Where Have You Been, My Disco? ♠ IV OF SPADES FF

♠ viii

 I wasn't able to sleep again, though. 

The sun was rising as I stood up once more to take a peek out the window. It was a few minutes to 6 in the morning and I was eager to start searching for Blaster once more. Unique's visit a few hours ago was quite comforting, but not enough to calm my soul. A plan popped into my mind as I was brainstorming on my bed. But first, I had to freshen up and get dressed. 

 When I was ready, I walked to the other room, and opened the door to see Badjao and Unique still asleep. I normally wouldn't wake up people who were sleeping comfortably, but this situation was urgent and I had to wake them up. I walked towards them and started shaking them, hoping that they'd instantly wake up. Badjao opened his eyes first and said "Uy, anong ginagawa mo? Ang aga naman oh."

"Hanapin na natin si Blaster, Badj," I replied. Then, to my surprise, Unique suddenly said "Yeah, gawin nyo na yan." It sounded like he was already awake. I only assumed that he was asleep because he was wrapped in his blanket, facing the wall. Perhaps he wasn't able to sleep as well. 

"Oh, ano pa hinihintay mo? Tayo ka na! Get dressed para makalabas na tayo," I said. Unique just got his phone and started tapping as he said "Nah, kayo lang muna ni Badj maghanap. Kaibigan naman ni Badj yung driver eh. Magpahinga lang muna ako rito."

Badjao gave him a look and said "Um, Koi, nakalimutan mo ba na banda tayo? Damay-damay to. Kung may problema ang isa, dapat sama-sama nating ayusin. Walang iwanan."

Unique just rolled his eyes and and got up. "Fine, sana mahanap natin siya TODAY."

He's so plastic. I'm just weirded out by his constant change of emotions. Last night he was all comforting and sweet and now he's acting like a dick. Seriously, what's going on with his life?

When we were ready, and after Badjao was able to contact Amatt, we went down to the hotel's lobby to wait until he arrived. It was around 7:30 in the morning when he finally arrived and we went off. "How are you guys? Do you have a plan?" Amatt asked us. Then it struck us. I did have a plan, but I completely forgot to tell it to the others while we were still at the hotel!

I decided to explain everything in the car. "Ganito yung gagawin natin, guys. Medyo late na to pero kakayanin natin to. Gagawa tayo ng posters na may picture ni Blaster. Magpiprint tayo ng mga malalaki na pwede natin idikit sa mga pader ng mga buildings, and mga maliliit na pwede nating ipamigay sa mga tao."

"Wow naman," Unique replied. I gave him a look. "Ano?"

"Ang galing ng marketing strategy mo, ah. Very impressive." I decided not to mind what he said. I asked Amatt if he could take us to a computer shop where we can make a basic layout for our posters. There were a lot of vacant seats when we got there, and we instantly got chairs for ourselves as I started making the poster. After finishing, we printed out 15 large copies and 50 smaller ones before continuing our search. We asked Amatt to take us to the most populated area in the city hoping to encounter someone who may have had a glimpse of Blaster lately.

As soon as we got off the car, we decided to split into pairs. I went with Amatt, while Unique went with Badjao. If ever they lost their way, Badjao could just contact Amatt and ask for help. We made a deal to meet up again at the parking lot by 12 noon. We started off by tacking the large posters to the walls and posts around the area. We also started giving away the smaller ones to random people we encountered. Most of the people we approached chose to ignore us. While others were kind enough to take some time to listen to us, they unfortunately haven't seen Blaster anywhere. 

After a couple of hours of roaming around, we still had no lead in the search for our missing friend. We met up again at the parking lot and it was scorching hot already. Our stomach were grumbling, so we decided to grab lunch at a nearby diner. To our surprise, while we were eating lunch, about 3  people were able to recognize us from the concert the other night. One of them noticed that one of our bandmates was missing. I immediately covered up the situation by saying that he just went out to look for some clothes at a nearby store.

We decided to meet up again at 2 in the afternoon and got back to the search immediately after lunch. A part of me was hopeful that I could see Blaster within the swarm of people, but it didn't happen. We had to focus on getting as many connections as we can, but we had none so far. We were also starting to run out of posters, but I reassured myself that perhaps the posters would draw some connections to us so we would be able to find Blaster.

As we began walking back to the parking lot, I started having some sort of hallucinations. It was like I could see a blurry vision of Blaster walking towards me, but I tried to ignore it. It was definitely impossible.

"Wala, guys. We're empty handed," said Badjao as he walked towards us.

"Let's just wait sa hotel," I replied.

We got in the car, which had warm seats from being under the sun for hours. Just as Amatt started the car, Badjao looked out the window and said "Um, guys. May tumatakbo papunta sa atin." 

The rest of us looked as someone who appeared to be a local ran towards our car. Amatt decided to talk to this person. They spoke in the native language.

"What did he say?" I asked. I noticed that the man was kind of tense.

Amatt turned to me and said "He saw our posters, and he believes that he has seen your friend."