Lifeline.

Chapter 2: The Message.

I stared at him a little longer. Why was he doing that? Why did he want to help me? Thoughts bounced back and forth around in my brain as I stared at his eyes, sweeping across the screen of his phone. Suddenly, he looked up.

"Hi."

He held out his hand as if for me to shake it, but put it slowly back down when he saw the look on my face.

"What are you doing?"

I asked.

"Nothing."

He said.

"I'm texting my parents."

I snatched the phone from him. I felt his hands go limp as I grabbed it, as if he wanted me to. I stared at the screen intensely. Sure enough, his mom's number was at the top of the screen and the messaging appeared about halfway through finishing. It said,

"I finished my detention, and I'm on my wa..."

Glumly, I plopped the phone back into his hand. I still watched him, and as he looked down at his screen, I saw the screen flip back to the red and black home screen of the school database. Frustrated, I sighed loudly and stomped away down the hallway. Why was he lying to me about erasing my school lashings, and most importantly, why was he erasing my school lashings in the first place?

As I left the hallway and headed back to Mr. Botieux's classroom, I noticed that there was someone in the security room. I slowed to a crawl and stared through the crack in the door. It was Parker, and he was recording footage onto a hardrive, of me. A thought banged into my skull: he is a stalker and is trying to kidnap me.

Frantically, I started to run to the classroom, and accidentally bumped into the principal.

"Watch where you're going, young lady!"

"Please, sir, help me. There is a boy in the security room stalking me!"

"There is no such nonsense! Delusional child!"

He took out his lashing rod and smacked the side of my head, as if to knock the "silly idea" out of my noggin. Crying, I apologized for being "delusional", and went to Mr. Botieux's classroom to pick up my Lifeline.

"Did you finish your detention?"

"Yes, sir."

He handed me my Lifeline.

"Get out of here."

Sniffling, I hurried out of the classroom, anxious to get home. As I walked quickly down the sidewalk, my backpack bouncing behind me, I thought about Parker. I thought about why he was helping me, and what was in it for him. I thought about all of the strange things that happened today. As I turned the corner, I bumped into someone. It was Parker. How was he managing to get ahead of me without me seeing him?!

"What do you want, Parker!"

I said, exasperated.

"Nothing. I was simply walking home."

Screaming in frustration, I pushed him aside and ran the rest of the way home. As I stomped up the stairs to my home, my mother came to meet me at the door, hands on her hips.

"Why are you so late?"

She said.

"I-I'm sorry, Mother, I had detention. I didn't do anything though, they made a mistake and deleted it off of my profile."

She huffed, then stepped  aside to let me through the door.  I edged past her carefully, making sure she wasn't going to snap a branch at me, then trotted to my bedroom. I put in the code for my door, C H O C O L A T E, then stepped back to let the  metal door slide up. My parents had to install some pretty stupid security equipment into my bedroom. The main reason we have the doors and metal-sided windows is because there is a new kidnapping group traveling around town. The so-called "kidnapping groups" or "kidnapping squads" steal children straight from their homes and supposedly murder them once taken from the homes. They steal about 7-30 kids a week, depending on what neighborhood they're preying in. Thankfully, I live in a pretty rich neighborhood, so they never come here because of the quality security systems we have that go on after curfew.

I walked through the door and let it slam shut down behind me. I heard the eery "click" of the door locking behind me. My very own prison. I tossed my backpack down on my bed and grabbed my Hub Port. I pressed the power button and waited for it to turn on.

"I wonder what the kidnapping squad did today,"

I said sarcastically to myself.

The Hub clicked on, and the news caster popped up in my room. My hologram news person was walking back and forth around my room, pointing to more holo-shots that were taken of the squads. She pointed to a blurry holo-shot of someone ripping the roof off of a house to drop in and steal a small girl with corn-yellow pigtails.

"We need more safety measures to keep our children safe! They come up with new ways to steal these children every night, and we barely do anything about it! Start putting the taxes toward protecting our children, before it's too late!"

The holo-shots disappeared, and a holographic globe replaced them.

"Now for the weather..."

She started pointing to different places on the globe and talked about good weather and how Australia was still too radioactive to go near, but they had very nice acid rain showers over there.

I sighed and turned off the Hub. People were getting more stupid every day.

I tossed the Hub Port across the room and mid-way it started hovering to float over to its charging station.

"Ah, this is a good generation for children. They've made it impossible for you to break anything, and murderers are waiting for you just outside your door. Lovely place to live."

I said.

I looked over to my backpack, and realized I had homework to do. Groaning, I trudged over to my bag and snatched my holo-paper out of my bag. I pulled up my homework for tonight, and started writing. About 2 hours later, I heard my mother call for dinner. I packed up my homework, and waited by my door until she allowed me out of my room. As I sat down at the table and waited for our robot maid to bring us dinner, my mother asked the same question she did every night at exactly 6 pm.

"Did you finish your homework?"

She said.

"Yes, Mother."

And I said the same answer I said every night at exactly 6 pm.

The maid brought our food to us at exactly 6:05, and we ate our dinner in silence. At 6:15, the maid rolled by and grabbed our empty plates. I stood up, pushed in my chair, and walked back to my bedroom. My mother stood up as well, pushed in her chair, and walked over to the living quarters to watch the news lady talk about her absurdly stupid topics.

At 7 pm, I heard the resonating bang of curfew. I heard the screeching of the metal bars falling over my windows and my door, and knew I wasn't getting out of the house tonight. I went to my bathroom to take a shower, as I usually do, and was out at precisely 7:10. Thanks to my mother, My time schedule is always perfect. I was changed and ready for bed by 7:20, but something was different. Something happened that night, at precisely 7:21, that had never happened before. All at the same time, my phone received a text, the click of the security system turning off, and the bars on my windows snapping off. The message said,

"Come outside. I need to talk to you."

It was Parker.