February 15, 2008

“How long have we been driving?” Jacobs leans back in his seat, tapping his clipboard. The woman at the wheel ignores him, taking another turn. “I don’t know. Five-ten minutes or something?” she takes another turn, meeting another stretch of path. She bites her bottom lip, watching both sides of the path. “Hey, what’s up?” she shakes her head. “Nothing.” Jacobs prods her arm with a pen. “I am no fool. Share your troubles.” she sighs, before grimacing. “It’s-It’s just painful. Looking at her, It reminds me of Chloe.” Jacobs nods his head. “I see.” she tightens her grip on the steering wheel. “I-I understand what’s going on in that boy’s mind, and I don’t like watching a kid go through that.” The man nods his head. “We’ll figure it out, and one day, he’ll move on. It sucks, but that’s how life is. It’s not your responsibility to worry about him.” Jessica sends him a cold glare. “Yeah.” she turns back to the road. Jacobs turns toward the window, cursing himself.

After a few more moments of driving, he hears her mumble his name. “Jacobs.” he looks over at her. She’s staring out the front window, a perplexed look stuck on her face. He turns to the window, and shock hits him. At the exit to the forest stands a man. He was wearing a long sleeve shirt with a white wolf on a black background. His pants are black and hang loosely off him. His physique was comparable to Jacobs, and so was the man’s brown hair. The man’s face was covered by a gas mask. The authentic look of it was chilling. “Come on.” she makes a sign for the man to move. “He might not be able to see us.” Jessica responds by moving the car forward slowly. The man stares at them. She makes the sign once more. “Okay, what the hell.” she opens the patrol car door. As soon as she does this, he gives her a gesture to come toward him. She gives him a curious glance. He reaches down into his pants pocket, pulling out an item and throwing it in front of him. With that, he turns and walks away. “Jessica, let's go.” she ignores Jacobs, walking away from the car. The winter chill starts to die down as she gets closer to the item. Once she’s in front of this item, she felt nothing. No chill, nor heat, just a feeling of something missing. She bent down to pick up a cloth wrapped around an object. She pulls away the cloth, and takes in the item. Confusion appears on her face. A wooden horse, much like the one she has, even including the scratch on it’s butt that she’d given it when she hadn’t been paying attention. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out her own horse, holding them next to each other. Everything was the same, and she could completely confirm this.

Holding this new horse, she suddenly begins to feel queasy. She wanted to drop it, but instead, she tightened her grip on it. A ringing echoes in her ears. She grits her teeth and squeezes her eyes shut.

“Jessica!” all the tension in her body releases, and the sensations she lost where replaced as she opens her eyes to a burning patrol car. “What the-ah!” she attempts to lift herself up, but falls back down. Her left arm is covered in cuts and bruises and was pointed in an awkward angle. “Jacobs, where are you?!” she struggles her way up onto her feet and holds her arm to her body. She stumbles toward the car. “Jacobs!” she hears a grunt from the other side of the car. She stumbles, falling onto the front of the car. She finally sees Jacobs, his legs pinned under the car. “Jacobs, wake up!” the man lets out another groan as he opens his eyes. “H-huh?” he looks to his legs. “Oh dammit!” he lifts himself up with difficulty, now in a sitting position. “Dammit, dammit, dammit!” Jessica manages to walk over to him, using the car for support. “Don’t worry. I’m sure someone will get here eventually. Just grit your teeth.” Jacobs takes a deep breath before clenching his teeth shut, his teeth scraping against each other while he did so.

Jessica focuses intently, attempting to remember how she’d gotten there. Everything was a blur, a mix up of events in a confusing order. “Alright, Jacobs, listen very carefully. What’s the last thing you remember?” the man swallowed constantly, barely able to let out a sound before trailing off. “I-we-yes, yes, I think there was a-um-bomb! A bomb! Someone put a bomb in the ca-shhhh! God, it hurts!” “Jacobs, pay attention!” “Right! Um-we-we stopped for lunch and some guy, ah, he was wearing a weird-funny, uh, gas mask! A gas mask. Guy in a gas mask left a bomb in the car!” she pats him on the shoulder. “Good job.” she nods her head, but something still doesn’t feel right. “Did the guy have a shirt with a wolf on it?”Jacobs nods his head. “Gas mask...wolf shirt…” things begin flooding back to her. The girl, the forest, that weird man. She feels her mouth go dry as a theory hits her. “Did I-” sirens sound and cars start showing up, filled with fire rescue workers. “Ma’m, what happened here?” three workers all grab the car and lift it up, a worker taking the opportunity to drag Jacobs out from under it. “A man planted a bomb in our car while we were grabbing something to eat. The man was wearing a gas mask and a shirt with a white wolf on it.” the man nods. “Alright. Come on, let's get that patched up.” Jessica leans against the worker and the two begin walking away from the still flaming vehicle.

…

Laying in a hospital bed, she stares up at the ceiling. A piece of glass had been lodged concerningly deep into her arm, and required surgery. Thus, she had to stay the night. She hadn’t been a big fan of this decision, but caved after some convincing. “Chloe.” she holds the unicorn from her outfit to her heart. The other unicorn, the one she’d had originally, was long gone. She wishes she could call the whole event a dream, but...she can’t remember whatever it was Jacob had told her actually happening. “No. It was definitely a dream...definitely.” her grip on the wooden horse tightens. “I’m sorry, Miss. Aldridge. I’m afraid you are very much incorrect.”

P.p.f re:

Chapter 3

Rewind, Rewind, Rewind

February 14th, 2012

Ralph sits in his chair, staring blankly down at a wooden table. His disguise had been found out, and it had to be by the biggest douche on this planet. Next to him, with an upset face, was Chloe, doing her best not to look at the boy beside her. In front of Chloe was a girl with ginger hair tied up in a bun, wearing tinted glasses typing away on her laptop, wearing a red long shirt, red sweats, and a constant grimace plastered onto her face. Next to this girl were two boys, both looking of asian descent with black hair, green eyes, and wearing black long shirts with snow pants. One boy was holding an iPod touch, while another was writing on a piece of paper from time to time, both with an ear bud in one of their ears. Finally, sitting in front of the depressed Ralph, is Chris. “Alright, everyone, shall we begin today's meeting?” everyone, besides Ralph, stops what their doing and looks at him. “Alright, now. I’m sure you’re all wondering about our new recruit.” the girl with the glasses raises a hand. “Yes, Talia?” she clears her throat, sending heavy waves of smug attitude at Ralph, making him flinch. “I thought all new recruits where to have filled out MY sign up sheet before meeting with ME before we made a decision...and I have no idea who this scrub even is.” he finally raises his head to give her a confused glare. “Did you really just call me a scrub?” the girl grins. “Yeah, and I’ll make sure to call you a lot worse if you don’t let the adults talk.” the boy sighs, but keeps his head raised. “Why, what a great question, Talia.” Ralph gave Talia another look. By appearance, she looked to be much younger than anyone else at the table. She was probably shorter than from his feet to his stomach. He crosses his legs and attempts to look away from her. “You see, he’s only here to give us a little bit of information and then he’ll be on his merry way. Is that okay with you?” the girl pouts. “Mmm...fine. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.” she mumbles. The two boys had merely nodded their heads at Ralph before turning back to Chris.

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“Anyways, for anyone who isn’t entirely caught up, a girl name Sarah Tet claimed that she had info for us to begin a case we were originally unaware of. When meeting at the point, she revealed that she had died at the age of 10 on February 14th, 2008. Everything included in the package is here.” Chris grabs a backpack hanging off of his chair and pulls out the notebooks he’d shown Ralph, water bottle with a strange liquid inside and it’s cap duct taped onto the bottle, a photo of a shed, and a cell phone. “The notebook has been mostly translated, the liquid is unidentifiable, the shed in the photo is most likely the one from the crime scene, but can’t be found, and the phone has her number programmed into it, but she never answers. In other words, we need all the help we can get. And Ralph, that’s where you come in.” he slides the notebook with translated text and photo over to him. “You see, Ralph here was a witness of this girl's death, so if anyone can help, he can.” Ralph stares at the two objects in front of him. He considers his two main options. Help, or don't. “Ralph, please.” Chloe, finally breaking her silence, gives him one sorrowful plead...and he chose just like that. “The white wolf forest.” he says. “You’ve already been, I’m sure, but I promise you that you can find the shed there.” Chris nods his head. “It might take me a minute to go through this, so, bear with me.” Ralph flips it open, taking a large gulp.

Damien Gerdo is who you’re looking for. He often hangs out in the cafe near the library. He’s the loser playing with his laptop with dark hair. Send one of your female team members and he’ll fall right into your trap. After that, confront him and tell him I'm still alive. He’ll take the bait, even if it sounds far-fetched. That's all you need to do. Bring him into your group, and give him this.

From now on, I will talk to you, Damien

I mean Ralph.

Oopsie.

Ralph licks the film of his teeth, observing the people watching him. How did they do it, he wondered, and why? This sick joke must have lost its steam by now. He looks back down.

Alright, Fredricks, I want you to read this very, VERY, carefully.

If you don’t follow my instructions, the fabric of all existence itself will cease.

Do as I say, or everyone dies.

...again.

Ralph squints his eyes at the paper, feeling his lip raise.

The shack. Lead them their on February 15th. You know where to find it.

The boy puts the notebook down and gets a nasty grimace on his face. “Who thought this was funny? Hmm? Well, what's waiting for me at that shack? A bucket of tar and feathers?” the small girl with glasses giggles. “That's funny.” she whispers, no doubt imagining the scene in her head. “It’s not a joke Ralph. In fact, I suggest taking this very seriously.” Ralph shakes his head, his eyes making a glare. “Ralph, It’s not a joke. Here.” Chloe pulls something up on her phone and shows him. It’s a picture of a girl with short brown hair and blue eyes, wearing a red jacket and mittens along with snow pants. He shakes his head. “It’s not possible. I'm sorry.” he gets up. Everyone sitting at the table gives a deep sigh before falling into a depressed attitude.

Ralph would proceed to kick himself later for this, but he says, “I-I’ll show you guys the shack tomorrow. Then you guys can see that this all some stupid malarkey.” Everyone gives him a surprised glance, and Chloe gets a stupidly excited smile on her face. Chris gets a smirk on his face. “Very well then…” Chris gets up with a dramatic flare. “I’ll show you the power of the art of conspiracy, and the power it holds over the world itself!” everyone joins in with his enthusiasm, save for Ralph, who was wishing he was in bed.

“Hush!” the table immediately ends its celebrations after a quick warning from a librarian, who was also wishing dearly that he was still in bed.

…

Everything else the other club members decided to talk about held no real importance to Ralph. Something about a school project, weird emails, he had to pinch himself to stay awake. It was an eternity before Chris whispered. “Alright. Farewell my compatriots.” the girl next to Ralph was packing up her computer. “So, what grade are you anyway?” she gives him a disgusted glare. “What do you think?” he ponders. “Fifth?” she clenches her teeth. “Ninth, you douche!” his face filled with shock. “Ninth? You’re barely half my height.” she rolls her eyes. “Well maybe some people aren’t born to be giants.” Ralph groans. True, out of everyone, it was clear he was the largest height wise. “Point taken.” she nods, turning away. “Darn right.” he smiles at her, and her cheeks turn red. “We’ll all meet here tomorrow at noon, and Ralph will lead us then. Sound good everyone?” everyone nods their heads. He grabs his bag and gives the group another farewell. Everyone does the same, Ralph getting up with a sigh. “See ya tomorrow, dunce.” Talia bumps his shoulder. The two boys nod their heads at him, and Chris gives him a satisfied smile. “Hey, Ralph, or Damien, or, uh, mmm…” the person still sitting was Chloe, pondering on what to call the boy. “Ralph is fine. No point in hiding it now.” she nods her head. “Then, Ralph, I’m sorry.”

He shakes his head. “I get it. It’s whatever. I had my suspicion in the first place, and I should have listened to them. No need to apologize.” she gives him a weird look. “Don’t be so dramatic. You shouldn’t be expecting people to screw you over, and It was unfair of me to do so. In fact, I actually had a good time hanging out with you today, and, If you really aren’t still mad, I was hoping we could do it again...no strings attached.” the surprise was apparent on his face. “Uh...um…” he ponders in his head. So much time alone doing nothing but playing with his compute or talking to his uncle, he found himself unsure. He thought about the calm that would be staying alone. Not having to deal with anyone else...and he made his decision.

“Maybe if you're free after the visit tomorrow, we could go do something. If you’re up for it, I mean.” the girl smiled. “Sure, that sounds awesome.”

Ralph would then proceed to scream into his pillow all throughout the night, in memory of his now dead, peaceful life.

…

February 14th, 2012

The girl sighs as she opens the door to apartment 207. “I’m home!” the girl yells, dropping her bag on the living room couch. In the kitchen, she could here the sounds of her mother humming as she chopped something on her worn down cutting board, after years of use. “The dutiful Chloe has returned from her day of activities.” the woman responded with a, “How was your day?” Chloe sat down on one of the kitchen table chairs and gave a simple, “Ok, ” In response. “Did you meet with your brother’s conspiracy something today?” Chloe got a smirk on her face. “Mother, the Society of Conspiracy tells no secrets.” the woman giggles.

It was at this moment that the woman stopped chopping up the carrots on the cutting board. Chloe turned toward her mother. “Hey, mom, you okay?” the woman turned toward the girl, tears streaming down her face. “C-Chloe?” the woman muttered. The woman's name was Jessica Aldridge.