Unlike Loki

Chapter 69

(Loki)

She sat up, letting my numb arm regain some feeling. 

Then she turned her body so that she was perpendicular to mine, lying her head on my stomach. I reached over for her hand, and she grabbed mine and set it on her stomach, enfolding my arm with both of hers. 

By Valhalla, how she was making me go crazy. 

Then, she continued with her story. "So whatever the gas was, it made Raymen and I pass out. I was the first one to wake up. I remember how foggy everything seemed, how quiet. I ran up the stairs to wake Raymen up, he was weaker than I was, and it was hard to get him to stand up. I remember telling him that we had to go get help, that we had to go to the police. He agreed and we went down the stairs. I should have noticed that something was wrong, something was off, earlier, but it wasn't until we got to the kitchen that I did." She paused, taking in a breath. "My parents were gone. Poof, no more. And I knew they hadn't just gotten up and walked out. One, because they would never do that, and secondly, because all of the blood, and there had been a lot of it, was gone. Not a single speck on the floor. The kitchen knives that had been in my parents hands were back in the drawer, sparkly clean." 

I felt her shake her head against my stomach. "I guess I was inquisitive, even back in those days, because then I began to run around the house, trying to find one single thing out of place. The blood that had covered the stairs was gone, not a single stain. The living room looked untouched, dust collecting on the wood furniture. I remember running up the stairs in a panic. I looked in Raymen's and my room. Everything was just how we left it. I ran to my parents room, and it was pristine. The bed had been made, there was not a single playing card on the floor. All of Mom's things that she had gotten out of the closet were put back in to it. It wasn't right. I remember running to Jamie and Lake's room. I remember seeing the door shut, not a scratch on it. I remember Raymen coming up behind me slowly, just as nervous as I was about opening the door, afraid what we would find on the other side."

She stopped talking. "It was clean wasn't it? Spotless?" I asked, guessing the end of her story. 

She laughed sadly. "It was worse than that." She stared at my arm that was draped around her stomach for a moment. "It was if they had never existed. The walls were clean, no signs of stuggle, still no blood. But the room wasn't even their room. It was as if my parents had gotten in there, made half of it a craft room, the other half an excersise room." She wound her fingers back in to mine. "No sign of my two brothers existed anywhere in the house. And you know what's funny? My mom was the least artisitc person you would ever meet, much less would she have a craft room. She would have bought a piano or written a novel. And my dad never excersiced on machines, he loved the outdoors too much for that."

"I couldn't get out of that house fast enough. Raymen was a fast runner, so he kept up with me as I ran all the way to the police station, tears streaming from my face as I ran. Raymen was always the quiet type, and at this point, I don't think he knew what to even think. He just followed my lead. I remember storming into the police station, screaming and yelling what had happened. I remember the police officers came to us, treated us like the kids we were, asked us to calm down, but neither of us could at this point. We were both crying and trying to tell them what had happened. But no one would listen. They took us in a separate room, calmed us down and had us start from the beginning. And we told them, often finishing each other's sentences. They had a team go out to our home, but came back and told us what we had seen when we left. They didn't believe a word of our story, they thought something was wrong with us. And when they asked for our names, they came back to yell at us, telling us that no Michael, Linda, Teagan, Jamie, Lake, Raymen, or Anna Williams existed. That even if they had, it was obivious that only four people lived in our house. I remember panicking, telling them it must be a mistake. I remember asking for the phone so that I could call Teagan, I had remembered everyone's phone number, just like our parents wanted us to. But when I dialed, the operator told me that no such number existed."

"They put us in a holding cell that night. So that they could try and figure what we were up to. Neither of us could sleep, and we both knew what we saw. So we made a plan. And when the station quieted down for the night, we made our escape. The cell was metal, which I could control. And we made a run for it. And I sware we didn't stop running until well in to the middle of the next day. We agreed that we couldn't go home, that from this point on, we were fugitives. That night, we stole our first meal. For a few days we got in to a clever system of stealing from various places so we could live. One of us would make a big distraction, while the other would do the stealing. It worked like a charm. So, we did that for a couple of weeks, adjusted fairly quickly, finding the best places to sleep and hide. We'd been camping enough times that it was kind of like that."

"And then Raymen started getting sick."

"He skin seemed to stay this sickly green color, and he grew weak. Very weak. It got to a point where he couldn't even stand, much less talk. He lot a lot of weight, and he didn't have much to begin with. I rarely slept, I was trying so hard to keep him alive. I just didn't know what to do. I knew it was the gas that had made him sick; I smelled it on his breath when I was close enough. It made me angry, pissed off. I wished over and over again that it was me in his place."

"He died in my arms one night."

"I remember crying for a day straight, by Raymen's side. Not just for him, but for everyone. For my parents and my brothers. Dead and gone. When, eventually, I tired myself out, I slept. When I woke up, I packed up what I could, found a payphone, and dialed the police saying anonymously that I had found a dead boy in an alley." Her voice shook. "And then I ran. I ran for a year, going wherever I could, stealing, hiding in the back of semis. Wherever, whatever I could do to survive." 

She stopped, acting as if her story was over. But it wasn't, it couldn't be. How did she end up where she did? There was one giant hole left in her story. 

"They didn't find me you know, that group I attacked. I found them." And then she filled the hole.