When The Records Broke ~ Book #1

evaeL oT evaH t'ndiD eW hsiW :3 retpahC

Chapter 3: Wish We Didn't Have To Leave Yet ⬛◼◾▪

Click.

I've grown such a hatred for that sound, I wish I could chuck it out of the thermal system.

"Ravi, Jace, could one of you go and wake Aqua up for me? It's getting late."

"I'll do it!"

I could hear muffled footsteps coming up the stairs and directly into my room, but there was no creaky door sound.

My door wasn't open last night, was it?

I felt a hand - no wait, two - grab my leg, which was dangling off my bed for some reason. I could feel myself being held upside down, and then being let down onto the ground really quickly.

I snapped awake.

"Eww! Why did you have to stretch!? Look at all the flakes of dust on the ground around us!"

"They're dead cells, Aqua," Jace reasoned.

"THAT'S EVEN WORSE!"

"No worries, I know how to clean it up quickly." Jace set his hand on fire; I knew immediately what he was up to. "I'll just set it on fire! And-"

"No! Setting a backyard on fire: understandable. Setting a house on fire, NOT understandable."

"Aww." Jace extinguished the flame on his hand and lowered it. "Fine, we'll do this the normal way. I'll get the vacuum-suction."

"NO!" I started pacing around the room, biting my finger. "Maybe we could get dad?"

"Uhh..." Jace sat there like a blob of 3.5-year old in deep thought. I started to push my finger deeper in my mouth, literally chewing it with my molars. "Okay."

I visibly un-tensed and took my finger out of my mouth. Entire strings of saliva came out with my finger, slimy and wet.

"Bleh." Jace and I gagged in unison, one more dramatic than the other. "I'm going to go to the restroom."

"Go! Go! Go! Go!"

"I'm going!"

I ran to the bathroom and was back out in half a minute. Jace had apparently "summoned" dad, who then told us to go and help mom ... or something like that. I wasn't really paying attention.

Jace and I raced each other down the stairs.

Okay... Jace actually cheated and went through the window. Although he's a fire type, he can also control air since he's a supermental. I highly doubt that he would jump out and not dampen the impact by flying to the backyard instead.

We entered the living room in our own ways and headed straight for the foyer. Jace found an open baggie-pack and curled up in a circular-shaped hole, disregarding the various other objects tightly packed in there.

Mom walked in with a tiny tornado carrying a stack of chairs - the perfect object to fit in the space that Jace currently occupied.

Upon sighting Jace all curled up baggie-pack, mom started talking in a sing-songy voice, loudly. "Hmm. I wonder where Jace is. Maybe he's outside in the backyard!" Mom proceeded to stick her head out of the door leading to the backyard for a very brief second and then come back in. "Oh well, I need to put these chairs in the baggie-pack!" Mom then headed straight for the baggie-pack Jace hid in, and acted like she was about to put the chairs in the occupied hole when Jace decided to jump up.

"No wait! Mom! I'm here!" he yelled, panickily waving his arms above his head.

Mom chuckled. Maintaining the playful tone, she placed the chairs on the ground and said, "Oh, Jace! That's where you were!"

Jace giggled and jumped out of the baggie-pack, running to me.

"What were you doing in there anyways?" I asked. "I know it's small and cramped, and you love small and cramped spaces just as much as I do, but why there? It's pokey!"

"A small space is a small space!" Jace whined. "Anyways-"

"Aqua, Jace," mom called. "Go and get ready! We have to leave for the spaceport soon."

"Doesn't our ship leave at four p.m. though? It's only nine a.m."

"What about the time it takes to get to the space port, as well as the time it takes to check in? The spaceport is two hours away. We'll have to leave soon darling."

"Okay."

Jace probably went to his room while mom was explaining travel to me. Having lost my argument, I proceed to go to my room as well, dragging my feet behind me.

***

Dad and I loaded the final baggie-pack into the front of the autovan (ah*toe*vahnn) one of mom's friends lent us. We had already sold off ours around a trimester ago, finding it unnecessary to have kept it any longer.

"Get in the autovan, Aqua."

Dad went into the house, presumably to help mom with packing the Dosas. I turned around and climbed into the autovan. Jace had already made himself comfortable for the two-hour journey to the space port.

As I was buckling in, my brother quipped up. "This will be the first time outside the house!"

"I've been out here before! I just never went to the city." I gasped suddenly, making Jace jump at least a foot in the air. "Wait, what's changed?"

The 3.5 year old sat there thinking. Surely the city didn't change too much. Right?

"There's a new playground! And - and it has so many features! Like, a new fighting arena! I fought a bunch of classmates during one of our class nights, and I won! Then a grown-up had to take me out and return me to mom. My classmates thought I had an unfair advantage because I'm a supermental. Ahh. It was so fun!"

My brother simmered in nostalgia? I mean, he hasn't even been alive for five years, does it count as nostalgia?

"They were probably just jealous. Don't mind them, Jace." He didn't seem sad about it, but I figured a few words of comfort wouldn't hurt.

We sat there for what must've been more than five minutes, Jace on his device, and me examining Jace's area, or as he likes to call it: his backseat paradise.

"Aqua!" Mom called. "Come back inside! I still need to comb your hair!" Mom randomly switched to Telugu at one point - not like that matters too much, I understand Telugu perfectly fine. I'm not that great at speaking in it though.

Jace finally noticed his surroundings just as I crawled to the door. "Did mom call?"

"Yeah. I still need to comb my hair."

"Okay then."

I hopped out of the autovan and started to close the door when Jace said, out of the blue, "I hope a Lava Amagnus doesn't attack us soon."