Will Them Into Existence

Curiosity

The sight of a crumbled and broken storefront filled the pairs vision as the green haired teen raced from their spot on the sidewalk to the doors of the pharmacy, the shorter blonde not far behind. They stopped to survey the scene, shoulders tensed and a grim frown set on their face.

"Wil?" Tommy whispered, setting a gentle hand in their arm. "What are you doing?"

"Looking." They responded, furrowing their eyebrows as they kicked a piece of glass on the ground with their shoe. "Something isn't right." The taller decided on finally, taking in the broken windows of the building, the smoke slowly rising from the cracked bricks, and the soot coating the shelves that lined the inside of the store.

The green haired teen ducked and walked through the remaining frame of the doorway, shaking their head at their brother's incredulous look. "It look's like there was an explosion, right? That's what all the signs point to." They raked two fingers through a layer of soot coating a nearby shelf, previously filled with what probably used to be a lotion of some kind, pulling their hand back with fingers coated in grey. "But, if there was an explosion, I would've heard it. This isn't a small building. Hell, I'd bet money that anyone in the county could've heard it, let alone so close, and let alone me."

"So maybe it's not a normal explosion. It's a deflagration and not a detonation. Probably set off through an outside source, considering there are literally zero people here and I didn't see any cars in the parking lot when we came in."

Wilbur shook their head, rocking on their feet and again looking at the inside of the pharmacy. "No, even a deflagration makes some noise- even if just a little bit, I think I still would've been able to hear it. But, I didn't hear anything until the alarm started going off."

Tommy hummed, doing his own survey of the shelves with narrowed eyes. "Well, whatever. We can figure out that part later- I'll even still pull up the cams, if you want- but for now, we've gotta get that alarm off."

The green haired teen nodded, leading the way towards the back of the store where the two jumped the service counter and made their way to the employee's only section, hoping that there they would find a way to turn off the loud and blaring alarm still going off overhead.

The shorter twin immediately made his way to a desktop situated in the back left corner of the sectioned off room, turning on the monitor and beginning to fiddle around the desk it sat on for possible passwords and/or important information. The taller of the duo took to searching the room for any other items, eyes peeled for anything that looked like it could be useful in figuring out the mystery of what had happened at the pharmacy.

"Got it!" Thomas whispered, triumph in his voice, signaling Wilbur over. The green haired teen stood behind where the blonde sat in the desk chair, hunched over to see the screen better through the sunny glare of the broken glass windows. "It was pretty easy- you know our neighbor, Lila, works here, right? Her password is her wife's birthday. Pretty cute." He cleared his throat and moved out of the way of the screen, allowing the other full view. "Anyway. She was the last to log on to the system, and the last time she logged on was two days ago, and she signed out nine hours later. Basic shift, I'd assume. She didn't report any issues or instances, and she even replaced some money out of her pocket that was missing from the register count. Seems like she had an okay day."

Wilbur nodded, squeezing his brother's shoulder once. "Nothing from today?"

Thomas shook his head, using the attached mouse to scroll through the pages he had pulled up. "Not as far as I can tell. Which- I mean, that's pretty weird too. Their system automatically logs the days." He pointed to a spot on the screen which listed a full calendar log of the mont so far. "Even the days where no one is scheduled- as a security measure, if I had to guess." He turned around in his chair, getting up and walking to the router positioned near a tv and couch combo in the other corner of the room and looking for the slip on the back before pulling it off and returning to his seat.

"But, today?" Thomas entered the router code into the text box that popped up, meeting Wilbur's raised eyebrows with furrowed ones of his own. "Today, there's nothing. It's blank. All of it. The time stamp for the router automatically kicking on- which it does at 5:34 every morning, the fridge checking it's temperature, the locks reattaching. Those things happen and get logged no matter if any human personnel is on site or not."

Wilbur gently pushed Tommy out of the way, kneeling in front of the computer and taking the mouse out of his hand to scroll through the computer themself. As they made their way through the content stored there, the gnawing anxiety from the pit of their stomach worsened, and though the hair on their arms already stood on end, they were sure it would be worse now.

"It's not nothing. It's been deleted." They said finally, selecting a line of code in the middle of the page. "This line. It's altered- doesn't match the day's stamp. It has a different rotation number- whoever did this was smart. Careful."

Thomas snorted, standing up from the chair and popping his back. "Apparently not careful enough, if you were able to find it so fast."

Wilbur shook their head grimly, banging it gently against the monitor and then reaching to turn it off. Thomas grabbed his wrist, his own face now set in a frown. "What are you doing? Don't turn it off. We might never be able to find it again."

"Trust me, Tommy. That wasn't an oversight, or a mistake, or whatever else you may think it was. It's a bread crumb. A paper trail to a walk you really, really don't want to take- one that I, frankly, don't want to either." The green haired teen said, pulling their arm out of the other's grasp and going again for the power button. "It's better for the both of us if we just leave it be. Yes, it sucks the pharmacy got destroyed. But there will be a new pharmacy. And, no one got hurt, thank the gods, so we don't have to feel bad about dropping it." They turned off the monitor, spinning and grabbing the shorter blonde's arm on their way out and leading him out of the back room, over the counter, and through the main storefront again.

When they reached the front door, Thomas looked back with a frown, taking in the sight of the broken building one last time. "You're not gonna be curious about what happened? Not even a little bit?"

"No." The taller responded, shaking their head with a shiver as they passed an ally and began promptly speed walking the the apartment they and their loved ones call home. "No. Curiosity kills the cat, as they say, and I live like I'm on my 9th life."

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basically then they go home and never talk about it again !!!!

....unless