Codes

Chapter 3- The Girl In The shadows

"Jackson!!"

I yell running over too him. I knelt down beside him and placed my ear on his chest. I was relieved to hear the soft thump of his heart working the way it should. I guess all I need to do is wait.

After a few minutes his ocean eyes flutter open and I feel a further rush of relief flood my body.

"C-Cora?" he asks with confusion clear in his soft tone.

"Are you ok?" I ask.

"Yea. How long have I been out?" he asks sitting up and observing his surroundings 

"Only about five minutes" I answer.

"Aww man, I thought you were gonna tell me that I had been asleep for a thousand years and that you transported through time to wake me up." He fake whined.

"No, sorry to crush your dreams but this isn't a sci-fi movie," I tell him with a smile.

"I know...but we could make it a romance if you want," He says bringing his face just a little closer to mine.

I felt my face heat up "In your dreams Mr. Flirtatious" I stand up "C'mon Jackson" I say holding my hand out for him to take. He takes it. He then offers to walk me home I accept he probably wants to tell Evan about how terrified I looked.  We walked to my house silently until Jackson shattered it.

"Evan talks about you quite often," He says shoving his hands into his pockets.

"Oh? And was does my older brother say?" I ask

"He always says that you don't value your self as much as you should." He tells me "he also says you need more friends." 

"Hey! I have as many friends as I need!" I respond 

"Oh really," He says "How many?" 

"Six" I mumble

"And who are they?" He asks

"Lia, Sasha, Kori, Judith, Madison, and Kira"

"What about me?" He asked, "Am I not your friend?"

"No, I just met you" I playfully respond

"Ouch" He winces falsely "I can't believe that after  all, we have been through together you don't consider me your friend!" He Says going along with my act.

"I'm kidding you are my friend, Jackson," I tell him.

 "Oh come on, Cora then you friend zone me!" He whines

"Well your gonna be there for a while so make yourself comfortable," I say

"aaaaawwww" He moans like a five-year-old.

We continue walking. When we get to my house Evan comes outside and hugs me.

"Are you ok?" He asks

"Yeah, I'm fine," I tell him.

He turns to Jackson "What happened?"

Jackson tells him the whole story while I just stand there and nod when Evan looks to me for approval. Then something catches my eye in the woods behind my house. Something was flashing, it was like a red light. I squinted to see what it was. Then the red light went solid and got brighter and brighter it took me about five seconds to realize that it was getting closer it started to flash again.

"Cora?" Evan says "What are you looking at?" He says turning his head to look at the light

"What is that?" Jackson says curiously.

"I don't know" Evan responds. 

"Let's go check it out!" Jackson yells walking toward it. 

Evan follows him I think about advising them not to but I stop my self, besides they wouldn't listen to me anyway. I follow close behind my brother as we walk up to the flashing light. When we are about 5 feet away it stops flashing. Then it turns green. All three of us froze. Then it started to come towards us. I could just make out the shape of it in the darkness. It was tall and humanoid. It had four limbs and was only standing on two of them so at first, I thought it was a guy playing a prank on us but then I realized that it had long hair and had the wrong body shape to be a guy. It's a girl. I pulled out my phone and turned on the flashlight.

It was a girl alright. She had light brown hair and bright blue eyes. She was pretty but she looked different. Her eyes were glossy and marble-like and they were looking right at me. She looked about the same age as me but I had never seen her before. The girl continued to stare at me blankly to the point where I found it sort of uncomfortable.

"Hello?" Jackson said waving his hand in front of the girl's face. She didn't blink.

She seemed to be in some kind of trance. Then her eyes moved to look at Jackson. She looked him up and down as if she were analyzing something. Then as if she had just seen something terrible she fell to her knees and started crying. 

"What the-" Jackson started but was cut off by Evan running up to her and sitting beside her.

"Shhh, what's wrong?" He asked her softly. 

She pointed to me. "Her," She said her voice cracking.

"What about her?" Evan questioned. 

"She-She has a chip," she told him still crying. "So does he!" the girl then pointed at Jackson.

"What?" Evan said.

"She will see them soon!" She said loudly looking dead at me. "But hers is special they will come after her. Then they will convert her! Just like they did with me!"

What is this girl talking about? What chip?

"You must have the wrong person. Cora hasn't done  anything!" Jackson said. 

The girl screamed and pushed Evan away. Then ran back into the woods too fast for any of us to stop her. 

"What the hell just happened?" I asked.

"I don't know but that girl was crazy," Jackson responded 

"Did you see the flashing thing around her ankle?" Evan said. "It was a tracker. She wasn't supposed to be here. She must have escaped from an asylum or something.

"Damn right it was an asylum," Jackson said. "She obviously wasn't right in the head. What the heck is a chip?"

"I don't know, She was probably imagining it," I say

"Anyway, I hope she gets the help she needs," Evan says hopefully. "Cora we should get back inside before our parents yell at us. It's best that we don't mention this to anyone else"

"Yeah. Ok" I agree "Let's go."

We say goodbye to Jackson and walk back up the hill to our house. Surprisingly after dinner, I completely forgot about the girl and her words to us. I went to sleep peacefully that night.