Ancient Forces (2018 Reboot)

Chapter 19 - Web of Hate Part 1

In the end, Zayne didn't find anything. He'd searched and searched, practically turned the whole place upside looking for anything but found nothing. There was no indication that Austin, or Aries for that matter, had anything strange going on. Austin's house was totally clean. Not literally though, Austin never cleaned his house, but it was clean of anything strange or odd. His mom, who was the only one there that evening, wasn't any different from any other time he'd met her. Aries was still his usual joking self. Aleah wasn't a factor in the investigation, but for what it was worth there was nothing going on with her either. His investigation brought up nothing that could help. He felt slightly defeated as he left the next day. But then he had to remind himself of something.

They were his friends. He shouldn't be sad or mad that he couldn't find anything on them, he should be happy. Overjoyed even. Still, Zayne couldn't shake the feeling that something was up. They wouldn't have just stopped him for no reason without thinking about it first. There was definitely something wrong with that situation. Or maybe it was nothing. Maybe Zayne was just blowing it out of proportion. He nodded physically to himself, something he'd begun to do a lot recently. That had to be it. He had to be over thinking it. He decided to approach it from a different angle.

They didn't know anything about him or Anton other than that Anton threatened him. When he gave them the cryptic command to stay, knowing them, they'd naturally be curious and maybe even a little concerned about why he told them to do that. They would want to know why he was doing this. Maybe they only planned on following him, but once they got outside and saw how far away Anton was already they tried to stop Zayne because they thought he had no chance of catching up to him. They wanted to save him from missing school or losing any unnecessary time. Aleah followed because she was concerned not only for him but for them as well. Once he looked at it that way it made much more sense. He was finally able to rest his doubt and suspicion about his own friends.

Zayne changed gears of thought towards last night, last night being Thursday evening. He arrived home from school and quickly made his way towards his room. As he was putting his stuff away, he felt a massive chill go up his back. When he turned to see where it came from he could see literal wind patterns floating into his room from further down the hall. Curious he left his stuff and followed the airways to Damien's room. When he walked in to see if everything was all right he noticed two things odd. For one, Damien wasn't there. Zayne had sworn he'd seen Damien walk into his room as soon as he got home, so that was weird. The second odd thing was that the window was open. That was the source of the cold air. Zayne knew Damien loved the cold, but opening a window? That was a little too inconsiderate of him. Normally he'd just turn on his twenty fans and let them do the job.

Zayne closed the window and started moving back to his room when he thought he heard a loud slam from Damien's room again. When he ran back in he saw Damien lying on the bed with a controller in his hand turning on his gaming console. Zayne gave him an eyebrow raised look of confusion.

"What?" Damien asked innocently.

"Where were you just now?" Zayne asked accusingly.

"Bathroom."

"I didn't hear you in there."

"I was being quiet."

"Why?"

"Oh, I don't know I didn't want everyone in the house to hear me struggle with my crap."

"What was the banging noise?"

"I slipped on accident when I was leaving."

"What in the world did you slip on?"

"My pants."