The Fear Between Us

Chapter 13

Chapter 13: The note.

I've been keeping Mikhail at arm's length. Everything has changed and yet it still feels the same. I keep Mikhail on a small loop, giving him the slight hint of validation that I trust him even though he knows nothing about me and where I've been. I stared at the note for hours on end whenever Mikhail was asleep or wasn't here himself, trying to make sense of the numbers. They were scrambled and didn't make any sense, were they coordinates? An account number? A date? A code? I just didn't get them. I decided to walk to the factory, somehow it felt as though that's where I'd get more answers, Mikhail's story is based there anyway. It feels weird, being able to walk out in the streets and not be looked at weirdly because your skin is paler, your nose is broader, and your lips are paler and smaller than everyone else around you. It's weird how much I feel at home even though this isn't a place I'm familiar with. I can say my name, and nobody stares in shock from the clear unwanted descendants.

The factory was rusted, a little shaggy and a mess. The place hasn't been touched in years, simply cast aside, and forgotten. Some burn marks painted the walls making me guess that there was a bomb placed inside killing everyone who was left, the big steel doors that I remember were gone. The place is ominous, making me feel as though I should make this quick. Not knowing where to start I make my way towards the server room, stepping on bits of steel and paperwork, probably on someone else too, the floors are just too black from explosives that it's hard to tell. I open the door to the server room seeing the broken glass, the smashed controls and piles of paper thrown onto the floor. It reeks of smoke.

Despite the chaos it's still easy to make out more or less where everything is and what everything was, paging through some of the papers I search for anything being a close resemblance if not the exact number from the note. This is not the only place where paperwork was kept, there are still the archives, this is pointless! For a moment I step back examining the bigger mess I've made, feeling like I have done nothing for the past eternity. I pick up another pile of paperwork and chuck it on the table hearing a small thud from the floor with an old, rugged notebook with its pages a bit dusty sitting open. There wasn't any character to it and there was nothing special about it besides the fact that randomly in the middle of the book was a half-torn page with three faint numbers written. I stared at the faded numbers before placing the folded note from the kitchen next to them. I finally realized what I had been staring at for the past four days, the numbers that were so faint and ill-written were a code for an address and a date. The challenge now was figuring out why this was so important.