“Hey dad, what is black and white and red all over?”

“I don’t know, tell me.”

Dad is gone thirteen hours a day. He is always in meetings or working on a project with his company. Work defined him, but he was my dad. I loved him, and so did the rest of my family. When he was home, he always made time for us. The days off work were spent at an amusement park or hiking, whether or not his kids had a test that day.

He was a great dad, but what I remember more than anything about him was his newspaper. There was never a time I saw him without it. In the kitchen, in the living room, in bed. Everywhere.

There was a time I thought my dad loved his newspaper more than he loved me, so I stole it. He was not mad, he continued throughout the day, sometimes asking where it had gone. The end of the day came, and I was happy that I had finally gotten rid of that ever present distraction. The couple hours he was home he had given all his attention to his kids, never looking away from one or another of them even once.

The next day, he came home beat up. His chest had a large gash on it, and as he opened up the newspaper on his leather chair some blood dripped on the pages.

“Your newspaper!!!”

………

Birdy cut himself with the edge of the paper, and let some blood drip on the pages. It was another part of his daily routine from his days in the defense force. To not forget the family he hoped he had waiting for him somewhere.

The blood beaded on the paper, as it always did before slowly soaking in. It always hid words from view or ruined a picture. That was fine, there were always paragraphs and words surrounding it that would clue him in on what was happening.

He flipped through the pages, finding the word puzzles and other age old games he quickly completed with his pen. He looked for secret messages in the games. One had appeared in the form of code from over a hundred years ago. That was 8 years ago. On and off he found more secret messages, some were in the words of an article, but the more interesting secrets were in the puzzles. Today, like usual, there were no secret messages that he could find.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

It was 7:00 when he finished his puzzles, nearly time for the cells to close for the night. Mac, Beth and the gang were still cracking jokes and talking, but they weren’t nearly as rowdy as when the lab testers showed up. For the next hour he would listen to their made up stories.

Real stories had become monotonous, in this little group everyone knew almost everything about each other. The only interesting pieces of information left were secrets they’d rather take to the grave, so they instead made up stories. Most nights they would play games like go or chess, but Monday wasn’t one of them. It was a time to relax, not engage in competitions no matter HOW much Mac loved them.

Even Mac agreed that there should be some time to relax. What better way to relax than tell stories about your life, whether or not they were complete lies. It was more interesting that way.

………

Around 7:35 it happened. Mac disappeared. He was telling a story about how he had fought off a horde of robotic lions, laughing. Then he was gone.

“Mac, wha…” Steve looked over to where he had just been sitting. “Where’d he go?”

Silence fills the room. Never had a cellmate been teleported somewhere without choosing a job.

“Eh, he’ll come back. He always does.” Beth shrugs.

“Yeah…” Birdy is unsure, but doesn’t question the teleportation. The prisoners were at the mercy of whoever owned the prison. Mac had done nothing wrong and was the champion of the colosseum. Of course he would come back. “I’m going to bed. Going to finish reading my newspaper and sleep. Night.”

“Night!!!” Beth

“Night.” Steve

Bill was in a different cell than Birdy tonight. Someone in the audience must have been pissed off at losing their bet. Money had changed hands, and now Bill was somewhere else. Birdy would be sleeping peacefully tonight.

“Let’s see how this secret love story is going.” Birdy scans through the newspaper, finding the column where two people have been sending secret love messages through code for the last few months. Afterwards, he reads through the rest of the paper more carefully. He looks for other codes, but stops when he sees an article on a new mineral discovered. It was interesting enough for him to read it until it got dark, and the metal bars to his cell locked shut.