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Chapter 9: Juem

"And, yeah, rats are really damn scary..." I was talking to Clara and Sylvia as we were crawling through the vents. I was talking about the dangers of the vents, and I was talking about rats. "Really? Are they that bad?" Clara asked, her eyes widening in surprise.

"You betcha," I replied before Sylvia chimed in with an affirmative nod. "Is that one over there?" she continued, pointing ahead of us.

I screamed at the top of my lungs, "AHHH! RUN!" without looking back to see if my friends were following me. We scrambled away from the foreboding creature, creeping faster than ever before.

Clara couldn't help but chuckle at our fright. "What was that about? That rat didn't even look that scary!" she said.

Sylvia nodded in agreement. "Well, let's hurry up then. Maybe we can find something valuable down here." With that, I lead the way to the front while suppressing the urge to gag inside my mouth every time a rat passed by us. After some time, I gasped in delight when a room came into view.

"Look!" I exclaimed excitedly. "A room! Xander and I used to raid places like this whenever we needed food." My words sparked a glimmer of hope in Clara's eyes as she eagerly waited for me to open the vent so we could all hop out.

Once we emerged from our hiding spot, we took in our surroundings. Musty walls, crusty floors... and a mini fridge! We all exchanged glances before Clara shouted in excitement, "Let's take what we can get here!"

"Damn, only a mini fridge? Jonathan's got it better than you," Sylvia said, talking about whoever lived in the basement.

"Who?" I asked.

"No one," Clara lied.

"Tell me!" I laughed. "I want to know who it is!"

"Well, he's the scientist. The... Scientist, you know?"

"Oh," I said, pausing. He killed Rafael. Rafael... I missed him. But I shook out of it, and nodded. I wasn't supposed to worry about this right now. "Okay. Well, I better eat this, if we're going to raid this fridge. We need all the pockets we can get," I pulled a smelly, moldy piece of cheese out of my breast pocket.

I grabbed it with sticky, stained fingers, and put it near my mouth.

I opened my mouth and shoved the piece of cheese into the caverns of my mouth, the foul flavor filling every taste bud. I then chewed it quickly and swallowed it, the slimy texture sliding down my throat. I burped and laughed. "Tastes like pickles!"

"HUH?!"

"PICKLES?!"

"Well, let's get to raiding the fridge!" I exclaimed, ignoring them.

I pulled open the door, and the cold air flying towards me chilled me, and I looked inside.

I focused on rummaging through the fridge. "What have we got- Ooh! Cheese!" I grabbed the slice. But as I touched it, a shudder of sadness swept over me. As I held the cheese in my hand, my mind flooded with memories of Rafael. The way he used to light up the room. The horrible day he passed away. Tears stung in my eyes and I started to shiver with sorrow.

"Hey, Juem, are you good?"

"Yeah," I took a deep breath. "It happens every time I think about cheese. That's why I prefer it to be rotten. It takes away the 'cheese' taste."

"Uh, If pickles are better than cheese, then sure!" Clara said. She then took a peek into the fridge. "Well, I've got... ham!" Clara grabbed the small bag containing some old ham that was folded up into the bag. She then put it in her pocket.

"Alright, let's see what I've got-"

"What are yall doin' in my basement?!"

We tensed and slowly turned to see a strange man. He looked very familiar. Too familiar.

"RUN! IT'S JONATHAN!!!"

Sylvia snatched a grape and shoved it into her pocket. "I DUNNO HOW A GRAPE WILL HELP, BUT I LIKE GRAPES!"

We scrambled up the vent and crawled away.

"Gee, do I look like Jonathan that much?" We heard as we crawled faster, hearing his voice get quieter and quieter.

"...That wasn't Jonathan?"

"I dunno."

We slowly crawled back, and looked. He actually looked different. His hair was kind of funkier, and he looked kind of insane, with his eyes darting around erratically. "Where are you? I promise I'm friendly."

He laughed. "I ain't like Jonathan, after all."

There was no response, so he kept speaking. "I'm Fing. I'm Jonathan's older brother."

We all stared at him in shock, not sure what to say. His sudden appearance and strange behavior caught us off guard. "Found ya!" Fing laughed. "So, what are you guys doing here?" Fing asked, his eyes scanning over us with curiosity.

"...Should we answer?" Clara whispered, clearly worried.

"I don't know, but let's get out of here," I replied, feeling the uneasiness rising in my chest. "Even though he said he was friendly, I don't know. We are escaping, after all."

As we crawled away, he sighed, and then said, "it was a good shot. Well, I ain't gonna tell Boss... or Jonathan. Your secret's safe with me, weird runaways!"

"Oh," I said. "Well, that's cool."

"Next time," Sylvia chuckled. "We're staying with him."

"For real," Clara added.

And so, we kept crawling down corridors.