Melted City

Chapter 15

This is Chapter 15. You may skip this glimpse if it bothers you.

   Half-awake, Jack is unpatiently  thinking things about his life. He's been always like this- even before he studied in London.

   "Why is this happening? Why is no one talking to me?"

   Jack was too worried about things. He saw Dan while he walked across the streets. Dan never responded when Jack said "Hi." Was he busy? Was he worried of something really important? Something as important as his own life?

   "No," Jack told himself, "that's impossible."

   Jack knew that Dan would never act like that. "Not now." Jack muttered.

   "I know there's something wrong. Not with Jack, but on how things are happening. There must be something who's controlling things. Or should I say, someone?"

   For the next minute Jack thought of another thing. This time, it was his relationship with his own  girlfriend.

   "I hope she's alright. I hope she wasn't controlled or something." Jack muttered.

   Then another couple of minutes have passed. Jack sighed.

   "What about my Volcanollia chemical mixture? I hope it's still sitting safe and tight there at the laboratory. Well, it's gonna be safe with those locked cabinets and doors." Jack said, this time in a louder voice.

   Jack sighed once more. Then he tried to sleep. But before his eyes closed, suddenly, a peculiar smell traveled straight to his nostrils.

   "What is that smell? Yuck!"

   Just then he realized, the smell was somewhat familiar. Something he might actually smelled before. Was it something at the laboratory? He wants to remember it, but he can't.

   People say that fragrance- good or bad, is the fastest way to remember things. I have proven this, when once I was with my friend. We we're talking, when he was munching some onion & cheese-flavored chips. They smelled so bad, though the flavor wasn't weird at all. And whenever I eat those chips, and, awkwardly smell it, I would always remember that time.

   It's the same thing with Jack. He knows this smell, but he can't remember what is it or maybe, where it came from. "Maybe it was the filthy garbage bin. Ugh, those early days, when the bullies threw me inside that yucky place. I don't want to remember that again."

   Even with his latest thought, Jack was not satisfied with it. The smell does not come from the garbage bin. It is coming from another familar source.

   "I should check it out. Or else, I won't be able to sleep tonight." Jack instructed himself.

   Unlike whenever Jack goes to school, he was tiptoeing when he was going down. He must not wake up his mom, even he was too eager to see the location of that foul smell. Even he wants to rush there.

   When he came down, and slowly opening the door, Jack was looking at the back, expecting for his mother fast approaching. But she was not there, and so after Jack opened the door enough for his body to fit, he exited.

   The night was chilly. The stars we're shining. And Jack forgot his jacket. "I'm so stupid." Jack mumbled, while being angry to himself as quiet as he could at midnight. The streets were dark, not as dark as when he lived here in his childhood years.

   He wanted to check a unfamiliar location. But when he sniffed, and followed the foul odor, he was walking to the place where the bullies threw him. And it was the garbage bin.

   Jack sighed. "I knew it. I should close the lid, and go to sleep."

   But there was another interruption. When he closed the lid of the garbage can, and when he was turning back to the streets, he heard a whisper.

   "Jack..." it said.

   Then a rustling sound followed. Immediatly, Jack bolted. His eyes grew big. His hands were trembling. His hair was standing. And his nose, sniffed once again.

   "What was that?" Jack said.

   Another rustling soumd followed. Jack wants to run, but his curiosity made him look back.

   "Oh, sheesh, Jack!" the whisper said.

   "Who are you?" Jack asked.

   "Please stop asking to me. Why don't you ask yourself, Jack? Remember the girl whom you left? Not Shelly, but another girl who broke her own heart."

   "But? I don't know..." Jack said, who was half-speechless with the flow of the events.

   "Jack! Stop your lies! Argh!"

   Just then the girl's body shaked, who seemed eager to kill, or maybe, eat Jack. And in her hands, she was holding a tube containing a chemical.

   "That's my Volcanollia mixture! What are you holding it? And why is the mouth of the tube open? The smell is not g-"

   "Shut up!" the girl said, interrupting Jack's speech. "I will drop this at the mouth of the volcano, and I'll let the volcano splutter tons and tons of lava!

   "No! No!" Jack shouted.