The VOID

Ch 1 (L. Bates)

I groaned, tapping my head with the papers in my hand. 

"All this thinking is making my head hurt," My thoughts wandered for a moment as I cranked my neck to the side to look behind me for a second. 

"Being overly exceptional is annoying. You get trusted with tasks too often and suddenly you’ve become a person the Generals dump extra work on. Angus is example number Uno," My gray-blue eyes took in Angus, my best friend, sitting at his desk, trying to make a dent in all the papers on his desk. His brows furrowed underneath his chestnut hair, while his pale green eyes were straining from the lack of sleep. 

"This is why you gotta be just the right amount of smart and a little bit unreliable. I am the best student, but they don't give me any extra work because they know I won't do it. I mean, I could do it, but I'd like to have a little bit of time to goof around. I'd rather not sit in a chair all day, slaving away." 

Turning my face down, looking at my papers of all the missing people, and trying to memorize their names and faces. 

"There's so many," My eyes narrowed at the 20-page list, "It's not even a fraction of the complete list." 

"Angus, have you ever wondered about the people who went missing?" Not bothering to turn around when I asked him, I just kept reading the papers in my hand. 

"Ya mean the people who stumbled into the VOID mistakenly and never came out?" His Scottish accent faintly came through as he spoke, "If ya asking if they could still be alive then probably nae. There's a chance if they went into a non-hostile entrance, but that's a very low probability." 

"I mean, it's possible though. Hypothetically, if they do go into a non-hostile entrance and manage to survive, what then?" Angus sighed. 

"Then, that's where we come in, I guess. If we happen to come across a person in there, we'll help them," he explained tiredly. 

"What do you think the Government would do to those people? This whole organization is top secret. Surely they wouldn't allow them to go home and spill the beans, right?" I pondered aloud, clicking the pen in my left hand. 

"I dunno, Luca. Perhaps they tell them to join or maybe they'll work in the offices. For all we know they'll sign a contract that forbids them sayin' anythin' about the VOID and their time in it," 

"They wouldn't kill them, would they?" I questioned. 

"They wouldn't," his answer was blunt. 

"I mean they are missing people. Nobody would point fingers if they died. There would be no way of knowing," 

"Luca..," Smacking the papers on the coffee table, I spun the chair around to face him.

 "No, wait. Think about it. They kill the 'missing person' and then dump the body into the VOID. No one would ever know!" 

"Geez, Remi! Why are ya so dark today? What's with all the questions?" He exclaimed. I chuckled. 

"I don't know. I'm curious. My mind is running wild right now," Moving the muscles in my face, I raised my brows and flashed crazy eyes. 

"I told ya not to touch my coffee. Ya, not supposed to drink coffee," Angus sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

"I didn't!" I spun back around and picked up another stack of papers.

"Ya liar," he scoffed. Grinning to myself, I flipped the pages of the confidential papers and glanced over the contents. 

Name: Lou Wallace