A Thousand Suns

Chapter Three- Empty Spaces

Chester was still running. He was afraid. No, not afraid. Terrified. Terrified that Mike could be behind him, waiting to kill him. Terrified that if he stopped running, he'll be dead from the hands of his boyfriend.

Why was Mike acting like this anyway? Chester understood enough to know that this cube can cause the destruction of a place if put into the wrong hands... But why would Mike Shinoda need something like that? If it were any other person, he'd guess that they would use to destroy the world. This is Mike though. His Mike.

Then Chester remembered something, causing him to finally stop running. He was panting for air. He chest heaving and his heart thumping against his chest. He was thinking back to this morning when Mike was on the phone with Brad. When they were talking about how they had left behind something and now they have a clue. But who's they? He tried to remember because he could've sworn... It was the news. That's right. They found a snake charm left behind. But why would his five best friends in the whole world worry about being found on the news? Was it because of the box? Or...

"...But it's suspected that there were five of them and that they destroyed the entire city of Westing... The only thing left behind was a..."

"Snake charm." Chester whispered to himself. His breathing had finally calmed down and he understood what was going on. He still didn't want to believe it, but then a memory formed in his head from when him and Mike were walking to the park.

"Did you hear about the attack on Westing?" He had asked Mike.

The young Asian didn't respond at first. It almost seemed like he was trying to silence the question, but he ended up saying, "Yeah. That really sucks what happened. Those people didn't deserve that." He had said that with little to no emotions.

"'Sucks' isn't a good word for it, Mike. It's more devastating than anything else." Chester had corrected Mike, but the young one didn't seem to care.

"As long as nothing happens to you, then I'm good." Mike then stopped walking, causing Chester to stop with him. "Why does any of this matter anyway?"

"I just... It's just wrong how some people think it's okay to do that. And a whole group? How in the world do five people have such a sick mind that they're able to kill off a whole population of people?"

"Sometimes they do it for the people they love." Mike had blurted out without thinking. Chester remembered seeing his eyes widened then he quickly added, "At least, that's what I think. It doesn't matter anyway. Just drop it. I don't want the mood of our day being turned around." He then lightly kissed Chester on the lips and they started walking again.

The way Mike had reacted made so much more sense now. His best friends and loving boyfriend were the ones behind that attack. They killed all those people, and possibly many more. No wonder they're scared of being found. They could be executed for what they've done. And this cube... Whatever it is... Is what they probably have been using to destroy those places.

And was it because of him? Did Mike go out killing people because they might've done something to hurt him or he's afraid that something might happen to him? Chester hoped to God that wasn't why he was doing this. He prayed that this was just some kind of misunderstanding and that Mike and his friends were all innocent. Hell, he didn't even know how this snake charm looked or if what the people on the news found was a charm of any kind. Maybe it was a whole different group of people and his boyfriend and best friends are innocent. He's basically just jumping to conclusions right now.

And what the hell was this box thing? Some kind of explosive? A defense mechanism? A deadly paper weight by any chance?

Chester lifted it up and saw that it had changed appearance. The box had shifted from a gold color to black and the silver embroidered swirls were glowing bright red. "What the hell?" He raised it eyebrow at it with a frown.