Up from the Ashes

Through The Window

I was standing in a round room with no windows and doors. A hushed whisper was floating around the room. Where did it come from? I didn't know what I was doing in this place, all I knew was that I needed to get out. I needed to find who was whispering and what they were saying. I ran around the room searching for an exit, but there was none. Then the whispers grew louder and I could here what they said.

"Wake up Henry, goddammit, wake up!"

My eyes flew open, and it took a minute for them to adjust to the dark. When they did, I nearly peed myself. Leaning over me was a strange girl, with short brown hair and big eyes.

"Holy mother! Who the hell are you and what are you doing in my freaking bedroom?" I hissed.

She glared at me.

"My name is Annabelle, and we need to talk,"

I glanced at my alarm clock.

"At 3:30 in the morning?"

She just glared and yanked off my covers. Even though it was 20 degrees outside, it was a cold way to get up.

"Fine," I hissed, "Talk,"

She shook her head and gestured for me to go onto the roof by climbing through my window. I shuffled past her and sat on the warm shingles, looking up at the dark sky. She climbed out after me and sat beside me on the roof. She sighed.

"Okay," I said, "I'm on the roof, now can you tell me why you woke me up at 3:30 in the morning even though I have no idea who you are?"

She frowned, but started talking.

"Like I said before, my name is Annabelle, and I came here because I need you. And even though it might not seem like it now, Henry, you need me,"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," I said "Back up, Where did you come from? How do you know my name? What do you mean you need me? You don't even know me!"

She growled at being interrupted, but answered my questions.

"I came from Canada, Ottawa, to be exact. I know your name because I found it on a document, the document that made me come here in the first place. You're right, I don't know you, but something happened to the both of us, I'm not quite sure what, but something did, and I need you to help me figure it out,"

I gaped at her, completely disbelieving. Wow, I wonder how much Brett paid her to come up here. I was already brainstorming ways to prank him back when I said;

"Look, you really don't need to go through with this, no matter what Brett paid you,"

She looked confused, so I laughed.

"Man, you are a great actor, but forget it, okay? I know Brett is trying to prank me, I mean Ottawa? Come on,"

Now, she looked furious.

"You stupid, stupid boy. You seriously think I'm kidding! Goodness, why they chose you of all people  doesn't make sense to me. You're certainly not the brightest bulb in the box are you?"

Then she laughed, a quiet, tinkling noise that made me want to laugh too, but I couldn't, what was so funny anyways?

"Henry," she said, a smile on her lips, "I'm being serious, I really did come from Ottawa, and I really do need you to help me. You see, three weeks ago was my 16th birthday. In movies, your sixteenth is supposed to be great, but mine sucked. I invited all the wrong people, and by the end, I was hiding in my fathers study, balling my eyes out. I was so mad, so furious at the girl I thought was my best friend, that I immediatly went onto my father's computer to delete her and everyone else from my facebook and twitter accounts. While I was furiously hammering away on my father's computer, a file poking out of a recipe book in my father's library caught my eye."

First, it was a strange book to be in the private library of a well-known politician. And second, it was a very odd place to keep a file. I was still quite mad at my friends, so it hadn't occurred to me that it was probably there so no one could find it. The file was quite thick, so I thought it must be on some boring economical business, but it wasn't. There was about a dozen names on the front, and two had been underlined, yours, and mine."

I was confused, why did my father have this file about me? And who was Henry Everett? At first, I thought you must be another politician's child, but I looked at all the other name's and didn't recognize any of them. The next thing I did was Google your name. Maybe you were important? I'd heard of lots of important people's children being kidnapped and held for ransom, maybe this was a list of at-risk kids?"

Your name didn't pull up anything on the computer, just a Facebook profile and an article in the newspaper about how your grade 9 English class held a fundraiser for some children's literacy program or another."

At this, I rolled my eyes. "There was an article in the newspaper on that? Oh god, I only did that for the extra credit."

She looked annoyed, "Please don't interrupt me when I'm explaining this, or I will get side-tracked and this will take all night."

"Sorry!"

"Anyways, as I was saying, you appeared to be a very boring person. I decided that I may as well read the file, seeing as I wouldn't get any answers anywhere else. Inside the file, was a bunch of much smaller files, each with a name on it. I searched for mine and read it. Inside my file was alot of information on me. But, it was all wrong, or so I thought. The file said my birthday was December 9th, not June 7th, apparently, I was born in Paradise, Ohio and not Ottawa, Ontario. When I read on, that was when it got interesting."

The file claimed that had been taken from my birth parents in the hospital, and they had been told that I died. My "father" is a relatively important person in the organisation and so he took me and the others were sent to..."

"Annabelle!" I said, "Slow down, I can hardly understand you! What organisation? What "others"?"

She looked at me as though she wanted to smack me. 

"Ugh! Just read the file. If you want to find out who you really are, give me a call,"

She handed me a slip of bright pink sticky note. I looked down at the number scrawled in sparkly black gel pen. When I looked up, she was gone, and I saw her lean figure running off into the distance.