Entity

Chapter 10: Stop, Drop, and Roll

I come home to..surprise! An empty unit. I drop my satchel at the entrance of the doorway and head to my bedroom. I flop onto my bed only to hear something like paper crumple beneath me. I hop off my bed too late and see that I wrinkled the beautiful ancient cream stationary paper. I read the note and it states:

I'm sorry, Alma. I know I've done wrong for not telling you sooner but I will tell you a piece of what I've been hiding ever since we've met in this lifetime. You will have to come to my unit as soon as possible. Burn this as soon as you've finished reading. Until then.

-Alex

It's a surprise he actually gave in to my persistent begging. I look for a lighter to burn the said note. I find one in the back of a drawer filled with random junk. I place the note over the flame but my sleeve gets engulfed in the fire and becomes a human torch. I struggle to remember what we had learned if there was a fire and commence to drop onto the floor and roll like going down a hill. I finally extinguish the fire with my consistent rolling. I take deep breaths, exhausted from so much physical activity. I get up to throw the ashes of the burnt note into the waste pipe. I walk over to Alex's unit to find him not home. Instead, in his place is the guy with the black army boots. I look at his face closely now that I have the chance and what shocks me is that he's just as beautiful as Alex with amber red eyes and a dark brown quiff. He also has a sharp jawline that looked as if it could cut. His arms were entwined with muscle and you could clearly see he hadn't missed leg day through the plain cargo pants he was wearing.

"You came. Good," his deep voice sounding loud.

"Uhm? Who are you? I was told to come here by Alex and you, my good man, look like the polar opposite."

"I was the one who told you to come, not Alex. I know you broke into this unit the same day as I did, what did you find?"

"Why should I tell you?" I narrow my eyes with suspicion.

"Because we could help each other. I help you find the answers you're looking for and you'll help me find mine."

"Hmm, tempting but I think I'll need some time."

"I need your answer now before I have to sneak out of here."

"Okay, deal."

"Great. I'll see you tomorrow then, Alma."

"Wait, what's your name?"

"Luke," he gives me a warm smile.

"Well, Luke. I'll see you tomorrow."

×××××

I'm back inside my unit and laying across my bed, feet splayed everywhere. I think about how if Alex had been the one who wrote the letter what would he have said to me. Why was Alex never home? How did Luke get in so easily? All these questions with no answers are really getting on my nerves. It's really great that there's someone like Luke to help me out. From the looks of it, he should be around my age. How he looked much more mature, with eyes that screamed that he knows the bad things that have happened in this world, I'll probably never know. What I'm wondering now is what in the world is Luke looking for? Well, it's none of my business so, oh well. Also I guess Luke forget that he had asked me for what I had found in Alex's unit. Oops.

×××××

I'm caught lying upside down, my head on the floor and my feet placed along the wall by no one other than Alex himself. Hmm, I wonder how he got in? Wait! I stumble off my bed, face-planting the floor, blankets tangled in by legs.

"What are you doing here!? And how in the tamales did you get in my unit?"

"Your door is unlocked so it isn't that hard to do. You should probably get that checked out, though, someone could rob you or something. And to answer your first question, I wanted to know why you were at my unit earlier."

"What do you mean? I wasn't at your unit today. Why would you assume such a thing?"

"Don't lie to me, Alma. I saw you in the doorway of my unit."

"Oh, that time! Yea, well, uh, I wanted to ask you about the History homework."

"Okay, well I'm here now so what did you want?" Alex scolds me.

"Don't surround yourself with negativity instead surround yourself with tacos," I ramble nervously, trying to recall what we had learned in History today.

"I'll keep that in mind, Alma."

"Good, cause you're really mean to people. Why?"

"Because some things happened and they ruined me, okay? Now leave it, please. I'm going to leave now so bye," he waves his hand while walking backward towards the exit.

"Wait! Be caref--"

Alex runs into the wall near the door and ends up banging his head on the shelf above it which then led to the shelf falling on his head. Folders and papers fluttered to the floor, cascading around the area of the accident. I laughed until I had to grip my sides. Alex looked rather bored with the situation as if he's experienced it before. I bend down to pick up my mom's files when I glimpse three names that I recognize and when I pull out the sheets from within the file, I gasp. Alex certainly gets a fright and rushes to my side to see what I had found. I look at his face for a reaction and he seems pretty shocked as well, eyes wide open. In the file, there are three records with a picture of each person in them, two male and one female. The records state that each subject was tested for something, the product inconclusive. Each of them had been drafted into The Nuclear War, along with their parents. All three were of the age of 20 years but were tested when they were 16. A pair were close friends while the third was distant. It was presumed that each subject lost contact with the other subjects.

"I think you should go, Alex. I'll clean this up."

"Okay," Alex's voice sounding strangled and distant.

I hear the door slide close when I feel the emotions and tears rush up. I choke on a sob as I realize that the three subjects are something that I would've never believed had I found these record files sooner. How could my mom hide these from me? I have no idea. But what I do know is that I wasn't supposed to know Alex or Luke in the first place and I'm a hundred percent sure that I wasn't supposed to know about these files either.

In the photos Alex, Luke, and I are stood next to each other, each of us looking empty and scared.

A/N

QOTC (Questions Of The Chapter):

Is Alma satisfied with her newly found "answers" or will she dig deeper in the mystery? What do Alex and Luke have to do with her? Why are Alex and Luke there? Do they remember Alma?

Besos, Cass