This life is NOT better.
Been a while.
I haven't written a word in this biography of mine in a long time.
I almost forgot all about it. I was cleaning my room when it just showed up out of nowhere...
It's been about five years, I think.
I'm ten years old now. Double digits.
I've made it to sixth grade—middle school.
I'd call it a new start, but there are only three schools in this town: one elementary, one middle, and one high school. So I still see all the same people as before.
I also found out that, since I'm writing the story of my own life, it's called an autobiography.
Interesting, right?
Anyways...
I'm not really sure what to write, so I'll just give an update.
Let's start with my memory.
Back when I was still writing this regularly, I came up with the goal of surpassing my previous life.
Being better than I was before.
I thought my memory would help me achieve that goal.
But it hasn't.
I originally thought my memories would come back as I got older, but I still don't remember much.
And because I don't remember much, it's hard to tell whether I've actually achieved anything at all.
So, about two years ago, when I first started noticing that, I came up with a new goal.
Instead of trying to be better than my last life, I'd become the best version of my current self.
People always say comparing yourself to others just makes you miserable.
So, this life is not better. Just different.
And different isn't always bad.
But it isn't always good either.
When we first established Base 24 all those years ago, I thought:
"Damn, this life is way better."
"I have friends."
"I have a base."
"I'm part of the community."
But looking back on it now...
I got lucky.
I was emotional.
I lost control of myself.
I confused having people around me with actually growing as a person.
I thought being part of something meant I had changed.
So, I don't think I'm better.
Not yet.
I still have room to grow.
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Factory 24.
It's grown...
A lot.
Five years is a long time.
Our town has a population of about 7,500 people.
There are about 1,300 students in town altogether.
And at least a hundred of them have either gone to Factory 24 or still go there regularly.
Because of the number of kids using it, we've developed rules.
And, naturally, a class system.
That part happened on its own.
The newer kids do most of the dirty work, like cleaning and moving things around. The longer you stay, the better your place in the group becomes.
My group are basically the owners of it.
We have the final say in every decision.
And we use the office almost all the time.
It's actually started to attract the attention of the local government.
We've basically created an artificial little civilization inside an abandoned factory.
Mayor Tom is against Factory 24. He thinks it should be shut down, or that the ownership should be clarified.
I can't really blame him.
If things ever got too wild or uncontrollable, who knows what could happen?
But there isn't much he can do.
If Factory 24 got shut down, his reputation would probably drop hard.
Most parents and teachers are in favor of it. They seem to think that, if we succeed in using it as a miniature version of a government, we'll grow up to be more successful.
Back to the class system.
It's troubling—this hierarchy of ours.
My group actually believes everyone should be equal. We vote on everything, so no one can really complain.
But it seems we've built up too much trust.
Whenever it's time to vote, everyone just goes along with what we want.
And if even we're divided, we usually settle it with a coin flip.
We don't really have a choice but to be at the top.
The only reason we are is because we founded Factory 24.
No one built this system.
It just formed on its own.
I said the newer members were made to clean, but that isn't really true.
The founding group helps clean too.
It's the other members who push most of the work onto the newer kids.
I don't mind it staying this way, but if it gets any worse, I'll make sure to step in.
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My group.
The founders of Factory 24.
Me, Melanie, George, Leo, and Mel.
We've all matured.
Let's go one by one through what they've been up to.
Melanie.
She's in eighth grade now.
She doesn't help run Factory 24 all that much anymore.
She has her own group of friends she spends time with, so we don't see her very often.
She only really comes around when we need her for a major decision, or when she and her friends want to hang out with us.
George.
He's less eccentric now.
But he still isn't very smart.
He joined the track team and the basketball team at school, so he spends a lot of his time training.
When he's not training, though, he can usually be found at Factory 24 trying to get someone to play basketball with him.
At one point, he thought it would be a good idea to create a flag for Factory 24.
Everything he came up with was terrible, so we shut that idea down pretty quickly.
Leo.
He's incredibly smart.
Smarter than I am, even with two lives' worth of knowledge to work with.
That makes him useful when decisions need to be made.
Whenever we don't know what to do, he usually tries to find the most logical way to prove what should be done.
He's also become kind of a book nerd.
Not as much as Mel, though.
Mel.
She's so outgoing now.
She's not nearly as nervous, and she actually speaks with confidence.
At least, that's what I thought.
Then I saw her meet someone new for the first time in a while, and she went right back to the shy, timid girl I remembered.
I think Factory 24 has helped her, though.
She knows all the members personally, and she can hold conversations with them just fine.
She's kind of like the factory princess.
Now, for the more complicated part...
Elaine, Sarah, and Liam.
Elaine.
She's one of the popular girls at school now.
She has a boyfriend, but it's sixth grade, so it probably won't last long.
She's changed a lot since our argument back in first grade.
She always tries to act cool and unserious, but I can tell she's hiding something.
A couple of years ago, she finally found out she was banned from Factory 24.
She acted like it didn't matter, but it definitely looked like it did.
She's not as bratty as she used to be, but she's still very egotistical.
Sarah noticed her changing, decided she didn't like where it was going, and stopped being friends with her.
Sarah.
After drifting away from Elaine, she started coming to Factory 24 more often.
Eventually, she found a new group of kids to talk to and hang out with, but it doesn't seem like much about her has actually changed personality-wise.
It makes me wonder what happened between her and Elaine that made them stop being friends.
Liam.
That damn snitch.
He's kind of an odd one out at Factory 24.
He can read a room so well that, most of the time, you don't even notice he's there.
Leo is logically smart.
Liam is socially smart.
Over time, he learned how to pick locks and eventually managed to unlock the front gate of the factory.
That let us patch up the side fence and fill in the hole.
Overall, he's become one of the core background members of Factory 24.
That pretty much sums up everything over the last five years.
Let's hope things stay peaceful.
———————————————————————
That didn't last long.
It's only been three days since I wrote that update, but things have gone south fast.
Last night, in my sleep, I had a really vivid dream.
So vivid it almost felt real.
It was real.
I was dreaming about my past life.
I looked about eight or nine years old.
It felt like watching a timelapse of my life.
It started with me discovering Factory 24.
Over time, I saw more and more people using it, until it became a full base.
Almost exactly like the one we have now.
At first, I was relieved.
Finally, a real memory.
Something clear.
Something complete.
But that feeling didn't last long.
Because if this was the part of my past coming back to me now, then it probably meant something was about to happen.