A Tearless World (Editing!)

Chapter 11: Between The Two

After many minutes of bolting down busy roads and dodging various people, we finally reached the park. It never occurred to me that there could be more than one way in and out of that world. Soon enough we reached the tree J said lead to it. I jumped through it and sure enough, the next thing I saw was the trees in the other world. J followed swiftly behind me and soon joined me in the world. To my surprise, we ended up in a very similar park as the one we had just left.

“Where do we go? Where’s the place where the people you were with are?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well that helps!” I said sarcastically, walking in a random direction.

“Well it’s not my fault I was blindfolded when they took me.” He replied, heading in the other direction.

“Look I’m sorry. It’s just we’re running out of time we don’t even know what the gang will do to him!” I shouted, losing my temper.

“I know, and I’m sorry to. Um, let’s go this way, I think I remember where I went last time.” He replied, leading me towards a path. Obediently I followed. Even if he wasn’t sure, it’s a start.

We walked along the path in silence, a comforting warm silence that soothed my panicking. My mind kept going over Jack and where he is. But then crossing over to who I saw this morning, who told me everything. Then I looked up and to my shock, it was the very same person that was now stood in front of me, Evan.

I knew J had seen him to as we both stopped and stared simultaneously. We both stared at each other, but for completely different reasons.

“Evan? Evan what are you doing here? Do you know where Jack is?” I asked, starting to approach him, but he back off. I didn’t get a reply. It was then that I noticed his eyes glaring past me, to J. J’s eyes did the same. This creped me out a bit at first as I had no idea what was going on, but then I had a sudden spark. “Wait, Evan are you one of the people that took J for questioning?”

“No! He’s one of them, the gang!” J replied quickly. This I wasn’t expecting. I crossed my eyes from J to Evan then back across them both many times.

“It that true?” I asked Evan, hoping that he’ll no and this whole thing is just a misunderstanding. But by the look in his eyes, I knew there was more to this that he wanted to tell.

“Yes. But it’s not what you think.”

“Then what is it?” He didn’t reply. Instead he walked over and lent against a nearby tree. I followed and stood next to him waiting to hear it. J hung back, but was still in sight. Good, I didn’t want him disappearing to.

“It’s not what you think.” He said again, looking down, I assume in shame, but at this time I wasn’t sure. I kept listening. “Yes I used to be a member of a sort of gang but I’m not anymore.”

“Why not?” This seemed to unsettle him a bit and he departed from the tree and walked over to the clearing.

“Look, I don’t really want this out in the open, but, you’re going to find out anyway so I might as well tell you.” He continued, suddenly glaring at J as he said it. I stood in front deliberately interrupting his sight. I wanted to hear this and I wanted to hear it now.

“Continue.” I said sternly, with my arms folded and my gazed fixed on him. Had I got completely the wrong idea about him earlier? Or was he just a very good liar? Right now, I didn’t want to consider which could be the right answer.

“Ok. Me and a few friends used to be in this group called The Revolution.”

“The Revolution?”

“Yeah. We were basically just a group of freedom fighters.”

“What were you fighting about?”

“A few months ago these scientists discovered a possible way to solve the tear problem. They didn’t want to make it known until they had enough supporters.”

“What kind of supporters?”

“The government type. They needed enough of them to agree before making anything public and doing more tests.”

“So what happened?”

“Well, unfortunately there was a group of people in the government at the time that didn’t want this. They didn’t admit it though and no one knew why or why they didn’t want it to happen. All anyone knew was that they didn’t want it to happen. So that meant the scientists couldn’t continue with their work.”

“So, what’s all that got to do with you and your, group.” I was tempted to say gang, but I already knew he was annoyed and that if I aggravated him further he wouldn’t help. I didn’t want to take that chance; I have to know who’s got Jack. “So, how did all of this concern you and your friends?”

“Well, my dad was lead scientist on the project and that’s how it all started. Me and few friends giving him a little help with his research and trying to persuade the group of secret governors to agree. But then it all changed, he died.” Evan suddenly looked down. I wanted to ask more about his dad, but in this world and for him, making him remember might cause my suicide.

“Go on.” I urged him, but also trying to not make him remember.

“Well we all thought that he was murdered by someone that didn’t want his work to continue. We all instantly thought that it was one of the government people that were against it, we were right. “

“How did you find out?”

“One night when we were coming back from where we met to figure out a plan, a secret place, and we saw them trying to be invisible down by the beach. We didn’t want to cause arguments with them so kept out of sight, but then we thought we might be able to catch them so we followed them. Mike, one of my friends, got out his phone and we recorded the whole thing.”

“What, what did they do?”

“When they were sneaking about, they were talking about how brilliant they were about making my dad’s death look like a suicide. And we thought we had the evidence to put it on them, until they cornered us.”

“How? I thought you were all behind them.”

“We were, but then they somehow got behind us and we were cornered on the street. No one was around so they thought they’d dispose of us as well, since we knew too much”

“And did they?”

“Well I’m still here aren’t I?”

“Yeah. But I mean, your friends?” He nodded slightly. I was about to say sorry to him again, but I stared at J and he shook his head.

“I’m not here to cause trouble, I’m here to help.” He said, jumping up and not saying another word about his friends or dad.

“No! Don’t listen to him Ali. Just leave him. We can find Jack on our own.” J said standing between me and Evan.

“Really? Are sure about that?” He didn’t say anything. I stepped away and continued, “Look here’s how it’s going to work. J, Evan going to come with us and help. If he can’t find Jack or something happens, then we’ll go alone and leave him, ok?” I said, putting it straight for both of them.

“Ok.” Replied J, but he didn’t look happy about it. Evan nodded and looked the same.

“Ok then, let’s go. Evan, lead the way.” I pushed him forward. Then we set of. Evan led while I hung back with J. Even though I now know why J and Evan hate each other, I still feel like there’s more to, something neither of them are letting on. But I don’t care about that right now; the main priority is to find Jack.