Parent Search

Brian was very unhappy to be woken in the middle of the night. He glowered at James as he stood in his pajamas, hair disheveled from sleep.

"What do you want? You know I have so much to do that my sleep is extremely precious." Brian grumbled.

"Well, we got us a ghost here in the guild, and I need you to help me find the ghost mommy and daddy. So, get your ass in gear, bub, it's time to find them." James said without prelude.

"Seriously? Couldn't this have waited until morning?" Brian complained.

"Sure, if you're willing to risk the ghost turning into some kind of evil monster that wreaks havoc on the guild until we subdue it. It all could have been prevented by spending a little time finding a couple of people in the guild. It's your call, I guess." James shrugged.

"Fine," Brian sighed heavily. "Let me get dressed, and we will see what we can do."

Closing the door, Brian got himself ready as James waited in the hallway. Leaning against a wall, James whistled the theme song from Family Guy as he waited patiently. Soon, Brian appeared from his room.

"Let's get on with it. Take me to the ghost so I can get some information about who to look for"

Leading the way back to the elevators, the pair returned to the group who were sitting around and talking with Jason, trying to keep the situation light for his sake.

"Ah, Brian. Thanks for coming so quickly. I know it's late, and you more than deserve your rest. We wouldn't ask you here if it wasn't important." Tom greeted Brian.

"Right, what is it I can do to help, Tom?" Brian asked.

"This is Jason. He needs to find his parents. He said he has a strong pull to this building when he focuses on them. We need to help him find them." Tom replied.

"Great. What are their names? Once we know that, I should be able to find them easily."

"There's the rub. We don't know their names. When Jason died, his memories were lost. We've been trying to help him retrieve them, but it's not working with their names. I figured we could use some of his experiences to find out who they are."

"I suppose we can begin by bringing all the people who lost children together and then asking them for their stories so that we can find who Jason belongs to. Though, that will require making them all relive what were likely the worst moments of their lives so far. Are you really okay with that?"

"I hadn't thought of that, but this is a situation where if we don't act, Jason could become a serious danger to the people of the guild. I don't think we have much choice in the matter."

"Very well. I will get working on it right away. It may take some time, though."

"We don't have a lot of time. So, we need to get working on this now and figure it out as fast as possible. Jason could change while we are searching, then we would have put these parents through the hell of reliving those events for nothing. Get as many people to help interview the parents as possible to speed up the process."

"I'll do that. If I can borrow your team, that would help me being the process."

"Sure, anything you need," Tom nodded, then looked back to Jason. "We will find them. In the meantime, why don't you tell me more about any other memories you can? It doesn't matter what they were, just anything that comes to mind."

"We'll leave you to watching Jason for now. As soon as we know something, we'll let you know. Why don't you take him to the security office, so we know where to find you?" Brian offered.

"You okay with that, Jason?" Tom asked.

"Sure. I'll go with you for now. Thank you for helping me find my parents."

"Of course, Jason. We always want to help where we can."

"Let's see, more memories. Happy memories are my favorite. Oh, I do remember one time when Mom and Dad took me out to a baseball game. I remember the stadium was so big. Dad was teaching me how the game worked. Hit the ball, run to the bases, get points. They played music for the batters, and people did the wave through the crowd. We joined in and Mom was laughing and smiling when we stood up and raised our hands."

Jason smiled as he remembered this time. He seemed so peaceful when he thought about the baseball game.

"Mom bought me a hotdog and a nacho. They were so good. There were people who were yelling in the crowd about peanuts and cotton candy. Dad said if our team won, he would buy me a hat to remember the day."

"That sounds like so much fun! Did they win?"

"They did! Dad got me a hat with a T on it. I was so tired when we were done that Dad had to carry me back to the car. I fell asleep on the ride home."

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"I remember going to my first baseball game too. It really is fun just getting to do things with your parents." Tom said, thinking back to some of his own memories.

"Where are your parents, Tom?" Jason asked.

"They died a while ago. I don't really have any family. I consider my friends family now, and the people in the guild. That's why I work so hard to help them."

"I wish I had found you before I died. Maybe you could have helped me." Jason looked so sad when he said this.

"I'm sorry, Jason. That was such a terrible time. Everyone was panicking with no idea what to do. But remembering the good times helps us get through."

"I do feel better when I think of happy memories, like this one time when we went to Six Flags. I rode the roller coasters with Dad while Mom watched from the side. She did get on the carousel with me, though. It was so much fun. Then we went to the games area, and I won a giant stuffed banana by throwing a ball into a big bucket."

"I remember playing some of those games. Such a fun time when you go with people you love. You were so blessed to have parents like that."

Brian began work on the finding of anyone who had lost a child during the integration. When he went through his list of members, he realized he hadn't asked for this information from them.

"It didn't seem important at the time, but I guess hindsight is always twenty-twenty," Brian said.

"How could you know we were going to have a ghost that could turn into a terrible monster if we didn't find its parents, who just so happen to be members of our guild?" TJ asked, chuckling. "Don't beat yourself up over it. We'll find them. I'm making an announcement for all parents who lost a child to come to the gym. We should be able to begin interviewing them shortly."

"What a giant pain. These things just keep happening to us. I guess life after the apocalypse isn't meant to be easy. And I suppose we do have it pretty easy now that we've established ourselves and found so many people to help. But still." Brian put his hands on the sides of his head as he pouted.

"Oh, don't be so whiny about it. This just comes with the territory. We needed to learn all we could about our people anyway, and this just speeds up the process," TJ said.

After the announcement was made, Brian and TJ made their way to the gym. When they arrived, they found more people than they had expected.

"This is not good," Brian said, looking around at all those gathered.

"Why not? We wanted to find them. This seems like a good situation." TJ asked.

"For that purpose, it is good. But this is a sad room. All of these people lost a child. Some appear to have lost more than that as they came alone." Brian replied. "We are about to put them through hell in remembering all of those details."

"I didn't think of that. Really changes the mood. But it has to be done. Let's get them organized so we can begin the process."

TJ and Brian met up with the other volunteers. Derek had put together a sheet with information that Jason had given them about what happened during his death. He distributed them to the others, and they all took time to read over the details. When they were comfortable with what they needed to know.

"If anyone finds the family, please say something. We will get them in touch with Jason as soon as we can. Does anyone have any questions?" Derek asked.

No one said anything.

"Good, then let's begin."

As the volunteers began to spread out to speak with the families, others had them moved to the bleachers to sit and wait to be called. Tables and chairs were set up for the interviews to be conducted more privately so as not to spread the information around to others. One at a time, the couples or individuals were brought to the tables to speak with someone and tell their story.

Many tears were shed during the recounting of events that led up to the death of their loved ones. Some still hadn't even seemed to have dealt with the grief and appeared to nearly break as they told tales of what occurred.

After a couple of hours of speaking with people, Kiera finally found the couple who had the same story as Jason. Asking the parents to wait at the table, she moved to let Derek know.

"I've found them. Mr. and Mrs. Forest. They lost their child in the exact circumstances that Jason told Tom about. They don't understand why we are here. I haven't explained yet to be sure we handled it the way you want." Kiera said.

"That's probably best. Thanks, Kiera. I'll be over to speak with them momentarily. We need to keep the others going so we don't raise too many suspicions about what's happening." Derek said.

He finished reviewing the information the others had gathered and then moved over to the table where the couple was sitting and chatting with Kiera.

"Mr. and Mrs Forest, I'm so sorry to bring you here under these circumstances," Derek greeted them.

"It's no trouble. We're just glad we can help. Though it's strange that you all are asking about how our son died. Is there something wrong?" Mr. Forest asked.

"This is a rather delicate situation that we find ourselves in. We are using this to try to gather more information about our guild members in case something comes up in the future. All the information you gave us is only going to help make things run more smoothly in the future, so I want to thank you for your cooperation," Derek began. That being said, I do also have some news to give you. We recently found a ghost in the guild building."

Mr. and Mrs. Forest looked shocked and a little worried at this pronouncement.

"A ghost? Is it dangerous? Do we need to be worried?" Mrs. Forest asked.

"No, we don't think it poses any threat, so long as we handle things the right way. But the main reason we have you all here is that this ghost appears to be your son, Jason."