Mutant

Thirteen

The trail had led them in the wild woods. They had scurried past every tree and sniffed around every bark, but they couldn't seem to find anything.

"This is pointless," Arch said, beads of sweat rolling down forehead. "We'll never find them."

"Cheer up chap," Ellie squeaked. "You just have to believe!"

Arch shot her an exasperated look.
"Not now Ellie,"

Ellie stepped back. "Geez. Well, I'm sorry Archie."

"Hey Arch, come check this out!" Emmer cried.

Arch and Ellie ran to where Emmer was.
Arch noticed that Emmer wasn't smiling. In fact his face was more serious and tactical.

"You probably won't like it," Emmer muttered.

Emmer was standing in front of a towering tree with a leaning trunk and a broken bough.
On the trunk were two young girls stomach pinned with huge wooden steaks. Blood was pouring down the steaks as if it just poked through a plump strawberry.

"Autumn, Annie." Arch whispered, tears swelling up in his eyes. He touched their delicate faces one last time and then clenched up his fist.

"Who did this?" Arch ordered. "Who fucking did this? Because I swear I'll kill whoever did this!"

Emmer calmly touched Arch's back in a gentle motion.
"Arch, trust me, we'll find who killed your sisters. This isn't the end."

Anger was still searing up in Arch's body, but he needed to save that anger for whoever killed Autumn and Annie.

"We should probably get going," Ellie said. "These woods are getting creepy."

"You guys can stay at my place," Emmer offered. "Our house has like five bedrooms. It's pretty big."

"I'm good for that," Ellie said. "Arch?"

Arch loosened his focus on the tree.
"Sure."
*********************

Emmer's house was more like a palace. It had a lot of arc structured windows, mosaic paintings on its walls, and abstract shapes on the panels. The house had three garages and two entrances with cobblestone paths.

The interior was pure white. White couches, white TVs, white carpets, white tables, and white drawers.

"I feel like the future." Ellie said when they first walked in.

Then they moved upstairs to where the bedrooms were.
The first one that they saw was one with a white king-sized bed and a white chandelier on the ceiling.

"There's like four more of these room," Emmer said.

"Are you rich?" Ellie asked.

"My dad is a researcher,"

They continued to walk past the bedrooms until they reached the last one.

"So those are all the rooms."

"I'll take the second one on the right," Arch said.

"Suit yourself."

Arch dragged himself to one of the white bedrooms and catapulted on the bed. The plush mattress fulfilled Arch's weariness, and soon enough he found himself snoring away.