The trip to Branson was oddly quiet; moments after entering the vehicle Danny fell asleep so deeply, he couldn't be woken till the next afternoon, after he had been pulled, shoved, and stuffed on to the couch in the above-house by the lake; the place people in the colony went before exiting to the surface after time in the colony down in the lake. It honestly wasn't used much. The people of the colony had learned to become quite self-sufficient, but at times, they had found it very necessary to leave their home, at which point, they would enter the house. The home was also helpful for non-fishy friends.
As it wasn't used often and rarely held any amount of talents, it was quite small; a run-down red cottage built probably in the seventies from the shag carpet and older tile flooring; not to mention the peeling wallpaper. Looking at it from the outside, you could see that it clearly wasn't up to code for even summer living in the frigid north. For one thing, a good portion of it wasn't even on the ground; it was leaning on cinder blocks on the one side, giving it an odd tilt like it was yearning for the murky water. Every window had piles of grit running on its ledge; dead flies, spiders, and mosquitoes plentiful when you looked close enough... not that any of the boys had.
The boys who had been awake had cautiously explored under the watchful observation of the House-keeper, Patrick Van-Luen: A red-head in his thirties who clearly loved the indoors and took care of them. Everything on the inside was as clean as could be. The living area was the first place you saw when you walked in, with three desks on the right wall each holding a very old laptop, a cup of pens, and a stack of papers. To the left was an old and lumpy couch one would find at their grandmother's house and behind it a kitchen pulled directly out of the 1970's, with the only appliance from this decade being the stainless-steel microwave.
On the back wall lay three doors, each opened to their contents. The one off of the kitchen was Patrick's bedroom which had been adorned by a queen-sized bed, a dresser, and all-wall bookshelves with a view of the forest. The next was a skinny bathroom with a large floor-to-ceiling shower, a small sink, medicine cabinet, and pink toilet with a fuzzy seat cover. The final room held three sets of bunk-beds, four of the mattresses that night would belong to the boys.
"Thanks for taking us in Patrick, I promise to explain everything in the morning, but right now we all need sleep." Jammin' said to the tall man,
"Yeah, I could tell... when someone manages to park practically sideways in a driveway, they're either showing off, drunk, or exhausted. You guys can drop the one kid off in a bunk or just on the couch if you can't move him that far. I'd help you, but I've got a lot to do tomorrow, so I want my sleep. Uh, you know where everything is Benjamin... if you guys get hungry, we have soup and frozen meals, also maybe some cheerios I think; I have to go shopping tomorrow too. At any rate, I'll talk to you in the morning Benjamin. Get some rest boys, and Benjamin, keep an eye on your friends."
At that, they had all moved Danny to the couch, each grabbed their bag of clothes, and grabbed a bunk before shutting the door. The only one who wouldn't sleep as they hit the mattress was Benjamin, who kept thinking through everything that had happened in the last two or so weeks, and of how on earth he was going to explain it all to Patrick; the man he had last seen when he was a five-year old leaving for the schools, accepted early on for being a music prodigy. Back then, Patrick had been a teenager working under the wing of his father; still going through the phases of puberty. Now Patrick was a giant man he barely knew, and didn't recognize at first at all. Patrick had been kind of easy-going back in the day, but now... how could he tell this man he barely knew that the people who raised him, who his parents sent him away to and other parents had sent their children to, were ultimately controlled by a talent-killing organization?
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YOU ARE READING
Simple Talents
Fantasy"Everyone on the planet has a talent", some can sing, some can do math at amazing speeds, some can get away with just about anything, but what happens when you are too good at what you do? You can sing so beautifully that people will follow you blin...
