Four years ago, Ben King was announced as a missing runaway. One year later, the case went cold, and investigators gave up the search.
Ben was a respectable young man. He had a 4.0 GPA and was even the captain of the varsity football team. You can imagine when the eldest son, the pride and joy of the King family, goes missing, it's tough for the family. Paul, the father, couldn't handle the gravity of the despair that was his reality and figured the most straightforward way out was by taking his own life. All that's left of the King family is Emma and X. After the death of Paul, Emma thought it was best to move to a new town. She wanted to start a clean slate for X when he entered high school and tried to take him away from all the bad memories associated with their hometown.
X is now a senior in high school, but he's changed since the disappearance of Ben. Every day in the halls of his high school, faceless people come and go like blurs.
"I couldn't care less about these background people. I don't need anybody." X's heart had truly gone cold.
"Hey!! X!! I've been looking all over for you." A young man's voice calls out from behind X.
"Oh, hey, Donny. What's going on, man?" Donny is one of the very few people whose company X actually enjoys. He is a cliche' tall skinny African-American kid with a short flat-top afro. He is also very athletic, so much so Donny is an integral part of the football and basketball teams, but he shines the brightest as the star of the baseball team. Also, he doesn't like to be called "Donny" very much.
"What'd you call me?!" Adonis exclaims. Adonis is a relatively easy going guy. There isn't a whole lot in the world to make him upset, but whenever someone calls him "Donny," he becomes somewhat distraught.
"If you call me that again, I will end you!" Adonis assured X.
"Okay, okay, relax bud." "Why have you been looking for me?" X asks, trying to change the subject quickly.
"Oh, right! I've been running around like a mad man to find you." Adonis' attitude took another drastic turn.
"Yea, I can tell you already had your morning coffee, now why were you looking for me?" X said in a demeaning tone.
"Some new girl in my homeroom said she knows you, she's a transfer student," Adonis explains.
"A transfer student?! That knows me!? It can't be! Can It?" X's mind raced at the thought of seeing someone special he left behind when he moved towns. X was against the notion of moving, but he knew that his mother clearly needed the change more than he did. Reluctantly he went with no fuss. It broke his heart to leave Diane back then, but now he can barely remember his old friend's face.
"Uhh, did you hear me just now?" Adonis chimes in, snapping X out of his trance-like state.
X whipped his head back up in response, "huh? no, I didn't hear a thing you said."
Annoyed, Adonis repeated himself, " I said, '' Do you really have another friend besides me?"
" Uh, yea, believe it or not. 4 years ago, I had countless friends," X revealed.
"WHAT!? No. I've known you for four years, and I've been your only friend for all 4 of 'em?" Adonis clarifies.
"Exactly man, I moved here four years ago."
"Come to think of it I don't know a single thing about you before four years ago." Adonis realized.
"Now you're gettin' it bud." X pokes fun.
"Well... What happened to you?" Adonis urges.
"Another time, man, I gotta go to my class soon," X Suggests.
"Fine ill hold you to that after class." Adonis insists
"You got it, Donny!!" X yells out after taking off down the hallway to his class, waving back to adonis with an arrogant smirk.
*tsk*
Meanwhile, in Adonis' class.
Adonis sat in the far back right side of the class, so He had a seat next to the windows. (Yes, just like in every slice of life anime/manga). A shady-looking character leans over in his chair to speak to Adonis.
"Psst, your friend has been holdin' out on you, huh?" the guy whispered.
"What are you talking about? Who are you? I've never seen you here before." Speculates Adonis.
"C'mon man. I saw you guys talking. He's not telling you something. Aren't you guys' friends?" The stranger pestered.
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"DUDE!- MR. Jones! Are you feeling okay, son? " Adonis was cut off by his teacher.
"Yeah, but this guy keeps bugging me, sir!" Adonis explains.
"What are you talking about, Adonis? Nobody sits to the right of you." The teacher questioned. Adonis is rocked as he realizes that he sits in the far back right side of the classroom in a row all to himself. Hoping against hope that he wasn't crazy, Adonis turns to look to his right. Just an empty row of desks void of any suspicious figures.
"You guys telling me you didn't see a shady looking guy sitting right here just a second ago?!" Various voices in the class chime in.
" You were talking to your self, dude."
"There wasn't anybody there."
"That's right I was watching you act all crazy the whole time."
"NO! What the hell is going on?!" Adonis started to lose it.
"Maybe you should go see the nurse son." the teacher insisted
"Yeah, I guess you're right, I’ll go to the nurses and rest a bit."
"I'll let the nurse know that you're on your way."
Walking down the hallway on his way to the nurses' office, Adonis starts to feel nauseous. His salivary glands begin to fill up, and now it's only a matter of time before he blows chunks — Adonis races to the nearest men's room. Kicking open the swing door and sprints to the sink, just barely making it. After Adonis's gut is emptied, he finally has a chance to get his thoughts collected.
"What's going on with me? First, that guy nobody else saw, and now I feel like complete shit. Above all else, though, X is keeping something from me, and I need to find out what it is no matter what."
Looking at himself in the mirror, Adonis abruptly gets a text. He pulls his phone out from his pocket and looks to see who it's from. A look of bewilderment travels across Adonis' face.
"How the hell does a four-digit number text? 1056?"
"Hey, Adonis, did you like my surprise for you?"
"Who is this?"
"A friend and I won't keep secrets like X."
"How do you know that?? Did you send that shady guy!? "
"Ah, that must be the hallucinogenic drug I had slipped in your morning coffee." ‘So that guy was a hallucination?‘ Adonis thought.
"BASTARD, you "had slipped?" so you're working with someone else? "
"Well, aren't you astute? "
"Who is it? I'll find him and beat the answer to who you are out of him."
"LOL, I like you. Who do you think I'm working with? The one person close enough to you that he can put something in your coffee without you noticing. The one keeping secrets about his suspicious past."
"X? No, that's a ridiculous notion. We've been friends for nearly five years."
"That's true, but what do you really know about your dear old friend?"
"He would never work with you! Especially not to drug me!"
"Ask him."
Adonis sits silently in the bathroom, trying to register the entirety of this situation. However, the lunch bell ringing triggers him into action. Like the start gun at a track meet. He had one thing on his mind. Find Xavier.
*At the same time as Adonis' drug trip, but in X's class.*
"Attention class, today we have a new transfer student in our class. Give a warm welcome to our latest student, Diane!" Announced the teacher. X's heart was about to pump straight out of his chest. He couldn't tell if he was more anxious or excited to see his old friend. A short girl comes in the room in boyfriend jeans, black boots, a black crop top shirt, and a black and red flannel. She has wavy brown hair that looks softer than velvet sand, like a sea of sand, the Sahara desert. She was a gorgeous hippie girl. Her bewitching blue eye survey the class. Eventually, their gazes meet, and X's heart skips a beat.
"X!!" Diane yells out. Startled by her sudden outburst, X instinctively straightens up.
"Woah, she already has some kid trained like a dog." A random kid added.
Diane runs to X and throws her arms around him, squeezing him tight. The boys stare in envy, and the girls stare in judgment, but X was just happy to see his friend again.
"What are you doing here, Diane? I can't believe I'm looking at you right now."
"X before I tell you that, we have something we need to talk about," Diane demands.
"What is it?" X asks
"Ben... and Paul," Diane mutters.
"Yea, I guess you have a right to know, but you have to wait until lunch because one other person also deserves to know." proposes X.
"Okay, Who?" Diane wonders.
"The only friend I've had since I moved out here," X explains.
"Do you guys mind pausing your little moment I have a class to teach!" The teacher shouts.
The rest of the class, Adonis and Diane, are unable to concentrate or focus. When the bell rings, Daine immediately pesters X.
"What happened, X? Tell me now!" Diane commanded.
"Hold on, girl, come with me to the cafeteria.
Meanwhile, Adonis is marching toward closer and closer to an unsuspecting X.
"X!! YOU TWO FACED BASTARD!" Adonis Calls out to X.
"What are you talking about, man?! Relax!!" X confusedly yells.
"I got sick last period, and a number texted me telling me YOU slipped me something in my coffee this moring!!" Adonis explains.
"Adonis, I am your friend, I would never slip you, anything man. You know that." X says with the hopes of calming his friend. After a couple of moments, Adonis finally has time to wrangle up his emotions.
"Yea, you're right. I wasn't thinking straight because of the drug, probably. A number that short could never text anyway." Adonis explains. But X looks troubled at what Adonis said.
"What's wrong, bro?" asks Adonis.
"Did you just say you got a text from a short number?" X trembles.
"uhh yeah, what's the matter with you?" Adonis asks, progressively becoming more worried.
"1056?" X mumbles.
"What?" Adonis asks, straining to hear.
"1056! WAS THE NUMBER 1056!?" X yells, clutching his friends' shirt.
"Yes, how did you know that?" Adonis asks, genuinely curious.
"1056? I've been getting texts from the same number recently." Diane chimes in. X turns to his childhood friend, in complete horror, and disbelief.
"What the hell is going on?! I can't go through this again."