and locked it. He leaned against the door, his mind still reeling, although his breathing was returning to normal.
    An ornately framed mirror hung on the wall over the sink and Max was astonished at what he saw. Staring back at him was the face of David Dexter, the thick mop of black hair almost completely obscuring his blue eyes. Max ran his fingers up and