The Heptagon

III

As the plane took off, Bryan looked out of the window with tears, "Be safe, Marcus..." He mumbled sadly. Annabelle who was sitting next to him asked, "Who's Marcus?" Bryan wiped his tears away, "He's my... older brother. When the bomb landed he hid us and he was captured. God knows whether is he dead or alive..." Annabelle pat his shoulders, "Dude, my case is worse. Because my dad is an Armed Force, he wanted to nab me away, so I had no choice but to run..." Jeral, who was sitting opposite with Cammy turned around and saw Annabelle and Bryan chatting deeply, he started to become envious...

He decided to lie to Bryan into switching seats as he also wanted to befriend Annabelle. So as Cammy was sleeping, he sneaked off and whispered to Bryan, "Officer Cammy wants to talk to you, about..." He stopped to think, "Errr... Marcus." Bryan became excited and got off his seat, he ran to Jeral's seat. Jeral happily sat down and started bombarding Annabelle with a lot of questions which made Annabelle freaked out. "Officer Cammy you..." Bryan stopped as he saw her sleeping, he shrugged his shoulders and just sat on Jeral's seat, and he fell asleep as well. Annabelle was having an awkward time with Jeral, she found Jeral scary and talkative, as Jeral was being egoistic and talked about his studies, Annabelle ceased him and asked, "When is Bryan coming back here?"

As the arrived at Pandora, a safer state of the country, they lived in a small house in the city area. After Cammy left the 3 children to their own, Bryan sat at the door, Annabelle sat next to him and asked why was he there. "I'm waiting for Marcus..." Bryan still couldn't get over the fact that Marcus is no longer with him. "Do you really miss Marcus that much?" Annabelle asked with curiousity. He nodded his head lightly. Annabelle beamed, "Why not you treat me as Marcus?" Jeral interrupted and growled, "How can you treat Annabelle as Marcus? You're being retarded, Bryan... Marcus is gone forever and he's not coming back, deal with it!" Annabelle frowned with anger, while Bryan started tearing from his eyes. "Anyway Annabelle, let's go do something more fun than just sitting here... Leave him alone, he'll be fine..." He pulled Annabelle off.

Meanwhile, also living in Pandora was poor Alexandra having the hardest time of her life. Her stepmom made her the maid of the household. Whenever Estella's friends come over, they'll tease her "Alexandra the Cinderella", Alexandra was the only was doing the laundry, washing the toilets and dishes, folding the clothes, all the housework was done by 7 year old Alexandra. Her 11 year old sister likes to bully Alexandra. Every night, Alexandra would take out an instant picture of Joey and herself and start crying. She thought of how hard her life was, and how mean her new sister was. Alexandra missed Joey so much.

Estella and Alexandra came back from elementary school on the results day. Alexandra scored a total of 97 points, while Estella only scored 62 points. Alexandra was very contented and happy that she will be exempted from housework for the night, as Estella will be taking over her for night time only. Estella had bitterness and hatred overwhelming her, as Alexandra went out to play with her friends around the neighborhood at night, Estella took the picture of Alexandra and Joey, she started doodling on the picture. After happy Alexandra came back, she was startled to see her only picture of Joey and her being ruined. "Why did you do this?!" Alexandra cried with tears filled in her eyes. She tried erasing all the doodles, but Estella snatched the picture and started tearing it into scrapes. Alexandra turned downhearted immediately, she started to tear softly as Estella left the room with grins.