On her way to school Em walked briskly, not quite running but almost. She felt like a thief, though all she had taken was a strange old fashioned key that she had slipped out of her parent's bedroom. She had to keep reminding herself not to look back every few seconds. Even if my parents did find the pictures missing, they wouldn't come running after me, anyway they were probably still asleep, she thought. Unless they were spies... Of course they weren't spies, what am I thinking. Em took a few deep breaths to calm herself, and looked again at the large key she held, it was black, made out of some strange metal-plastic material, and so large that she could barely conceal it inside her closed fist. How was this connected to the album? Or was it?
Em remembered the first picture, it had two babies in it, side by side. They both looked a lot like all my baby pictures, but then again, all babies looked the same to me. Maybe one of them was me, and the other one was a friend of mine, or maybe even this Celia person, she mused. What was this picture doing in what she now thought of as "the secret album," and how was it connected to the strange symbol and key? Unless... Maybe I'm blowing everything out of proportion, maybe it was just a business or political problem that really wasn't any of my business, and the album, well I haven't seen every album my parents own... She mused. What she couldn't piece together though, was why her parents were being so secretive about it, and how were the other pictures connected?
Em continued walking slowly down the side-street leading up to her school when she first heard the voices. At first they seemed to be mumbling something indistinct, but then as she turned slightly to look behind her they became clearer. One was a high female voice, the other a lower male tone, and for some reason they seemed to be talking about her.
"Are you sure that's her?" Boomed the male voice.
"Yes, but we have to take a DNA scan anyway, just to make sure," replied the female voice, and Em heard a faint click.
All of a sudden she tripped over the crack of the sidewalk, scraping her hand. Brushing herself off Em got back up. Something weird was going on, she thought, I got this feeling... The only other time I got this feeling was when I was walking with my friend, and we were about to go down an alley, as a shortcut, we were about to turn, when I got that feeling and stopped for a second, and saw the men lurking. Me and my friend had taken the long route, on the main road. Feeling adrenaline shoot through her veins, she looked around, and shouted "hello?" but no one answered. Had she imagined the whole thing?
"I thought you said she couldn't hear us!" exclaimed the female voice.
"She shouldn't be able to, unless..." mumbled the male voice, "Oh no! I forgot to factor something into my calculations: she can hear us! Decide if she's the right girl quickly, because we have to go, with or without her!" What did he mean with or without me, Em thought. She looked around again, remembering all her self defense lessons; because she looked so small and weak her parents had forced her to take the extra curriculum self defense course. Being the only girl in the class with a sexist teacher had not been fun, but it looked like all my hard work was going to pay off, she thought sarcastically.
"Ok, I'm getting the results back," said the female voice, "yes, she's the girl, grab her and lets go!" Em got ready to fight someone off, she waited for someone to approach her, and waited... but nothing happened. The wind blew her hair in her face, just as she remembered that she should have put it up, (her teacher would always make a big deal of that rule, especially since she was the only person with long hair-he used it as another reason why girls shouldn't take self defense. Em didn't know how she could have forgotten). Finding a leaf in her hair, she picked it out, and was about to toss it aside when she noticed that it was purple, and shaped so weirdly, what was a purple leaf doing here? It was only the beginning of fall anyway... Suddenly Em realized that she had dropped the strange key when she had brushed the hair out of her face. Em started to turn around and look for the key, but found that she couldn't focus on it anymore, she was starting to feel dizzy. Slowly she sat down, only to black out. The last thing she saw was a silvery-gray cloud coming towards her...
Eddy turned the corner just to see Em float to the ground. It wasn't like she fainted, more like someone was slowly lowering her to the ground. Weird. He was about to go up to her and see if she was all right, but all of a sudden the air began to thicken, until he was surrounded in some sort of fog. Something was wrong, Eddy started running towards where he had last seen Em, but since he could barely see what was right in front of him, he couldn't find her. Finally, once the strange fog lifted, he managed to see the whole street again. There was no sign that Em had ever been there.
Taking the phone out of his pocket Eddy called her. Apparently her phone had been turned off. She never turned off her phone, never even turned it on silent (she didn't get in trouble if it rang in class).
Searching the street for what felt like the millionth time, Eddy finally saw something under the curb. It was a large old-fashioned key. A key? Had she taken it from a museum? Then he remembered-under her parent's desk, near that strange symbol had been a keyhole. Squinting at the key (apparently he needed eye surgery), he saw that the strange symbol was engraved in the key.
Yesterday he hadn't thought much of the whole thing, but now Em was gone, and the only clue he had was this key and the symbol. Suddenly, he realized he was the only one who had a chance to figure out what had happened-the only one who could find Em.
So, here's the next chapter to LOC, tell me what you think, I'm still not sure if I'm going to continue it, because I'm not too happy with the parts that I have already (cough-especiallythischapter-cuugh)...tell me if you want me to continue, don't worry I still have a few more chapters written up, I'm just not sure if i'm going to continue after that, I mean I wrote the last chapter at the begging of the year....anyway plz COMMENT!!!
