CAN YOU SEE ME?

Chapter 2: Andy: Flinders Street Station, Destination Unknown

They liked the Pokemon battle. Oh thank cuss. He'd thought that would be funny and had worried for ages about whether or not to include it.

Andy heaved a sigh of relief, slid his phone away and curled up even closer on his train seat in hopes of making himself as small as possible. The guy sitting at the end of the seat-clump hadn't looked up from his Kindle, but Andy didn't want to take any chances.

The train pulled to a stop at Southern Cross Station and Andy hopped over the man's legs and darting around the passengers on tip-toes, trying to avoid putting as much weight on his feet as possible.

Andy had ditched his shoes while running from the Guys In Grey a week ago. His school-shoes hadn't have the flexibility to properly run in and the clopping sound they'd made on the pavement had been too loud, too obvious. He'd shredded his socks on the pavement and had awoken in his bathroom-stall hideout with freezing cold feet covered in popped blisters and open scabs.

He would have hidden in that stall all day to avoid walking again if hunger and fear of infection hadn't driven him out again. Washing his foot in the sink had made the pain go away and his blood run cold as the water turned black and red with dirt, blood and pus.

Andy had stolen his current shoes from a sports bag some guy from Melbourne Grammar had left lying about near the Botanic Gardens. He'd told himself that it would be fine, that he needed the slightly-too-small runners more then the other kid had.

It hadn't made him feel better.

The decision to go to Tasmania had though.

Andy had never been to Tasmania. Never been out of the state even. Camping and travel had always been one of those things that he'd want to do. So going had seemed like something worth doing.

It wasn't until now, right on the platform to the Geelong Line, darting around other pedestrians that the second thoughts were bubbling up again and made him pause on the white line.

What was he doing? Tasmania? Cussing Tasmania? How did that help him? A Tasmanian tiger wasn't a cure. An extinct marsupial wouldn't make him visible again, it wasn't even a real lead, even if the thought made the tiny scientist part of Andy swell with the thirst for knowledge and a potential adventure.

How had it survived, where was Scottsdale? Why there and not anywhere else in Tasmania? He'd meant what he'd said to draminonelover. Reading that reply had been the first piece of good news he'd had all week. It was a sign that Andy was not the only weird thing out there. That people turning invisible was something that made sense to someone, because it didn't make sense to him.

Or just another internet-gossip thinking this was all a joke. The blog had been a final, desperate plan. Five days of wandering the city alone was about as much as Andy could take before he'd broken down in the Botanic Gardens, watching families eating picnics in the last warm week of March slapping him in the face with everything he'd lost

What if it was a bust?

What if someone caught him?

Would his followers stick around even if he did find something? How would he prove anything? Photos could be edited, anything can be typed, there were million reasons why they wouldn't believe him.

Go. Don't go. Leave and look. Stay and hope for something better.

What Andy wanted most someone to tell him what to do. A teacher, a coach, his parents, some weirdo who knew what was going on. School, home, life as a teenager, he'd come a sad realisation, was dominated by people telling him what to do and where it would go from here.

Until now; no parents, no teachers, no authority. This wasn't freedom or the dream. It was lonely, more lonely and empty then he'd ever felt in his life. He wanted someone to tell him where to go. He wanted a quest or a mission or something with an actual goal rather then just a tip-off from a random shipper he'd never met.

He must have walked the CBD a dozen times aimlessly because sitting still made the homesick pangs in his stomach come back and thoughts of leaving the city, the only place he could call home, for the first time, filled his head enough that he had to move just to get his head empty again.

Ahead was a potential lead. A possibly extinct marsupial that had somehow survived everything settlers had thrown at it.

"Geelong Service will be departing in ten minutes."

Last chance to back away. Last chance to say no.

Andy swallowed loudly, making sure the gulp was loud and meaningful, to make this moment meaningful. The doors beeped and slid open.

Andy tip-toed onto the train and down the carriage to a set of seats, away from the door. He put his school bag down and spread himself out, resting his feet up and leaned his head against the window, trying to block the thoughts of why he should stay with ideas of how to go.

The doors beeped and slid shut.

Goodbye Melbourne, Andy thought, as the train huffed to life and carried Andy into the unknown.