Jyrasck quickly drags me in behind Mist and Ross. “Nineteen years ago your husband got lugged off to prison, domestic violence right?” Ross starts.
“Yeah, and my child is ‘Missing’ what of it?” The silvery-blonde female glances suspiciously towards the four of us.
“Do you remember why your child went quote-on-quote ‘Missing’?”
“Yes, sh– why do you want to know all this? Are you some cultist group?”
Ross immediately jumps up, “No! No, not at all—” The cocoa-haired male starts to ramble about not being a cult while Mist nudges me and hands me a knife. I to her, she nods with a barely suppressed grin.
I walk up to the lady—or should I say my mom—, she looks at me skeptically, now that Ross went quiet, and I stab myself in my shoulder with the given blade.
Her eyes widen in shock, I see the ends of her lips slowly form into, what was a gasp of terror, into a teary-eyed grin. I can barely make out the words she says besides “oh my baby” as she pulls me into a tight embrace. I squeeze her happily back, I HAVE PARENTS!
“H-here, come sit,” she (Mom?) wipes her eyes and nose. “I’ll go make tea,” she offers us seats in the wide room with multiple lounging areas and walks away quickly. She soon after returns with a mug for each of us, “is black tea okay? I have cream and sugar if you’d like any.”
“Oh it’s fine Miss,” Jyrasck smiles politely.
“Alright, um…” she turns to me gingerly, “do you remember anything from before the Laboratory?”
“No’m.”
She sighs, “then I have some explaining to do, huh?” (Mom?) smiles weakly before continuing. “Your father would get drunk a lot after our marriage, a few days after you were born, he crashed into the house drunk as a skunk and started throwing his hands about. H-he hurt you close to death and myself right here,” she rolls up her sleeve to show me a large, ring-ish shaped scar on her outer arm. “Street officers arrested him and put you into ‘custody’ which, clearly, was the Labs. But I would’ve never sent you on my own accord, if you need anything just ask me.”
“Oh, what’s my actual name? They just called me 517 and Unkno back at the Labs.”
“We never got to giving you a first name, but our family name is Soleil. Did you name yourself at the Labs? I’m sorry we didn’t decide on a name before you—”
“Yeah, I call myself Cana ‘cause Unkno is a bleck name. Everyone at the Labs called me Unkno though.”
“Are you all friends from the Labs?” She asks the group.
“Only me ma’am,” Mist looks up from a ‘Sarcastic Comment Loading’ mug.
“What’s your name?”
“Mist.”
“And you two, how do you know Cana?” she points to the boys.
“Met up in town one day,” they say in unison.
“What’s your names?” She pries more.
“I’m Jyrasck, he’s Ross.”
“Any other questions?” She asks, I wonder if she was talking to herself.
Ross pops up, “yeah. Was there any suspicious activities going around here?”
“Suspicious? How so?”
“Supernatural, maybe almost magick-y.”
“Supernatural…” she taps her chin for a second before holding up a finger and walking over to a door and opening it. “I met a couple ‘supernatural’ people recently,” she says motioning something unknown before four, memorable friends. One with short, bone-white hair, one with jet black curls, one with burgundy hair, and Iris.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
I gasp, “Iris! Sam!” Their adjusting eyes go from confused to excited and jump for a hug.
“Unkno!”
“Knives, Antadon, how’ve you been? Did anything curious happen..?” I emphasize ‘curious’ to signal Curio.
Iris smiles in return, “we were almost caught a few times but we made it!”
“Great! Is this everyone who escaped?”
“Dunno, some went in different directions,” Iris shrugs meekly.
“Sit, sit! We have lots to discuss,” I offer seats to Iris and the rest.
“First off,” I hear a deep voiced growl. “Who’re these people?” Knives snarls in his average, low, “I hate everyone” voice as he points his nose towards Jyrasck and Ross.
“They’re allies who also hate the Curio-Lab stuff,” Mist pipes up, chewing a tea-cookie my mother brought in.
“How will they help get everyone back?” Sam raises his hand and sets it down once finishing.
“Whell…” My face turns into a smug grin, “this mans over here is like us! He has abilities too.” I splay my arms out to Jyrasck, who nods proudly. Iris’s eyes light up, Knives still discontent as ever.
“And that one?” He huffs towards Ross.
“He’s su-uper smart and can help find the others and create cool items to help,” I jab a thumb in Ross’ direction. Sam’s eyes glitter with fascination at the words “cool items”.
Knives clicks his tongue, “I don’t understand why we can’t do this ourselves.”
“‘Cause you can’t kill everything besides Honeycomb,” Iris snips at the large boy.
“Shuddap or you’re the next victim.”
“Yeah,” Iris sarcastically mumbles, “how are you planning to do this then?”
“Great question for the masterminds,” I turn to Mist and Ross. They start staring at Mist, who quickly turns to Ross.
“Uh…” he fidgets a little before popping open his notebook. “Well for starters, we rally up all the escapee Tested or Tested relatives such as Jyra and Mrs. Soliel to get somewhat of a movement going on. With that it can spread all around America as an underground rebellion or maybe like the movements in AD before we work our way into the system of government. It’ll take a while, but it’s our best shot so far.”
“Ah, so we expand our population, like the political parties before braving the storm of political chaos,” Mother paraphrases. “Seems smart to me. And we have a good population start off right here,” she beams with a warm smile.
“Yes,” Ross replies. “But we need to become the ideal option, with the ideal politician. And you know how they work with deceit and framing,” he sighs somewhat bitterly.
Mother (Mom?) nods, “fair. And the debates can change the tides in moments.”
“Mmm…” They nod in either thought or agreement, I honestly don’t know what the heck they’re talking about. Politicians? Debates?? Framing? Ah whatever. I don’t speak Ross-ian.
I yawn, I’ll probably learn about that later maybe. Tuning out, I strike conversation with Antadon, Iris, and Sam.
“When did y’all get here?”
“A couple days ago,” Iris replies.
“Is it just you four?”
“Yeah, I didn’t find anyone else on the trip here,” Sam answers, holding a warm mug in his oversized sleeves.
“How about you? Did you see anyone?” Iris asks as Sam drains the mug.
“Nope, but maybe we can find them ‘cause of Mist’s aberra.”
A slight silence falls before the three speak in pure unison, “aberra?”
“It’za better way to say abnormality that we made up, makes it feel less ‘you belong in a Laboratory’.”
Sam lights up, “ooh. I like it, ‘aberra’,” he smiles, going around and saying it in different ways.
“How did you manage to start living here?” I ask, the thought tugging on the back of my brain.
“Sam went searching for a place to rest, like an abandoned church or something but Antadon took a more forward approach. He found the place and walked in, we scared the living lights outta’ Mrs. Soleil once she found out.” Iris laughs a little at the end.
“Yeah, after we escaped I found a town and met Jyra over there while Mist was found by Ross. We were almost caught by Curio so we traveled down that way before finding out where my mom is.”
Iris jumps a little after hearing “Curio”. “Oh, yeah, about the Curio… How should we go around them? If we’re gonna free everyone, we’ll need to get past them and stuff…”
I think through the question, “true. And we also don’t know the other locations for the Labs… but that’s where you come in right?”
Iris shakes her head, “I can only do it in a building or a few streets’ radius if I’m outside.”
“Oooh…” I groan, “I’ll have to ask Ross then.”
Sam pipes up before I continue, “did you see…” he mutters something unidentifiable.
“See wha?”
“Have you seen… hon I comb?” Sam repeats as if he has a bad taste in his mouth. Hon…I…comb… Hon-EE-comb— Honeycomb!
“Oh! Nope, but maybe she went in a different direction when we were running,” Sam grimaces as I explain.
“What about Mist? Any visions?”
“Nope, sorry,” I shrug.